new -- color & b&w 'Lines and Eyes'

Spring brings a bloom of attractive young women in their finery to

Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine, and this woman is just one of a very

large number who venture from their frigid winter hideouts. Your

ratings, critiques and observations are invited and most welcome. If

you rate harshly, very critically, or wish to make a remark, please

submit a helpful and constructive comment; please share your

photographic knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks!

Enjoy! john

Dear John,

This is a wonderful photo! Your framing, POV, lighting on her eye, use of DOF...all just fabulous. Even the expression of the woman in the background is priceless. And yes, the lines of the hat! Bravo!!

Tim

Thank you for so many compliments for my simple photo taken with a 'kit' camera and 'kit' lens.  It just shows you what can be taken with ease on the street with very simple and inexpensive equipment.  The same equipment now can be had used for just a pittance -- in case you're interested -- with everything working 100% if you're a careful buyer.  It's also higher quality than the earlier DSLRs with good low-light performance - -a D5000.

Frankly, the woman was not Kyiv's prettiest, though attractive and extraordinarily well groomed.   Ordinarily I would not have thought much about taking her photo, except possibly to capture something interesting with her and the mirror-holding woman, background to emphasize her 'trying on' the hat.

This photo is about THAT HAT!  What a hat . . . .

Lines are a major device for composition, and the hat is a study in lines.  It's a compositional treasure.

Although she granted only the slightest time for my attention to her for a brief photograph (or two), I was well-prepared to take advantage of the red lines of her hat (they're red, but in desaturation they show as black, just as red cars show as very dark when photographed.)

I was able almost to maneuver myself into making those wonderful hat lines into an 'S' curve (or nearly so) by positioning 'just so', and therein lies the reason I posted this.

Lines are the reason this is posted -- good, strong lines, and lines that draw curious eyes into the photo.

Any other sort of hat would have been ho-hum, but this hat with those strong lines and with good positioning seemed to transform this simple photo.  The 'S' curve and its cousin the 'C' curve both are wonderful compositional devices for drawing one's eye into a photo, and the hat's lines help in that regard.

I think I actually tapped her on the shoulder to get her to turn, and politely asked her if she minded, and showed her the camera. 

One look at her, her hat and her makeup tells the story of a woman who likes attention.   The answer to 'would you allow me to photograph?' I knew in advance would be 'yes'. 

It was.  This is the result; my skills and her vanity.

Thanks for the rather thorough, though brief analysis of this impromptu street photo.

john

John (Crosley)

Fitting title!What is striking for me here is that "coquette" look into the camera and that grin,one that almost salives at the thought that this image will be seen.The heavy make-up,eyes anyway and the elaborate/elegant hat both seem to be an overkill for a morning stroll in the market and a fair assumption that shopping might be just a bit of an excuse to attracting some attention.Great POV and choice framing to include the sales lady who is astutely waving that mirror which this lady surely won't be able to resist.Another excellent one my friend.Bravo!

Meilleures salutations-Laurent

Yours is an excellent critique.

I won't even venture to touch it or do more than compliment your astute writing.

Interestingly, this photo sat for a very long time while I wondered whether or not to post, wondering if it were worthy.  Obviously it touched me somewhat, but I wondered about whether it would resonate with Photo.net raters and critics?  I guess I just still do not understand the critique process so well or my tastes vary wildly from the mainstream, so that for me posting a photo still is an adventure -- viz, this one in particular and its warm PN reception.

Live and learn.

Probably I again underestimated my critics, like you, who correctly understood this young woman, her wants and desires?

Maybe I confused my own emotional and male reaction AGAINST this woman's depiction with its photographic worth - which of course is a mistake that the critics as yourself have ferreted out.  Perhaps I'd like all 'attractive' women to be really 'attractive' in my photos and not just showy' or to appear 'skin deep' as I view this woman through my depiction.

I like my portraits to penetrate to a subject's soul, and perhaps I am not happy that (1) I did indeed penetrate to her soul but do not like it, or (2) I just failed to get that far, only got the outer layer, and the inner layer escaped me entirely, alas.

Thanks so much for adding salient thoughts, Laurent.

