'Sometimes Nature Needs a Little Help''

This balding gentleman says he doesn't need glasses; he just trusts in his

rather powerful magnifying glasses to read the daily newspaper. Your

ratings, critiques and observations are invited and most welcome. If you rate

harshly, very critically, or you 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

If I understand his Russian, he's age 53.

He just looks old, and his eyesight, with presbyopia (nearsighted associated with aging), suggests a somewhat or much older age.  I trust my Russian for interpreting what he told me about his age; perhaps he was 'funning' me?

Maybe he just needed glasses all his life and mislaid his or was just stubborn.  Some people are like that.  

Cheap, over-the-counter glasses are available for such conditions without seeing an optometrist or ophthalmologist in Ukraine, so even if the man is dirt poor, he could have glasses if he wanted.

john

John (Crosley)

Shutter Speed:  1/13 second  (I'm a very steady holder, though aided here by V.R.)

ISO:  2000

Aperture f 7.1

Focal length (dx capture):  110 mm

Equivalent in FX (film) focal length:  165 mm

Taken indoors during daylight after walking in from direct sunlight and making a rapid adjustment 'on the fly'.

john

John (Crosley)

Sometime we can't give up our macho image, even when those worked out nice round mussels start to get floppy. A very seasoned character and an excellent shoot of him. The left shelves, specially the white part in the middle, disturbing the composition.

Cheers.

I made a commitment when I joined Photo.net ten+ years ago to present 'interesting' photos, and when I run across a photo of such an interesting guy engaged in such an interesting process, my interest is piqued and I start raising my camera and lens, cocking my shutter and pressing eyepiece to my eye.

It helped that the paper, magnifying glass, eyes, and head, all were able to be lined up in a diagonal.

While the 'shelves' and especially the white topmost one may detract for you, I had not given it much thought except now to suppose that their presence may be necessary to give the relatives whites and blacks 'balance' in the photo.  Omitting the darkness of the dark shelves would have left the photo unbalanced in my thinking, looking at it the first time.  Others may weigh in on this, as I've only looked at the issue the first time now.

Bela, yours is a quite reasonable and helpful crop.  I might have made it, but prefer the 2:3 aspect ratio and prefer to avoid cropping when I can.

I appreciate your workup and comment and am most thankful.

john

John (Crosley)

I had several excellent captures on this download, and did not even consider this for workup when I first looked at it.

Later, on review, I looked at it and said 'wait, this has all the elements of a very good photo and character study -- it's interesting and has very good compositional elements.'  It also has an interesting process with the muscular, slightly aged and flabbing man using a very strong magnifying glass to read his newspaper (itself a dying institution) and so I decided to work it up.

The more I got into the workup process, the stronger I felt about this photo.  More workup; the stronger the photo seemed to become.  Sometimes in workup a photo may seem to 'fall apart' and workup will reveal serious or severe flaws.  In this case the reverse was true (to my eyes at least).

In regard to my promise to try to present 'interesting' photos, I think this photo fulfills my promise to viewers made ten+ years ago.

john

John (Crosley)

Those who know my work, also may remember that I often recommend using a diagonal or close cousin in composition to create a sort of dynamism among subjects that otherwise may be 'static'.

Here is a man sitting reading, yet look at the dynamism of the photo.

Although there is no straight, diagonal line that one can see specifically, there is an implied diagonal, nonetheless.

That implied diagonal comes from following his eyes through his 'looking glass' to his newspaper -- for a clear diagonal that bisects the image. Voila, a diagonal, but one that's mostly 'hidden' and not easily recognized.

The angle of view plus capturing his 'line of sight' implies the diagonal and also implies a sort of dynamism that one does not expect from a capture of a sitting man reading a newspaper, no matter how interesting his 'looking glass' and his muscular head and body may be.

john

John (Crosley)

Interesting street portrait!

'Here is a man sitting reading, yet look at the dynamism of the photo.'

