'The Conversation(s)'

'People the world over are tethered to their mobile (cell) phones, and this

photo features no exception, not for the foreground woman, or perhaps (if

you look very closely) for the other person in the frame -- maybe they are

speaking together, or even talking to someone half a world away in this

globally connected age. 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

While one cannot actually 'see' a cell or mobile phone in the hands of either woman depicted, it is clear from my vast cultural experience both in Ukraine and the United States (and from my observations here, but without the necessity of explanation), that when a person holds a hand thusly to his or her ear, especially when leaning so, a phone conversation is under way.

Perhaps you have been tethered to a wired phone which still is more prevalent in the United States and some places in Europe, though in Germany, say, the 'handy' is a standard accessory and seemingly constantly in use when I traverse that country, at least for business use.

In less developed countries or ones that have antiquated wire systems such as Ukraine here, hands to ear or head side (or just a person talking with wires hanging from their ears indicating ear buds and a wired microphone are dead giveaways for a telephone conversation by 'mobile' which is how such phones are called in Ukraine -- the word 'cell' is almost universally a North American e.g., US and Canadian word, I suggest.

I'm excellent at spotting such behavior, but perhaps you aren't and thus your comment, which to me seems somewhat geocentric, as almost any Ukrainian and the citizens of most countries where ears are glued to hands (concealing today's ultra-modern miniature mobile phones) can tell you a mobile conversation is under way.

Gone are the days when a 'cell' phone from Motorola, for instance, looked and weighed more than a brick; now they're ultralight and fit in the palm of a hand, sometimes with two or three SIM cards (different numbers and also payment capacity -- and wired for payment on different 'network plans')

I accept your comment and criticism as being well-intentioned but somehow old fashioned or at least geocentric or at least missing the modern mark.

I can state from observation personally this woman was on a mobile phone, and 99% KNEW before I passed her AFTER I had taken the photo that she was on such a device.  She is NOT just idling her time lazily, head on hand, but talking to someone.  The mobile phone is implied from the posture -- like many things in life, you don't have to see it to know it is there.

I'm actually pretty interested to find such a critique, because I frankly didn't expect it at all; the scene being to me quite self-evident.

But that's what the critique forum is all about.  I find out that for some, perhaps some from another decade or from another part of the world, such posture which almost absolutely indicates mobile phone usage where wired phones are not serviceable in this day of miniature and cheap mobile phone use, is not evident to everyone, and I thank you for pointing that out.

I think that's a helpful pointer to a cultural and geographic sensibility that I just had overlooked because what I saw and commented on in the critique request was so obvious as not to be questioned (in my mind) and now I find that foundation is less secure.

Thank you for pointing that out.

I'll have to ponder.

Long ago (ten years ago) I posted a photo of a man taking with his girlfriend, a 'selfie' long before they ever became popular or had a name, and the instance of taking such a photo was worthy of its own photograph memorializing same.

Nowadays one would wonder, 'why take a photo of someone taking a 'selfie' because the instance is so common?"

The times change, and sometimes for some of us we have to 'catch up' to technology or it passes us by.  Sooner or later (just as 'selfie' has finally entered the dictionaries, it will be self-evident that the woman in the window is using a mobile phone and universally so, and anyone disputing that will be asked to explain why they dispute that.  Same for the far-off woman (down the block) with her mobile to her ear also, and also talking.

The length of this post has nothing to do with sensitivity of mine, but in noting that your post and my assumption are indicative of a age, cultural, technological and geographic divide, and as such are worth commenting on in this time of rapid technological change.

It has nothing to do with any perceived offense at what you posted at all; and indicates only my interest that this photo (in  2014) is not universally understood, while in ten years or five years from now, I think there will be no dispute at all.

Also, the countries that had good wired phone systems still use them and mobile (cell) phones are a parallel system.  

In Ukraine, it is rare to rent a flat with a working wired phone system and dialing a wired phone -- while less expensive -- can be a chore, while dialing a mobile phone from a wired phone might even be an impossibility.

Further, wired phones in Ukraine are literally from another century and another epoch (Soviet era), and never worked well in the first place.  Like other countries that leapfrogged wired phones with mobile technology, EVERYONE in Ukraine has a mobile phone and they're constantly talking on the damned things (except on the buses, where it's considered discourteous, of all things).

Hans-Peter, please take no offense at this long discourse, it is not 'aimed' at you, and I thank you for pointing out something I had not expected, and do so with gratitude.

john

John (Crosley)

While is may seem that I have a bone to pick with Hans-Peter's critique, above, I don't.

His critique inadvertently stumbled on a very important cultural phenomenon; the changing of perceptions due to technological adaptations.

The 'cell' or 'mobile' phone, which once was a space age gizmo confined to the Dick Tracy Comic strip in the US Sunday newspapers, came into being as a huge, brick-like affair, evolved into something called the 'flip-phone' as it became more miniature, and now a mobile (cell in North America) phone can be so small one can fit several in the palm of one's hand -- I've seen and held some so small, but they don't make most so small because the're hard to manipulate, and most 'mobile' phones have been transformed by the 'smart phone' with the screen which must be larger to be viewable.

Thirty years ago, everyone would have agreed (and I would also) with the comment above. The woman was leaning on her hand and arm.

