'The Thinker'

This is my view of 'The Thinker' as viewed in a Metro station in Kyiv, Ukraine. You

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

A woman friend to whom one tells a naughty or bawdy joke at risk, saw this photo and nearly fell to her knees laughing, tears in her eyes.

 

Seems she saw something in this photo I hadn't imagined.

 

She felt the man was engaged in some 'personal activity' in public which normally is done in complete privacy.

 

She walked away, wiping tears away at her misunderstanding.

 

Just goes to show you, a photo is not what the photographer sees or intends but is in the viewer's eyes.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

Excellent. I like everything about this shot

Hi John

Maybe just headache or a bad day. But still super work from your lens.

Tommy

 

Love the composition and the environment. Did you have a chance to wait until trains came from both directions? that might be an interesting shot:).

This is one of those photos that I just happened to see its potential from the corner of my eye, moved four steps, took three or four frames, then resumed my place on the platform, right, with a friend, who was going with me to a photo shoot.  We never dreamed that the first photo of the day would turn out to be so wonderful.

 

The 'magic' of this photo is the emptiness of the platform at this early morning hour, a time when the platform (and all platforms) are usually mobbed, but trains in both directions had recently taken off and their passengers had gone on board and this was not a morning destination (no one got off). 

 

This really is a once in a lifetime shot - no one ever sits like this on a platform with the rest of the platform being empty, and it was just a matter of almost instantaneous composition, then moving on.  Three of four photos took just less than 90 seconds, then I moved on.

 

Ain't life wonderful?

 

Thanks for commenting.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

 

Sorry you had a bad day; so did the French and also the Al Qaeda kidnappers which riveted people to their TV screens all day.

 

This was one of those photos that I as a photographer put almost NO WORK into, but just reacted to the circumstance . . . . and the key was (1) recognizing it, then (2) making sure the composition was just right.  I also remembered something I saw in a Lynda.com tutorial video I saw about symmetry being key to most successful photos -- a lesson I already knew, but it was reinforced in that video.  This was cropped just a little to emphasize that symmetry -- to make it a Goldilocks photo (just right).

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

 

Best to you.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

This is one of those photos that draws its strength from its composition and the spacing between the man and those pillars plus the 'blank space' between him and those pillars with the only people being far away.

 

Trains would have distracted, even going both directions, and further they would have dumped loads of people onto the platform (or maybe not as it was morning and this was not a destination, but some distracting people would have got off), and waiting just a moment of two, people quickly filled the platform, destroying its potential as a composition.

 

This was the 'magic moment'.

 

It only lasted a few seconds, or at least less than a minute and a half, then its time was gone, and he was gone too.

 

I got it while the getting was good, and he never realized he'd been photographed, though I gladly would have shown this to him, though I had a waiting companion, and didn't want to disappoint her or interrupt our journey on the next train, so I hurried away.

 

Best to you, Vlad, and thanks for the attention.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

I am amazed by the simplicity and the impact of this image! The pose is fantastic with thoughts as the core of the image or perhaps he is super tired and needed to rest. Superb image my friend.

I have absolutely NO IDEA why the man is in the deep pose he's in, as I had NO COMMUNICATION with him at all, even though I very much wanted to show him his image.

 

But he was concentrating (or sleeping) so deeply, I didn't want to disturb him and (rarely) I as traveling with a companion, we were waiting for the next train, right, and I didn't want to keep her waiting, dismissed my meander to the centter, here, as 'It's what I do, I hope youo understand' as I took three or four photos' and returned to her in time for the train' and showed her my captures, as we were on a photo expedition that yielded wonderful captures for something else.

 

I told her this was 'pretty good' but when I posted it, I was unaware of whether members would rate it well or poorly -- that's how poor a judge I am.  I'm delighted it's rated highly, or course.  I viewed a Lynda.com tutorial on composition recently in which one of the ones said the cornerstone of many or most fine works of composition was said to be symmetry, and this has it in spades  -- something much of my other, earlier work is founded on too.

 

But I was glad for the support from expert tutors -- one of whom was a world class fine art photographer and both of whom were really, really good at what they did (composition and fine art).  Why were they making 'tutorials?'  Probably because there's little living to be made in 'fine art' unless your name is Gurkas, Mann, or some other superstar of photography.  

 

I'm not a superstar, post these for free, and I'm glad for a comment, supportive or not that helps me hone my skills; after all, I'm compiling a body of work that I hope will outlast me by decades, maybe even some by centuries?

 

Don't laugh or snicker -- some's timeless . . . . amid the crap.

 

Other images are in the process of becoming history, in part for a new country . . . . . as no one else is accumulating a history of it in the early part of this century, and I may become its prime photo historian!  (Ukraine) as well as the United States where I live and photograph as well, but am not a prime mover so much for the US which has historians aplenty and a rich photo tradition.

 

Thank you for your comment.  I live to photograph and post to get honest appraisals, high or low.  Thank you for sharing your thoughts; don't feel obligated to priase, either.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)