'The Bookseller at School's Start'

The human eyes did not evolve for reading -- on an evolutionary

scale, that's almost an instant away in time, and studies show the

more one reads, the more one needs glasses for almost all reading

functions. Moreover older age decreases the range of usable vision

in the near range, necessitating reading glasses for almost all

readers, and for those whose prescriptions are of date, a little perch

at the end of the nose helps bring bothersome, blurry words into

better focus. 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

No hands?

The hanging spectacle and her smiling face make this a very pleasant portrait in a fine setting of an over-abundance of text books. Human eyes are not designed for voracious reading leading to the need for eye-aids such as spectacles. Her lenses are no doubt out-dated and, like so many old people, she cannot be bothered to get new ones - which will themselves soon be off kilter anyway...

Meir,

 

No hands? She has hands, I just didn't feel it necessary to include them; they are included by inference. We KNOW she has them and not prosthetics.

 

If this defies YOUR convention, so be it.

 

If it distracts or detracts from your sensibilities, that's fine with me; I shoot for myself, and moreover has only about three seconds total with this woman en passant. (in passing, as in French or the chess move).

 

And, I like it enough to post it without its feeling 'deficient'.

 

Interesting feedback, sort of reminds me of the 'no feet' feedback from long ago on a nude photo that got about 100 comments.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

I once wore glasses, read a lot and what I read was very precise and eye straining for the necessity that every word be read with utmost precision.

 

So imagine my astonishment when I viewed the reading glasses of my very laid back (then) mother-in-law which were smudgy, scratched and very, very deficient, but which she used to read novels, newspapers and everything else.

 

Seems she had learned to accommodate life's vicissitudes better than I, and the method and manner of seeing through eye aids was just symptomatic of an entire difference in lifestyle that reflected how she had settled into her late middle age and I was still struggling with finding my place in life and being very exact about it (as reflected in my necessity of having exactly focused, absolutely clean eyeglasses).

 

Now I understand that lifestyle she unwittingly taught me; my cameras often have dirty viewfinders or bits of dust on them, but that's OK with me, as I can clearly focus (or the autofocus works fine) and I can frame my subject (or have it previsualized and preframed before I draw camera to my eye).

 

What her glasses choices and manner of use revealed was an entire different attitude toward living and lifestyle which I now understand.

 

Perhaps the glasses on this woman's nose also reflects the acceptance of 'making do' that is that acceptance.  Things don't have to be perfect to do perfectly well.

 

Early artisans used entirely crude instruments and worked often by candlelight to make things of utmost beauty that can hardly be made by the most skilled craftsmen today -- yes, the tools do make a difference in time and quality of productivity if one is in a hurry, but if time is not of such importance and quality is of utmost necessity, the tool becomes less important.

 

Perched on the nose of otherwise, glasses are only a filter to get the meaning behind the words into the brain.  I think this woman is doing very well, thank you, don't you?

 

She may be 'absent-minded', but it seems of no mind to her.

 

Thanks for an enjoyable analysis.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

This one works very well and it immediately caught my eye. She is defined not simply by your excellent portrait and the glasses so perilously perched on her nose but by the shelves of books that form the background. Good one, John.

My goal is to make 'interesting' photos -- photos that somehow will catch the eye in many instances, not just because they are workmanlike, though I hope for that when I can, but because they inherently capture something that would draw your attention if you saw the scene and had the sense to have a camera ready and the sensibility and ambition to record everything you saw that caught your eye to share with the world, for that's exactly what I do, when I can get the four edges of a frame around a scene in an 'artful' or 'artistic' way.

 

Thank you for the kind compliment.  Without the glasses perched on this woman's nose, I wouldn't have stopped her for a moment, framed the shot in a second or two and then walked on, because ultimately it's those glasses (plus the background of course) which are the 'ACE KICKER' for this hand of cards.

 

Anybody can be dealt a hand of cards (to continue the metaphor), but when you have a substantial hand (not too often do you have a full house or a straight), then the 'ace kicker' becomes something valuable -- it's the assurance that at least in cards your hand will have some merit against those who are bluffing with nothing or next to nothing.

 

My 'kicker' here is what caught my attention -- I look for 'kickers' whenever I can, and ultimately sometimes I see two or three 'kickers' in one scene, and those are the photos that last, and last, and last, except for the few with such beautiful color coordination or wonderful geometry they need no 'kickers'.

 

But 'kickers' always are nice to have, aren't they?  (By the way, I don't play poker -- I once practiced law and it seems that's far higher stakes poker for a living than most ordinary poker except the World Series of Poker -- and far less compulsive).

 

Best to you and thanks, Jack.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

Ah, yes.  The prostitute. I remember that one.

There was no 'prostitute'.  That was a figment of your imagination.

 

That was a model about which you made up some sort of allegations and refused to apologize for doing so, which earned you from me considerable disrespect, and still does.

 

Please cease continuing that calumny about my model.  You used known prostitutes; I don't.

