'The Checkout'

This is the scene at a local [uS} supercenter store's checkout

recently. Your ratings, critiques and observations are invited and

most welcome. If you rate harshly, very critically, or wish to make an

observation, please submit a helpful and constructive comment;

please share your photographic knowledge to help improve my

photography. Thanks! Enjoy! john

This (US) scene is no different from Iraqi scene ,it shows clearly having an extra kids ,means that you have got an extra hands, to help ,to assist ,and organize ,but in the same time it increase your expenses ,your effort,and your work time ,Except for the only one difference ,we haven't got that super mall yet ,at least in my city ,the largest one that have recently being established is not more than 600 square meter.

This is a large market by US standards but by French or European standards, compared to hypermarche, it's modest.  Somehow the French re-invented the 'superstore'.   They're even found in Ukraine, run by the French.

 

Most Americans don't have very many children -- usually just 2.2 per family or so, and little is expected of the children when they're adults, except when they cannot find employment as adults, they'll come back to reside with mom and pop.

 

What about the expression on the little boy's face, left/center foreground?

 

There are many Iraqi ties in my family, with two relatives being dual Iraqi/American citizens and though both now live in the US but spent many formative years in Mosul where a sibling was assistant chief librarian of the university library there before fleeing just before the Iran-Iraq war with just the silverware and the possibility her son might be drafted to be killed in the coming war.  He eventually ended up a pilot in the US Air Force where I understand his street Arabic skills came in very handy too.

 

I'm glad to see you're back.

 

Thanks.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

A great shot of ordinary daily life in an ordinary checkout of a seemly very ordinary supermarked.

All recognizable events for everyone, who have children of that age where they seem to be carried by a centrifugal force going in all directions and doing all possible and impossible activities at the same time -  but with the stoic mother in the middle, creating some kind of centre and calm to the events. The brilliance of of the shot is however happening elsewhere in the image with the two people pushing their caddies far away, creating the centre of our attention and the story telling of the shot, around a small family of four and their mother. 

John, you have an eye for this type of synthetic shots of ordinary life. Well done.

I came across this scene, camera around neck, packet in my hand, with absolutely no intention of taking a photograph, but as I walked their way, I saw this unusual confluence of kids and mother begin to realize, and as I brought my camera which always is preset for exposure (and lens cap long ago put away in some dark place maybe a couple of continents away), the two shoppers began their trek away from the center, and the scene became 'ray-like' and as the young boy, center, bottom, saw me, he put on this most unusual look which I found absolutely enchanting.

 

I just couldn't help myself taking the photo; it was so well laid out.

 

I figured there would be few on Photo.net who would appreciate it (and I was right after five or six rates) but who cares?  That it caught your eye, now one of PN's most distinguished members, delights (and vindicates) me and my judgment.

 

It's such a droll photo with the exception of the young boy with his face of epiphany, seeing me with camera to face, knowing he's going to be a subject, when amidst all the chaos around, others are totally unaware.

 

It's a totally unusual 'Crosley photo' but in a sense, it's at once a completely usual 'Crosley photo', there being really no two 'Crosley photos' that are alike.  [but some say they can 'tell' anyway, is that right?]

 

Thanks for the super analysis -- it's right on the money.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)