new -- color & b&w 'Hollywood Style'

One misogynist male radio host who has broadcast over much of the

nation from Los Angeles claims that when women in Los

Angeles/Hollywood area rate a '10' (I said he was misogynist!), they

outclass by two points a woman rated '10 in other cities, such as

Seattle or Portland, OR. Whether that's true or not, people can

debate, but the Okies populated the Los Angeles and Central Valley

areas of California and many of the 'Okies' and Texans were of

Czech and Slovak descent, -- countries known for beautiful women --

which may be why there are so many beautiful women in Texas

AND Southern California, PLUS a good number of attractive women

flock to Southern California from worldwide in search of their pot of

gold in the entertainment industry which thrives on female beauty.

Your 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

I've lived in Texas and Southern California and been in Oklahoma.  Obviously you and your friend have never lived in Israel.  :-)

While I have never lived in Israel, and counting my last wife, three of the most beautiful women I have ever seen have been Jewish, two from Israel (my last wife was from Russia).

The two from Israel were not 'stuck up' which is a hallmark of many beautiful American women; I met one at a county fair where she was selling products with a boyfriend and another at a mall where something similar was going on from a cart in the mall.

With the latter, I took an informal poll of the male workers in the mall about if they'd seen her and could identify her from a description of 'the most beautiful woman they had seen' possibly in their lifetimes, and the comment of one was indicative of the comments of almost all 'I'm really sad to admit', he said to me, 'but I know exactly the woman you're talking about . . . . I just can't help but notice her' . . . . and she was far away in a huge shopping mall that covered acres and acres and had over a hundred stores.

I think your point is well made, and I happen right now to be presold.

Which means 'I agree', and better, the chances that these beautiful women will have brains and education are far better than average compared to their American counterparts, I think.'

And NOT be stuck up.

john

John (Crosley)

This is a very good image, with the contrast between the movement and the stillness, the bw colors and the grey squares.

Well done,

Tommy

This is not just an excuse to post a photo of a pretty woman.

This is a carefully balanced photo with carefully controlled and measured tonalities and areas of blacks and whites (indicating some cropping, but not much . . . . enough however to make it 'just right' -- my view of course as a well composed photo.)

It was not windy that day, but her forward movement was fast enough to cause her dress and hair to flip up behind her as though it was caused by the wind, but it instead is indicative of the force of her forward movement.

As such, this is a dynamic photo.  The parking meter (as noted below by Jack McRitchie in his own inimitable way) seems to confirm that, but in a slightly different way than he suggests.

I'm proud of taking a 'simple' photo, but doing it right.

It also is very good as a color photo; it's one of those photos that works well as color or desaturated AND conveys the same meaning under each presentation (not all do, of course).

Thanks for taking the time to analyze this photo, guaranteed for its simplicity not to get high rates, but I'm proud of it nonetheless; it makes my grade.

And apparently yours, for which I am thankful.

john

John (Crosley)

This is not apparently the 'warm and fuzzy' side of this lovely woman, who also is dressed the part and probably professionally in the area near Hollywood as part of Los Angeles.

I laughed at the parking meter 'ogling' her, but suggest that it's the sheer force of her personal magnetism, including her spirit and shown energy as well as her terrific looks that is causing that parking meter to bend her direction.

I certainly hastened to make my capture and was surprised by how well it turned out.

You get an award for best clever remark of the day!

Thanks for sharing.

john

John #Crosley#

Interesting street portrait!

Thank you for the compliment.

But real compliments to you not only for wonderful photos during the current crisis, but for your steadfastness and endurance for being there so much as evidenced by your Herculean output.

I'm not there and can't be there for some time, and it's not my fight, as my interest is taking good photos no matter where they are.   One day it's Los Angeles/Hollywood or in the Kyiv Metro or even in Seattle or Thailand -- it makes little matter so long as good photos are to be had, and they're to be had almost everywhere, as I am sure you know.

Once upon a time I lived and breathed conflict photography, and readily found conflict -- I was attracted to it in ways that were almost subliminal, and when there was conflict, I was there, drawn by some sort of force that was beyond my ken, with camera. 

Assassination of Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, Moon shots (wrote stories though far from Florida or Houston -- and of course the moon), campus riots that started on my campus at Columbia in New York city and spread throughout the world, then San Francisco State, then Berkeley (University of California, Berkeley campus, and of course Viet Nam (with only a camera), and race riots and shootings with me being a victim with a camera (and no film when I was shot in one or for days thereafter as the unrest continued, and I think I lost a possible Pulitzer Prize as a result -- challenge me and I think I can make a convincing case).

Now, with you alone in Kyiv, I think this is your time to shine in the contemporaneous events category.   As well as 'fine art', nudes, 'street' and others categories you have shone at, good luck and good health be with you recording news events of the day that are in world headlines (and be sure to make your camera look OLD and creaky so it doesn't become the target of baton wielding militia, who have ample time to scope out photographers during days and weeks' long delays, then may have during one special day when they're unleashed an opportunity to crash cameras with batons and truncheons held by those photographers they disfavor or who seem to wield especially expensive cameras -- it's a sort of justice they see for having 'turned the other cheek' under orders when they might have wanted to take action, and if unleashed (this is universally so in demonstrations everywhere, and says absolutely NOTHING special about Ukrainian militia but about police vs. demonstrators worldwide), they target photographers and cameras and beat the cameras first -- especially the expensive ones, and maybe the photographers too IF they have targeted them.

