'Whiling Time Away Until the Inevitable'

In 1969 respectable men, and even disreputable men wore suits, even if only to sit

in the cheap lobby of a single room occupancy (SRO) hotel in San Francisco's

Tenderloin District, near the seedy bars, prostitutes, and gypsy scam artists, and try

to exist on minimal Social Security at a time when the streets weren't flooded with

homeless and psychotics who then were locked up in 'mental institutions', This

was home for these men and the occasional woman, and the bathroom, for most

purposes, was a sink in each single room, with more requiring a long trip down an

endless hallway, maybe in the dead of night.. That time of life seemed eons from

me when at 22 or 23 I took this photo; now it doesn't appear so distant. 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

For 45 years this photo was so degraded, even from the start, that though I regarded its genre and its subject (though not its composition), I felt it was unviewable by others and today is the first day I even ever attempted to resurrect the godawful print (negative was lost years and years ago due to an insurance company failure to pay timely.)

I literally felt that due to image quality this photo would never be shown to anyone, but with new Adobe Photoshop CC 2014 tools, I made a stab at resurrecting it, as it poorly printed from a bad negative, and voila, it's viewable at least, though you are right about the quality.

If I had the negative with Photoshop CC 2014, I now could scan and do wonders, but alas, that's not to be, sadly.

Consider this, it's about 45 years old, and I felt enough about its worth to keep it this long just for me, and now consider showing it even if its condition is not superb.  It's now become a historical document, so perhaps that's due some slack?

I always welcome your visits and comments, Jack.

john

John (Crosley)

I am happy to view this 45 years later; it's actually a true vintage photo! The feeling I get viewing it is one of sadness and loneliness, but who knows, maybe it's just time spent with "the boys" in a "man cave" from that time period. I really do hope these men photographed here had more in their lives than what I see here. The man in the foreground sleeping is wearing sneakers with his suit which I am sure was very odd back then. I often wish we as a society would take the time to look more presentable as it is something we see less and less. Even when my dad was weeks from passing away (lung cancer - never smoked), he would get up and get dressed as if he was going out because it gave his day purpose and normalcy. Nice shot and glimpse into the past. Thank you for sharing John! :)

Happy Holidays and a healthy, happy new year!

The elderly often provide great Photos...without ever being aware of it themselves...

Some say  we start out in life as an instrument and end up as a melody. Others say that we end as our own parody....

Maybe a plain b/w hoto without the "blurry" alteration would also be good?

Thanks for the acknowlegement of the heretofore hidden worth of this photo, which was until yesterday in abysmal condition, with horrible blowouts in basic places.

For instance, the man with hat, left, was almost completely blown out and the face of the man with tennis shoes had no detail.

I worked in restoration from a print made by quality custom printers in the early 90s, but the negative was horribly exposed and they had some showstopper photos to print and didn't see the worth of this.  Little did they know how history would view this particular photo.  It is a companion to a much better photo, one of my best, featuring the same gent with cane and tennis shoes.

That one is a true gem, recognized by Photo.netters with huge ratings.  It also has a woman in it, just behind where I'm standing taking this photo.

I invite you to look that one up in my Early B&W photos and see why it's among my best ever, and this was relegated to the 'dustbin'.

I never thought it would be restorable enough to be seen, let alone be seen as vintage.

Trust me, you would have shared that view.

I always enjoy when you leave me your thoughts.

Holiday wishes to you also.

john

John (Crosley)

Thank you for your observations.  See above, however, for reasons it could not be posted as an 'ordinary photo', as it had minimal detail hidden in blowouts and artifacts were a side effect of making the photo have any detail at all to make viewable.

Thanks.

john

John (Crosley)

I overlooked responding to your remark about these men's state of mind.  My caption (title) should give it away.  While some may be retired scholars and others may have stamp collections, I didn't see any signs in my brief visit of socializing.  Years later I met a man who bought a SRO (Single Room Occupancy) hotel, and he said that mostly there is little compatibility among the occupants, though certain ones will group together from time to time.

Nowadays microwaves must surely be a fixture in all rooms and Marie Callendar's and food stamps (SNAP) a fixture for every resident, so nutrition is not such a bad problem I expect, but these men had to eat at restaurants or out of cans and maybe cook on hotplates (you can cook nutritiously on a hotplate if you don't get thrown out -- small refrigerators were just coming into vogue at that time and wiring was problematic, and in my two minutes there or less I didn't query.

It was hit and run.

And a lifetime of unanswered questions now being answered by experience.

john

John (Crosley)

I really liked this image, Somehow I sense the movie atmosphere around me...three men in a room waiting for something...one keeps smoking and seems to be anxious of what awaits for him, the guy next to him reads his newspaper trying to kill time.  As far as the thid one is concerned...well, he looks like he is going to lose his turn, the casting takes a long time but you have to be looking for the calling card since you never know when your name is up...

Very good work Mr. John!  Cheers!

Your comment is a really interesting and unusual (to me) take on this scene.  To me,  all these men are doing is passing time and then when that time is passed, they're passing some more.  That time passed, they visit the rest room, return and pass more time until it's time to eat, then sleep and spend another day like the previous one.

You see it from the eyes of a dramatist, and I like that; it's far more ambitious and interesting to see it from your eyes than mine.  I like it for its spacing but am not in love with its composition (look elsewhere in my portfolio for the same guy with tennis shoes and two others including a women for one of the finest photos I've ever taken and stunning composition -- widely acclaimed and among my highest rated ever).

Frankly, I think the guy with the cane lost his turn a long time ago, and the other two still have memories of their 'turns' but they're getting more and more distant.

What may be very disheartening in viewing this is to realize that these men may not really be all that old; one might expect they're into their '70s but they may indeed be in their early '60s, but life has passed them by . . . . forever . . . with maybe an occasional visit by a relative to cheer them up, if that.

Otherwise, it's that single room with the washbasin for a urinal or that long trip down the hall for more serious 'business'.   And once the rent's paid, that's about all the Social Security will bear for the month with the very cheap eats, though at that time, pensions still existed and many then had pensions; today for many pensions are a luxury that will just about disappear when most PNers retire.

That's the dream of all Republicans; the death of pensions.  And the Democrats with money are too stingy to give, even though they philosophically favor more equal distribution of wealth -- just not their own.  They fought too hard to get any.

Let the rich live on the spoils of wealth and the poor people . . . . well who cares, really?

Thanks for the interesting comment.

john

John (Crosley)

"That time of life seemed eons from me when at 22 or 23 I took this photo: now it doesn't appear so distant." ... all to close for many of us :) ... Hope we all are doing more than reading, smoking and sleeping in our later years ... thanks for sharing

In fact it was taking photos such as this that caused me to learn my lesson.  I retired a quarter century ago at the start of middle age, but have not let the grass grow under my feet, as I've been to 72 countries and only re-took up photography 10 or so years ago.

I've been a very busy boy, and will be until the day I'm pushing up daisies . . . 

You can bet on it.

Thanks for the observation.

john

John (Crosley)