'What?'

In his later years, after his Blue Period, and after being celebrated as

a phenomenal graphic artist, Picasso decided that not all parts of a

human being depicted in his art had to fit together in the way that we

viewed them as in a picture. Here, this picture pays some homage to

the later Picasso, with its view of body and face not exactly as one

usually would see them. 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

An excellent, eye catching, composition John! At first glance the image is somewhat disconcerting, demanding a second look. That's what a good image should do I think, Excellent work sir.

All the best,
Neil

I find interesting the very idea of a quarrelsome portrait. Nice catch!

I know your framing is always well thought out and deliberate, so let me know your thoughts. I think this one would look a bit more "Picasso-ish" if you were to crop the right side at the dark background, leaving only the white, or maybe a touch further so that the canvas size is more rectangular. That's just my 2 cents worth.

I really like the idea of expanding the style with a different medium. Very cool.

Amy

The homage you mentioned in the description has been achieved for me in the thumbnail more than the full scale image. the focal distance is more blurred in the small version. When enlarged, the in-focus hair and the out-of-focus face disrupts the unity of the deformed subject. It is still intriguing and definitely well-composed. However, if the body and the painting were both out-of-focus or in-focus, the effect that I understood you wanted to make would have been more realized.

If only my (long lost name) instructor for Introduction to Art (art for poets) at Columbia College, Columbia University could read your comment. 

Something did stick to this prelaw major fulfilling an undergraduate requirement after all, even though I never imagined myself an artist.  

If ten years ago someone would say 'John, you will describe yourself as an artist in coming years,' and I would reply, 'You are off your rocker!'

But here we are, ten years later, and here I am calling me a 'photo artist' and causing you to have a second look, just because I walked through Musee Pompidou and countless other museums, really bored for the most part, but absorbing it all, (except the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam which was a real treat). 

All those museums plus reading countless magazines my wife brought home for free from her year's menial work at 'Art in America' really left its mark, plus a lifetime of looking at photographs, (outside the Photo.net fish bowl).

Even if bored in all those museums, almost too countless to recall -- Tretyakov and Pushkin in Moscow, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Uffizi in Florence,, MOMA, and the bunch in NYC, and a host of others worldwide, I cannot say I'm not richer for the experience, and it keeps coming out in my photos.

I'm thankful I went, paid attention despite sleepy eyes and aching back, and somehow absorbing lifetime wonderful lessons in composition, color, and even subject matter (etc.) perhaps even by osmosis. 

Thanks for the kind remark, Neil.

john

John (Crosley)

Thank you for a wonderful comment.

[actually the word you mean is 'querrelsome' meaning pugnacious, combative and a host of other similar words]

Regardless of the 'e' or the 'a' and the spelling, you have correctly understood this photo taken from nearly 300 mm away at a slow shutter speed.   Gawd, I'm glad this woman stood still enough for the capture, (and I thanked her later and showed her the capture after tapping her on the shoulder).

john

John (Crosley)

Clever John, a real Crosley..!

If one looks carefully, this is a so-called 'rule of thirds' photo, though really there is no 'rule' involved, but the use of thirds sometimes helps a photo.

The darkness of the frame and the darkness of the right, occupy proportionally roughly 2/3 of the frame and the white in the middle about 1/3 of the frame.

I also allowed for some spacing around her elbows not to crowd them and the optimal spacing turned out to work nicely with the 'thirds' composition.

I think if you cropped right, it would really destroy this composition in ways that were basically, to the casual viewer, inexplicable much in the way that missing a photo that had the 'golden section' by re-cropping it, might help devastate that photo, but one might be at a loss how.

I have just now (maybe a second time since I didn't record my reactions on initial cropping) realized WHY I cropped this one the way I did. Even the woman's hair in the blackness, right serves to break it up a little, and out of focus hair makes it better because it does not distract very much at all and the hair merely becomes something that, being out of focus and not anything at all, serves to direct the eye to what is 'in focus' and to the main subject -- in other words that 'nothing hair' is a direction tool that if missing might better be replaced.  I might have cloned it out (I prefer not to do such things, but I liked it like it was, and as I noted, prefer things natural. 

A mentor and Lucie Award winner told me one day over dinner, 'People Photoshop often because they can, not because they should' in response to my telling him that I am averse to much Photoshopping, other than for contrast, brightness, etc.

I had several attempts before this woman moved on, and the idea which occurred in a flash, seemed to get stronger and stronger the more I tried to get the 'perfect shot'.  I wouldn't trade this framing here for yours, but yours a different circumstance (no blacks), might be wonderful.  This is just artist's choice.