So, since I know you do not appear a threat and are smart enough not to project taking sides in a dispute, you probably will be safe IF that day of official unleashing ever comes if there is further violence and it's directed at photographers, but a word to the wise.

If and when I return, I doubt I'll be attracted by civil disorder as I've seen enough of it during my lifetime, and am still attracted by the 'street' aspect.  I never have 'taken sides', however, in the civil unrest that I've been near, and that probably accounts for intact cameras and a body that's never been beaten while activist photographers near me often suffered blows and broken cameras when police were unleashed to clear crowds. 

They keep mental lists of those they dislike, and when unleashed, watch out!

This is my public lesson for all photographers and my special message to you, which I think you instinctively know.

In any case, I'm a third of the world away and not hankering to get involved in anything that's for citizens of Ukraine and their government.

I am interested in seeing your photographs, and note that they're becoming better for your contemporaneous crowd photographs.

I'm part of your worldwide audience, and when and if I return, I'll leave that part of photography to you alone.  I have other fish to fry (American idiomatic expression).  There're a million things to photograph, and I don't need to be competing for the same photograph as every other photojournalist in the world - a great number of whom have been assigned to Kyiv.

I'll just melt into the street or the restaurants or Metro and continue doing what I do best -- get to know the people and record them being 'people'.

In all their strange, weird and wonderful glory.

As long as I find it photogenic.

Thanks for the kind comment.

Be safe, Svetlana and heed any advice you didn't already know.

And remember Cartier-Bresson often put black electrical tape on his beloved Leica, as I did decades later, and I left shreds of that old tape dangling to make my new Nikon look OLD, UNATTRACTIVE AND WORTHLESS, so it would never become a target of someone or some agency seeking to wreak revenge on those they see as enemies, especially those with cameras and those with expensive cameras.  (The adhesive on the tape cleans off with some effort and leaves no trace.)

I know you easily meld into the crowd, and now is a wonderful time to practice that BEFORE there is any significant threat that you can identify, for when that threat comes (if it does), it may be far too late.

Best wishes and be safe!

Come to think of it, I don't have an inkling of what your politics are!

And you don't know about mine, though one clue, Ukraine politics are for Ukrainians . . . and my political interests are in American politics.

john

John (Crosley)

My personal policy is 'no celebrities'.

I'm not paparazzi; I don't hunt or take photos of celebrities for the sake of bagging a photo, even a telling photo, of a celebrity.

Exceptions are where the celebrity is engaged in public in some newsworthy event to which the public is invited or accessible and photography is probably expected.

Another exception is where I am expressly invited.  

I do not sell to anyone, my people photographs, and if this woman were known to me to be a celebrity, I would have to rethink its posting.

It was posted purely for photographic merit, and for no other reason, as I have no real idea who she is or might pretend to be.

If someone can identify her as a celebrity, if a member, please shoot me a message explaining who and how you can be sure (or your suspicions) and if not a member, my e-mail's on my bio page.

My idea is to make celebrities of my subjects, not feed off the ready-made celebrity of known individuals.

Make sense?

I think so.

One celebrity to be found in my portfolio?

Richard Nixon and wife Pat from my old Associated Press days, not published and not on the AP clock (another was on front pages worldwide from a few steps away and a minute or two earlier). I'm still trying to get my hands on that one.

If I find that one, I'll try to post it, as it illustrates why the Secret Service now welds down manhole covers on Presidential motorcades.

Nixon went face to face with a man rising up from the sidewalk and either could have met an Uzi or grasped an outstretched hand.

Luckily for the free world (Agnew was vice president), Nixon grasped and shook and outstretched hand of a man in overalls and Secret Service carried this photographer by his armpits down Powell Street in San Francisco as they rushed the President and his wife past, just before my posted President Nixon photo -- Nixon was unruffled by the hubbub -- all he wanted was a cable car ride, which he got.

He was at the height of his popularity.

Agnew, the admitted crook, never became President. (I haven't checked my time line to ensure that Agnew still was VP at that time, but memory tells me he was.)

The nation got the 'I am not a crook' President until he resigned having himself proved to be a crook.

Maybe not unusual among presidents, but in his zeal to be historical and perhaps his paranoia, he had tape recorded everything including 'smoking guns', I think it is not agreed.

I missed a Watergate AP posting because I wanted to return to Columbia to finish my degree and go to law school, which I did.

I might have been one of the claque of reporters on the DC Metro beat then that ferreted out the facts of the CREEP (committee to re-elect the President and its ill-gained cash and dirty tricks, if I had accepted a proffered posting to Washington, D.C. AP bureau.)

john

John (Crosley)

P.S.  I was no Bob Woodward or his sidekick Bernstein.

Woodward for one thing was for US intelligence.

I was a kid from Oregon and an Ivy League school and nothing more.

jc

It should state 'Woodward was former US Intelligence' not as stated 'for US intelligence.  He had been a member or closely allied with US intelligence service prior to being a reporter.  Bernstein, on the other hand, was not, and had good fortune to have such a well connected reporting partner, though that takes away nothing from his own enterprise.

john

John (Crosley)