 

Simple as that, and from your tiny apartment you can make no factual assertions that are worth a damn about any of my models of the libelous sort you made then and repeat now.

 

John Crosley

Member, Photo.net

maybe

John: "Meir No hands? So What?"

Meir: "Because I am critiquing your photo and I think hands are important". Hands in fact, are important but that's another discussion altogether.

John: "I  just didn't feel like it was necessary to include them"

Meir: "Your probably correct. Hands would not have helped anyway."

How about this istead?

Jack McRitchie: "This one works very well."

John Crosely: "Jack, Works well? So What?"

Do you see a little difference?

You and I are so predictable. I will predictably criticize a photo and you will predictably defend it.

In good fun of course.

But seriously hands are important (any art professor will tell you that) even it just to close the frame so that the arms don't dribble off the page dragging my eyballs with them.

I cannot recall a "Vermeer", aside from "head and shoulders" where hands did not play an important roll in the painting.  Never saw a painting of his where someone was hiding the hands under the table.

Do you suppose John that if you took more than "about two seconds" you might have made the photo better?

Meir,

 

I appreciate the work and though in the comment next above.

 

About extending my time past two seconds, that's the impossibility; this woman allowed about two seconds then signaled the end, changed her position, and that was that.

 

This was not a portrait sitting.  There was no appointment.  I was walking down an alleyway in a bazaar and was lucky to get two seconds --- three would have been a luxury, and I don't know how I would have reacted given such a surfeit of time to raise camera, frame and compose with that extra second.  Who knows how I might have improved this capture (if I might have improved it at all.)

 

I really often do take photos in a second or two, then the 'permission' or lack of objection I have seen vanishes or the cooperation that is signaled by the subject's not moving disappears as the subject moves, holds hands up or out in an interfering way, or does something else that destroys the frame -- often intentionally, sometimes not.

 

I do what I can with the barest of resources -- time in this case -- which I make up for by thinking quickly on my feet and knowing how to manipulate and preset my equipment.

 

I also study the critiques more than you know, so reactions will be second nature, but this is the first I've heard about hands; hers were not visible or able to be captured in this frame and thus not at all, as she moved promptly and that was that.

 

I liked the photo enough to post, knowing it was not perfect.  I don't think hands (or feet as in the case of that previous woman discussed) are always necessary.  Vermeer made Vermeers.  I make John Crosleys.  I know I won't be as famous as Vermeer, but who would have predicted that Vincent Van Gogh, who sold one painting during his eccentric and highly troubled lifetime would one day be hailed as one of the world's greatest artists? 

 

(No, I don't think I'll be hailed as that great a photographer, but you get the point, don't you?  Just because Vermeer did it, doesn't mean I have to do it, especially when I have 2 seconds to frame, focus, (or autofocus), expose, and communicate with my subject, and not even one extra second is available to me.

 

I doubt Vermeer could have the time to have wiped sweat from his forehead in such a short time frame (Oh, probably where he painted it was never warm enough to cause a person to sweat - save perhaps a few days in August, if memory and travels and geographical memory serves me correctly).

I take serious critiques seriously, as you should be well aware of by now, and I have given you full and prior due for other help you have given me; I do not always 'defend', if your memory goes back that far -- in fact it wasn't that long ago to my best recollection that I made an elaborate acknowledgement to you and your help.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

 

 

In the composite on my previous comment;

 

lady on the left my eye jumps from the face to the hand and then the book. Hand is secondary to the face only.

 

Mona Lisa my eye jumps from the face to the hands. Hands are secondary only to the face.

 

More information from the hands. The ladies are clasped and Mona's are folded! We can speculate on  that. I further speculate that her hands have been the discussion of many an art class.

 

In both images the hands close the bottom frame. In both images, seems to me without hands is only half of an image (in these cases)

 

In Vermeer's famous "Milkmaid"  the hands are the focus and action. They tell us what she is doing. That is so true in many photos including "street".

 

In the other Vermeer, middle right bottom, her hands compliment the face, adds information and again close the bottom frame i.e. stop the eye from running off.

 

Think all would agree that in all examples the images are better with the hands.

 

In my usual sardonic manner this is what I meant by "no hands". (I am sardonic with my own photos also).

 

Closure/frame: A frame does not frame a picture. The picture frames itself. Best example that comes to mind is Picasso's Guernica, using hands, feet, light bulb smoke etc. to frame itself. Nowhere does the eye run out of the painting. And I'll add that he managed to organize chaos and still leave it chaotic.

 

It is John's photo that started me to thinking "why I was taught/told/recall/decided that hands are important". I'll thank John for that.  One can learn from what's wrong as well as what's right.

 

Maybe I am being too pedantic and erudite?

 

Maspeek, enough said.

Who knows?

 

van Gogh painted pictures that astonished him with their importance even though nobody else thought they were worth a damn (tinker's damn)...Kurt Vonnegut Timequake

 

You have made here some of the most enlightened and educational arguments I have seen in my almost ten years here at Photo.net.