Too much often is worse than less. After hours you made the discovery John. I'm now waiting for the essence of the tekst on his chest and the solid manufacturer of his vest. ;) Yes, I know you are a good and fast observer, however often many goes by intuition. Shooting 'interesting' photos isn't a bad idea. However, this qualification given by viewers can nearly be deadly as well. In practice, myself I wouldn't appreciate the idea that words as 'diagonal', 'triangle' etc. etc. on forehand might disturb any spontanity, intuition, or what in general is called feeling. That's why I do repeat the idea that watching a photo can be ruined by too many words. We all have different kinds of 'interests'. And who will,  after reading a great story, take a camera in getting the essences of it..?! Too many words of the photographer and many potential viewers will ('safely') stay away. And that's the last 'we' want. Yes, I'm serious. 'Sometimes human creativity needs a little help'.  

Less than you might imagine, I'm somewhat inclined to agree.

You see, I was somewhat of a success in photographing from my first roll of film, and I had no tutelage, no guidebook, no textbook, no Photo.net and no instruction.  

Getting some 'good to great ones' did come but it came with great effort, and I wondered why or if I would ever be able to break down what came intuitively or inchoatively to me (naturally to me) into something that could be passed on to those less blessed by nature in seeing and transferring their sight and insight into an image.

And, in early work I was cursed in that it was 'hot sweaty work' as I forever was measuring in my mind all the variables that  went into each capture like some giant but primitive computing machine that was overloaded and worked far beyond its capacity -- perhaps because it had been programmed with an insufficient programming language.

Wnen I joined Photo.net, I still was so accursed, but it became somewhat easier, and as I worked at it, I began to see certain patterns develop in my photography, and I started to understand that I was understanding the patterns of how I was approaching and understanding 'natively' or 'naiively' those situations and making those shots that I couldn't theretofore analyze.

So, I began 'inventorying' my techniques, and began writing about them in comments, and lo and behold, the readership was quite phenomenal, and I got many accolades from viewers with great thanks from many that my WORDS helped them think through their own shooting.

i have kept those words in my prior comments - ten years worth, and keep writing them down.  For those members like you, you can know that words like diagonal and triangle are mere afterthoughts (or a sort), but that in composing, I am now guided by such thoughts, as I've incorporated my current decision-making (like adopting a new machine or program language) into my formerly more inchoate shooting.

And I'm a far better shooter for it.  Members told me as I developed this work of shooting, analyzing then writing about it, that it greatly helped them, and I note you complain about it.

I understand that it rankles you and note that really just don't read. 

Really -- just don't read.

Others have written me great thanks for the analyses that I have done and written about - and the mail and comments are ten to one in favor, so I guess I'll be doing it in the future.

Again if it bothers, just look at the photo, write a comment, but don't read my comments -- filter them out.

I've been giving that advice for six-eight years now to those who are so advanced they feel that they don't need the comments about photo analysi and 'back stories.  But there are many who LIKE the back stories and write me they love the photo analysis.

You can't please everybody, and much as I hate to disappoint you, I'll just keep on doing what I do best - which is what I've been doing all along.

And in the process, Olaf, this may surprise you but in my own analysis of this or that photo, I manage to TEACH MYSELF a thing or two about my own shooting, and the result is I'm better educated and even more ready next time to incorporate the lessons I teach myself (and others through comments teach me).  I can use all the help I get and acknowledge the worth of it all.

Your point is well taken.

A famed photo critique tried to show me that my photos not 'geometrically based' and I picked up one photo in rebuttal in a home grown 'master's class we were having and showed him how the entire photo was based on geometry and mathematics, and at the end he hollared 'uncle'.  I had made my point.  It seems he was directing (and misdirecting) his statements at those who analyzed 'art' as a series of geometric shapes, like Cartier-Bresson's teacher Lohte did in Cartier-Bresson's art schooling, which profoundly influenced Cartier-Bresson, so much that he called 'composition' 'geometrie'.