So, I did actually consider your crop, but rejected it when I was working on the photo, as I did with other similar frames taken with my very long telephoto across several rooms (yes, across several rooms a great long distance away!)

john (with great thanks for your effort, Amy)

John (Crosley)

When I last saw this it was having a hard time attracting views and the ratings were 5 with a rating of 4.6, so when I woke up I was pleasantly surprised at its fine reception.

Thanks for telling me that it has resonated well with you.

It's a favorite of mine, and if ratings had stayed at 4.6, I would have taken umbrage (but quietly so, as I don't argue really with rates), but I have some sort of faith in the rating system -- it actually works out pretty well in most circumstances, though I have one photo in my posting queue that's going to be a real challenge, and I think you'll know when I post it which one (hint, it's got lots of purple in it).

Best to you, Maurizio.

john

John (Crosley)

I thank you for the kind remarks and am glad this photo resonates with you so much.

About your comments, sometimes there is little one can do when one shoots 'street' about the subjects one is given.

The woman, rear to us, is staring at a portrait photo on an exhibition wall, and to my view, it's a little out of focus as posted there, as I don't think the artist had pin-sharp focus in mind.  That being aid, I was shooting with wide open aperture, over nearly 300 mm with a 'kit' lens hand held under fairly low light, so using hyperfocal distance (easy with manual focus) was not a possibility with auto focus, and I didn't have time to switch to manual focus, plus the viewfinder screen was not adaptable to manual focus, like most film cameras were, especially the pre auto focus cameras.

The hair right, I've already discussed, so I refer you to comments above - I think it's a plus actually especially since out of focus in my own view.  I wouldn't remove it.

I'm pleased you went to such trouble to analyze and tell me your opinions about this photo. 

It actually may be that if I had a chance of shooting with a smaller aperture, I might have got the far portrait photo in sharper detail (even if it is not pin point sharp as exhibited), and thus we could know about your point - I certainly would have liked more light, but shooting at nearly full extension with a 300 mm hand held indoors at an exhibition with people (including the subject) moving around (and me moving around also, to frame), posed a problem.  

Hand holding steadily at such an extension with a relatively low shutter speed prevented opening up the lens for more depth of field.

You can see I gave opening the lens more some thought, and if the young miss subject back to us had stayed longer, that's exactly what I would have done, if she had stayed still.  However, she went wandering, and the music stopped.  Everything ended, and I did the best I could.

I was aware of the issue and shot to the best of my ability.  If I had a larger lens opening, the lens would have been a super tele and too heavy to hand hold or move about a giant exhibition hand held, so I was limited by my equipment.  If I had time to think and move (without fear of her moving) I might have jacked up my ISO further, but that involved image quality risks and possibility of losing the shot entirely.  I decided to 'make do'.

I hope you see the struggles that took place in a few seconds, and I did consider all of them, standing right there, in a small area as I moved about farming this woman as she wandered in front of this portrait to 'get the photo I previsualized).  I guess this explanation gives a good idea into how I work a scene, doesn't it?

Best to you hani, and thanks for the well thought out critique.

john

John (Crosley)

Your comments have the interesting property of cropping up where I am most proud of my originality in making interesting photos, then congratulating me just on that.

For that, we are 'in synch', and I am most thankful you share my vision and choose to let me know.

Best to you Olaf.

John

John (Crosley)

I cropped just a tad off the bottom to help make the hands/arms into triangles.

Notice that this photo then is composed of triangles and rectangles primarily as well as the roundish shapes of the two heads shown, for a most geometrical creation.

Normally I prefer not to crop at all, but when shooting candid over a great distance with a moving subject (the woman in relation to the portrait) and the 'aspect ratio:  ratio of sides to length or vice versa) is 'off' a little from what is desirable, it is not beyond me to crop just a little to 'help' the photo, though I do like the 2:3 'pure' aspect ratio.

Amy, it seems as though a 4:5 aspect ratio might have fit your suggestion; am I right?  There was the problem of the right elbow and how to fit it in, and that was my problem, and why I shot wide.  It worked out for me, and I have no excuses, but without that elbow, this might have been shot differently.  However, the two symmetrical elbows I think help 'make' the photo, and each required some 'space' around them so not to crowd the borders.  The right elbow, defining a larger triangle, I felt deserved a larger space to its right, than the left elbow. (my innermost thoughts as I shot, lickety split before she moved).

I think rather fast when I'm shooting, aided by almost a decade of the wonderful critiques I receive here which have helped me develop from a naïve shooter into a naïve shooter who can help sometimes articulate what I am doing, and when so articulating, sometimes change what I am doing as I put it into words.