 

My photos and these comments attract sometimes some very learned commentary, so that's saying quite a lot, but perhaps it's not even enough praise for your contribution, for which I give you hearty thanks.

 

I will mull the points you make over, over, and over again.

 

I am convinced, as you propose, that hands CAN HAVE AN IMPORTANT PLACE IN PORTRAITURE AND SIMILAR WORKS FEATURING INDIVIDUALS IN WORKS OF ART AND PROBABLY PHOTOGRAPHY AS WELL AS THE TWO TEND TO OVERLAP IN MANY ASPECTS.

 

But I am not convinced entirely even by your most exquisite and extremely learned and well presented arguments with excellent illustrations that in all cases it is unacceptable to omit the hands.

 

Just as I omitted the feet in that nude of which we have written which gained about 100 comments, and consider it a success even for breaking the convention of including the feet (and cutting off the lower legs in mid calf or so), I feel that sometimes it can 'work' to cut off hands and not (as you say) have everyone's attention go dribbling off down the bottom of the page past the bottom frame.

 

I won't try to analyze my contribution above for how well or not it accomplishes this goal/it is not my finest work, but if I had added the hands it would have been a worse, not better, work.

 

I can assure you of that, and you then would never had a chance to add your illuminating exposition which shows you to your finest light -- one that exceeds or at least equals the brilliance of when you were writing of tonality for which I have thanked you.

 

I call 'em like I see 'em; and when I am displeased, you know I'll say so, but when I am pleased, I also am not too stubborn to say so and readily so.  This has pleased me greatly.

 

When I was about 18, I experienced the stunning Guernica of Picasso for the first time when it stood at the entrance to New York's Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), and to this day don't know if it was on loan or part of a permanent exhibit now broken up, as the original Guernica rests elsewhere, of that I'm sure.

 

(and I'm not going to Wikipedia to trace its flow in the intervening 40+ something years)

 

I didn't then see what you show so readily, in part because of its magnificence which overwhelmed, in part because of its huge size which also overwhelmed and in part because of my sheer lack of ability to understand -- then understand the way in which you show so well how the artist self-framed the work using its figures.

 

It makes me recall being on a game show in Manhattan for national televising.  'Oh boy!' I though to myself, 'this will be a piece of cake, since I could easily remember which of the nine squares/cubes in 'I Guess With Bill Culllen' they buried certain words or phrases for later matching when I had a chance to turn over another cube.  Each match was a path to a win with the most 'matches' equaling a win of two contestants.

 

What I didn't count on was that each cube in the television studio was taller than a man or thereabouts and it flustered me.  The cube turning was actuated by relays, switches and electric motors which one could not hear on the television channel, but was quite loud and absorbing in the studio, and took my attention away.

I was so taken aback (having viewed the show on the small screen and practiced it on the small screen) at those large cubes which hid the 'matches' when you turned over each cube, that I blew one match, and that gave my opponent, a housewife from somewhere or another, a chance to run the game and get the win.

 

Worse, in followup to determine her prize, she had to play a second game.

 

She had to turn over certain cubes she chose and behind all but one there was a prize, but behind one there was a 'NEMESIS', and if she got that, she got nothing.

 

With uncanny certitude and rectitude, she turned over the game cubes (orally she spoke the instructions) and she won every prize on the game board, correctly turning over 8 of nine cubes without getting the 'Nemesis' which would have taken away ALL her prizes.

 

She even got a new car as well as an exotic (European I think) vacation and tons of other stuff.  (Just the tax bill for all that was frightening for me to behold . . . . )

 

And Bill Cullen then turned to the audience (and me) and said 'what do we have for John for being such a good sport?  'Clocks, clocks, clocks, clocks.

'We have clocks for every room in John's house.  Clocks from Seth Thomas, makers of fine timepieces.  We're sure you'll be reminded of your participation here every time you view one of these handsome timepieces.

 

Months later - nearly a whole summer after the Spring time taping took place -- the 'quality timepieces' arrived.

 

They were absolute crap.  Junk.  Worthless clocks made of almost worthless sheets of thinnest metal; just waiting for the junkyard.

 

They weren't worth redemption even at a Green Stamp or Gold Bond redemption store.

 

My mother was given the clocks by me, which she saved until her death to commemorate the day her son made an ass of himself on nationwide television and got his ass wiped by the New Jersey housewife for all the nation to see.

 

;~))

 

The point is, small size (such as your reproduction of Guernica above) makes things sometimes readily understandable, but when faced with true large size, things are not always that simple.

 

That's when you can be an 'ass' in front of millions of daytime television viewers acting out the drama of the devoted viewer and common housewife wiping the ass of the Columbia senior (me) and eating him for dinner (to mix metaphors).

 

Thank you Meir, sincerely.

 

I don't have such knowledge or erudition, so I give you my story in return.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)