Cartier-Bresson saw 'geometrie' in everything, especially great works of art, and not surprisingly because there was much mathematics in those works.  My critic/teacher/masters class (personal one-on-one class only) was only partly correct -- the match book cover art lessons were not correct that all art was geometrically based, but some is very dependent on geometry.

It is through the critique process (including some of your great critiques) that we approach the truth about various photos and learn about them.

If I receive a critique, if it is well made (even if I disagree with it), I am almost always very thankful for it, for it tests my reasoning and ideas about my own captures.

You and I may not always agree -- but I'll always respect you.

If the colloquy offends, just don't read.

Newbies say they're greatly helped (ten to one), and write me thanks. Also, put together many of these critique comments I've made, edit them, and there's a ready-made book, once a title is slapped on it, and the photos chosen.

I've never forgotten that.

You may not have experienced this when you came to Photo.net later than I, but when I came NO ONE would explain how they created or captured their photos -- it was all a big, deep, dark secret, that almost every photographer kept proprietary to him/herself.

I vowed to break that secrecy, and I am not changing.

I think almost singlehandedly I started a trend that continues to this day.

My best best wishes.

Don't let this eat your liver - I'll respect you no matter what, and always have.

john

John (Crosley)

Thanks for your kind comment.  I try to be interesting.   You and I sometimes walk the same ground, so a comment from you that I found something 'interesting' means a great deal to me.

john

John (Crosley)

John, I'm very pleased with your 'answer'..! In fact when 'following' one of your images, I do read ALL your comments and I do like that. Understanding the motivation why starting about the hot diagonal now finds it's bottom in the earlier reactions people do share with you..! Great..! And more: I better do understand your character, the devellopments and the goals you step by step was (are) going for. I have only to respect that and I really do..!

I don't like the next on myself, but share it for a better understanding of my seemingly often being too 'easy' about shooting and all it's components. I just shoot because it's going faster than drawing, sculptoring and even the making of cartoons. I could have made a living of the latest possibility. Yes, but the interest in life's 'goals' did change and not badly. And my shooting started in fact when I did enter PN, this after the purchase of a digital. Yes, before we did shoot our five kids. That digital made 'shooting possible' just because of the much lower costs, as simple as that. And 'street' got favorite. Haha, I don't realise that in fact I started while already getting a grandpa..

Earlier, at my home, we did never talk about 'art' while father was a very talented drawer and made a living while being a sculptor. At the end of the war scouts of Philips, seeing his drawing-work at the Academy, did offer him a huge job for life. (no joke) However he had to stop his study immediately in joining the multinational in Eindhoven. This te next day..! Father, end of the war, without money for a marriage, kept silent for some seconds and asked for a decent night sleep in 'tasting' their offer. The two scouts agreed. The next day their meeting got different than thought. 'Gentlemen'. father said, 'I stay here, I want to be a sculptor'.   

We never did talk about 'art', 'It's a matter of seeing or not seeing', he once said. And suddenly he could point the small ear of a baby and just say: 'Look'. Six years ago I did realise: 'That's my wat of photographing now, just: 'Look'. That without any further pretentions, only a channel in sharing the results, and that got PN. Haha, now you will understand my aversion, my even often being allergic for too many words. And when I forinstance read 'Off center is nicer, a photo in 'street' needs a story', well then I'm glad I shoot what I like while observing, centered and without stories or not. In fact, symplified, often a kind of cartoons. My personal wish? A real big City next doors. :)           

I'm very glad that you do read my commentaries.

I hope that the hard trial and error, hit and miss work I put into learning the techniques that I comment on -- not having any tutelage at all - have been incorporated into your and others' shooting techniques to save you time.

After all, the fewer decisions and issues one must confront on the street that must be resolved, the better one's shooting is apt to be, and that is the purpose of mulling over all the various questions I write about.

I hope that this has worked in some small way to improve your shooting, or at least enliven your thought process, as well as other shooters.

Best to you, Olaf.

John (Crosley)