And causing me to reflect on my own motives in delaying posting for a year.

john

John (Crosley)

Wonderful placement and proximity, John.  Personality comes through, and still enough of environment included in background to provide a sense of place.  Always a pleasure to view your work.

What a wonderful boost to my photographic ego.

Thank you so much.

I take hundreds -- maybe thousands of literally throwaways to get one that resonates.

Life's like that, unless you're a rocket designer or safety engineer in which case those standards just aren't good enough. 

;~))

I like being judged by my best work, not my worst -- it suits my temperament.

Thanks again for the nice compliments.

john

John (Crosley)

John ! this one is just perfect- full of magic!

added to my favourites!

How Wonderful that you tell me!

Now all I need is to hear from the Capulets.

Sorry.

And I realize there's a spelling problem, but in Shakespeare's time spelling correctly was optional if 'correctly' even had a meaning.

Photo.net is just too short of levity, so please don't take my lightness too harshly -- I value all feedback, from adulatory to harsh, and I learn from almost all.

I am greatly flattered that this pleases you so; I sat on it for a good time thinking, wondering if it would please anyone at PN at all, and I am somewhat surprised at its reception. 

I liked it technically but not in my heart.  I didn't imagine anyone else would like it, plus I didn't think I captured a nice spirit in the young miss -- which I felt was a derogatory mark -- maybe it isn't after all.

Shows you how poor a judge of my own photography I am, right?

Respectfully and thankfully for enlightening me.

(I'm not a simple guy, right?)

john

John (Crosley)

Original street portrait!

I know you seldom get as close to strangers as I do on Kyiv's streets, otherwise this photo might have been yours for happening on the circumstance.

Lukyanovskaya.

Across from the bazaar--street bazaar.

Just down the street from the Metro and McDonald's.

Always lots of action there - babushkij lined up with their produce and other wares.  Militia watching over all.  Great street theater.

Very busy place.

Old, Soviet style butcher shop just down the street -- absolutely NO refrigeration.  Everything butchered that day on stainless steel counters then that's it for the day.  A few flies?  No matter.

Everyone in uniforms in that market too, in general, and owner/butchers with old fashioned adzes/axes that can cleave bones within a millimeter.

Amazing.  No mechanical cutting devices like in Ashan or other supermarket butcher shops.

New--old within a block -- there's a supermarket a block away, heavily trafficked, but customers buy their produce at the old fashioned bazaar.

That's Kyiv.

Thanks for the comment.

john

John (Crosley)

As if she knew this would be a classic.  Great work, John.

She certainly does seem 'self-aware' and more than a bit self-satifisfied doesn't she?  And though she's not the most beautiful woman in Kyiv she's attractive enough and very well groomed.

That was why I was not 'in love' with this photo, feeling that I hadn't captured her in 'best light', but maybe I did reach into her 'soul' that particular moment - who knows for sure?

I try to do just that with my street photos and particularly in selecting them from the few to the many that I take, and I often hit the mark, but wasn't sure that this one would be such a success, though compositionally it did 'hit the mark'. 

I wanted more for my own personal satisfaction, but raters and critics here have had a way here of boosting my ego and opening my eyes at the same time.

It's really better than I gave credit for, and for that I give critics their due -- I've often surprised (good and bad) by critics' receptions of this or that photo, which is why I keep participating in this exercise, because collectively critics often get it quite right when they're not overawed by deep saturation and overly sharp bird and landscape photos ;~))

Thanks Wayne for contributing to an ego boost; I needed that.  Now I can post several only I see the worth of, that get terrible ratings, and still not feel like a PN pariah ;~))

Stay tuned.

john

John (Crosley)

An excellent image! The eyes and curves are in nice harmony and give a powerful composition.

This was recognized as a chance to make a strong composition because of the hat's lines.  The eyes just 'worked out'.  Also I spied that it 'told a story'.  Imagine how close I was to her with a wide angle lens (18 mm) to get this capture and to throw the woman behind out of focus on a fairly bright day with not completely open aperture either so some substantial depth of field -- look at hat to verify).

Thanks for the compliment.

john

John (Crosley)