Thanks all for wonderful critiques.

john

John (Crosley)

I kind of figured the triangle(s) formed by that right arm was something you wanted to hang on to. I was thinking Picasso and disjointed portraits he so often did, so losing the point of the elbow and keeping part of the shoulder/wrist was something, that would not be often done, but might fit with the Picasso inspiration.

As you say, it's the artist's choice and you know I have utmost respect for you as a photographer and your choices. Thanks for listening to my thoughts on this one.

Amy

Sometimes you get inspired but there are too many people looking at you possibly hostily, to prevent you from bringing camera to eye.

Sometimes there are no inspirations at all reflecting no photographic potentials perceived.

This was a photographic potential that leaped to the eye and got better, and better yet. This woman (back to us), stayed there long enough for me to get several captures, but this was THE ONE that allowed for the Picasoesque comparison to be made, with no space between her neck/hair/head and the photo portrait's face, so it might appear this were an elongation of th'se portrait face, turned to view us, possibly disturbing her (or something else, we don't know, but somehow it's eye catching.  Is she reproaching or about to reprimand us? We don't know, but we know that look, and coming from a body that is facing the other way suggests extreme annoyance or possibly displeasure?)

That was my intent, and whether I got one or three or even more of this similar post, this was the one, and I had to live with whatever way I caught the standing woman in juxtaposition with the face/head combination of the woman/portrait face, and frankly I like this one a lot, as I've explained.

I think raters do too -- at least the better educated and members of longer duration.   Initial raters rated this a 4.6, but its rating has climbed considerably (which was a surprise to me, but welcome, since I regard it highly but I also regard ratings rather highly except for certain oddball photos which slip through the cracks -- and felt this might get suffer such a fate.

I am very thankful you have spent the time to dissect what might improve this photo, and even if I ultimately rejected your view, if this were one of the views I had without the extended elbow, I might very well have posted one with your view exactly, as you made a good point.

And, how can you as even an experienced critic spend enough time to dissect MY photo that I have labored over, comparing frame by frame the various takes on this scene and even taking the various frames, so that you can understand them better than I and know the nuances so well as I?

In earlier times that was easy as I was a naïf about my own photos and shot from instinct, but I'll say this, sometimes it was pretty good instinct. 

I just sometimes couldn't explain it as well as I can now, and it took great critiques from members like yours (now with my responses, those critiques number almost 17,500), to help me put such analysis into words that now flow and also ideas that flow through my brain as I shoot, and boy do they flow -- gush is more like it.

For which you and others who participate in the critique process are owed great thanks.  Whether or not your critique is accepted or rejected, I play the same critique process in my brain at lightning speed as I have camera to eye (or before I put camera to eye when I previsualize), and then as I frame the subject.

You and all like you have already helped me frame the questions my framing must answer, as it moves, often rapidly.  I shoot people and aside from birds which move faster, few subjects move faster than people, and almost nothing can have greater range of meaning (perhaps nothing at all), and that is also something I have to keep in mind as I shoot (and also afterward as I review) -- what meaning might attach to this photo, as it's not always fixed at time of capture?

Best to you Amy.

Thanks for your contributions (and again, all those others who have helped push the comment total to almost 17,500). 

john

John (Crosley)

It's a very tough shot and for me you have already achieved 8 out of 10, and you also brought up a thoughtful discussion about your powerful shot. Best regards and looking for more.

Long ago when I joined this was a sharing site mostly for photos only; tricks of the trade and how certain effects were achieved often were hidden, particularly by the most successful.

There were mate rating cliques and lots of animosity, jealousy and competitiveness.

I vowed to oppose all that, but very quietly, by not participating and setting an opposite example.

I think you are saying that I may have succeeded, and for that I am very pleased.

Thank you so much.  I consider what you have written a high compliment.

john

John (Crosley)

Well seen and composed "story".  Excellent work, John. 

Sometimes in photographing, odd ideas overtake me, and I wonder if anyone will get the point.  Sometimes I just fail in capturing the signal photograph that will convey the point, and other times I'm successful in getting the point across but it does not resonate.

Here is the rare exception where I got 'the point' across (at least to the more intelligent viewers or those schooled in 'art history' or just 'art') and it has resonated (at least with those viewers).

That's a good use of a few minutes and some strangers staring at me nearby wondering what the heck I could be pointing my lens at when there's nothing obvious in front of it (she was VERY far away.)

Thanks for the congratulatory comment.  I really appreciate it . . . . it's comments like yours that keep me fueled and shooting -- after all, I don't sell and positive and/or constructive feedback is the most I can ever hope for in this mode.  ;~))  Bless you. 

john

John (Crosley)