Nowadays, in Ukraine at least and many other countries, people don't have 'alone time' at all; they talk to their friends and relatives almost incessantly.

It's true.

I'm around people all the time and observe their behavior very carefullly as that of friends and acquaintances; many are glued to their mobile phones getting call after call, while in the bazaars, the woman who sells you tomatoes or strawberries might be talking simultaneously to someone like her daughter-in-law, husband or woman in the next bazaar stall; anything to fight boredom.  

Mobile phones are an aid to fighting boredom and being alone (that sort of boredom) is losing to the boredom of drawn out, stale and many times useless conversations.

The living room conversation has been transformed to the street, the bazaar, the bus bench or line, or wherever one happens to be.

People are now 'in touch' whether it's advantageous or not; it's a worthy subject of social study (which is why Han-Peter's comment got such a lengthy reply, not because of any animosity to the comment at all).

Society and society's communications have evolved in a major way just in the past few years and it is little noted in literature.

john

John (Crosley)

He had a two-way wrist communicator, as I recall; a sort of wrist 'smart phone' with capabilities somewhat like Skype when a smart phone is hooked up to IIIG, IVG or Wi-Fi.

They're quite analagous actually, though no one wears a 'smart phone' on the wrist probably only because the screen is too small.  For that matter Dick Tracy couldn't really have seen a proper image on his write communicator's screen either because of just that issue.

Couldn't you find something 'serious' or at least 'helpful' to kvetch about?

john

John (Crosley)

Smart Phone? You are way wrong, wrong for the real Dick Tracy.

There was an upgrade to a TV phone in the 60's but Chester Gould died long before wireless phones were thought of -and smart phones? Forget about it.

If there is a Dick Tracy of the 21st Century I am not aware of. Perhaps you are more up-to-date than I  because I stopped reading comic books long ago.

No I cannot think of something more serious to kvetch about.,,,smile

The woman in the window does have a cell phone and the one in the background -probably.

Whether the women are or not holding cell phones is of little concern to me. The photo is of more interest, for its lack thereof. It's somewhat awkwardly composed and the distortion of the woman on the far end is quite strong. The use of the picture on the sign is a device which others use often but I'm not used to seeing you resort to such juxtapositional cliché. Maybe you have done it in the past to effect, but it's not something that usually works for me. People on cell phones usually elicit from me a big "so what?" And that was the case when they were a relatively new phenomenon or a phenomenon we've all grown used to, especially when it's the focus of the photo rather than a subplot or incidental gesture to a greater story. Yes, your reply does sound defensive even though you assert that it's not. If someone doesn't see what you see, there's no need to look for cultural or psychological reasons why that may be so, though it can be helpful in some instances. Sometimes, it just has to be accepted at face value. I can see the woman in the window being seen to be in some state of ennui. That thought occurred to me as well, and that look is not dependent on her being on the phone or not. If the critic had seen more in the photo, he likely wouldn't have emphasized his not seeing the cell phones. Clearly, not much else occurred to him to mention. That forms part of his critique as well. Likewise for the emphasis on Dick Tracy, who's not even in the photo. The two critiques say much to me, as much by what they don't say as by what they do.

Perhaps I'm wrong; I'm happy to admit it especially in the face of such compelling evidence.

Maybe Dick Tracy only did indeed have a wrist radio and not a two-way communicator.  Perhaps somehow I conflated some 'Star Trek' gadget with the venerable old cops paraphernalia.

In any case, my writing was far from motivated by anything but surprise at others NOT recognizing there were mobile (cell) phone conversation(s) taking place, and that reveals something about my own environment, I suppose -- in the US and Western Europe where wired phones have long worked well and predominated because of that and are well established parts of the culture and fixtures at that, cell (mobile) phones are not such a central part of the culture, I think, as in Ukraine and some other countries I've been too where wired phones just didn't get established or their growth didn't 'keep up'.

I wasn't kvetching at all, just wondering how times have changed, and noting that somehow this photo (and this discussion now) somehow is emblematic of those ongoing changes which really are not so well researched as one might expect of such a major sociological/technological phenomenon.  I'll bet, however, that someone's working on it, and who knows, maybe they'll cite this photo and this discussion.

From time to time a discussion under a photo of mine will get excerpted and played more prominantly as being worthy of discussion and/or  dissemination

It's not usual, of course, but it has happened.

I think the same applies to Fred's observation, next above.  Thank you Fred for contributing your thoughts.

Had I lived solely in the United States, almost identical thoughts might have been my main thoughts as well, but I've lived in a number of places in the world, and am used to having my US -- based assumptions challenged regularly which is what this discussion is all about.

I note Meir, who lives in Israel, concedes there is at least one and possibly two mobile (cell) phones in use (if I paraphrase him correctly), though you can't really 'see' either one specifically.  

I haven't actually taken the Photoshop magnifier tool to the window woman's hand to see if the phone she appears to be holding can be discerned in the shadows of her hand -- just too much work for a point that's already been made.

Sometimes a photo is just a photo; sometimes it's more.

And reasonable minds can have differing viewpoints when this or that photo falls on this or that side of the fulcrum.

Best wishes to all of you and thanks for contributing.

john

John (Crosley)