'I Wear My Glasses At Night'

This man is both handsome and mysterious as he puts on his glasses at sundown one

winter day. Your ratings, critiques and observations are invited and most welcome. If

you rate or critique harshly or 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

Perfect timing his gesture and expression are priceless. The white beard right in the centre is what the doctor ordered. Maybe just upper bright corner is too bright. Otherwise it's a gem!

Yours is a kind and thorough critique, and in this case, one I tend to agree with personally, even including the remark about the 'whiteness' in the upper right corner. I wondered whether to dampen it a little and still wonder . . . .

However after eight rates, raters seem singularly unimpressed, and this is, in my opinion, among my best B&W portrait works.  Ah well, it's all for me,and I just share with the raters.  I do value your opinion highly as you routinely produce highest quality work and know what it looks like.

Thanks for taking the time and effort to share your thoughts.

Best wishes.

john

John (Crosley)

I like the contrasting tones between our friends facial hair and his black hoodie. Looking as if posing for the camera, it is a natural gesture but unique in this photograph.

You note the contrast between the 'black hoodie' and the 'facial hair' which is mostly white and which we call 'salt and pepper', and that is part of the compositional point of this photo.

If you look at the three points of light (sounds quotable?), you'll find that there are two very bright hands but with enough contrast to have good texture, then the lower part of the face with a wonderful, textured beard, and the three points (connected visually) form the three points of an implied triangle, for the composition I was seeking.

I have another workup in which his face shows fro the bridge of the nose to his forehead (perhaps another frame?) but it's entirely forgettable or at least not nearly as good in my opinion for composition, though it's good in its own right for facial texture and 'character'.

Sometimes there can be a 'theory of the workup', and this particular photo lends itself to more than one workup interpretation.  In one the emphasis is on the hands and the wonderfully textured beard and its shape, and the implied triangle for compositional value.

In another workup one might work up the face more evenly for facial tones and character.

I've done that too in another workup.

In my opinion this is the better of the two, though the other lends itself to B&W and color, while this one works solely as a B&W photo (face is too red in color and mixed light degrees K mean it can't easily be presented as color without very extensive work that's not worth it in my opinion.) I guess it was a very similar frame I worked up based on that last statement because in that the color workup turned out fine - he might have moved a slight bit for different lighting.

Thanks, Tony, for an able and intelligent remark.

john

John (Crosley)

John, just please don't take that raters and rates too seriously. Take care, Vlad

The only real importance of rates for me is whether a photo gets 'views', Vlad.

On the ratings engine, higher-rated photos are placed towards the start and get many, many more views, than lower rated photos, so higher rates are preferable, all things considered.

However, I am reminded of the renegade member who posted some years ago photos of Henri Cartier-Bresson (and almost got kicked out for doing so) and reported those photos got 3s and 4s maximum, and many artists in galleries today would find their individual photos rated at 4s, 3s and 2s, so 'yes' I really take the ratings with a grain of salt.

I know the 'real worth' for me (for ME) of a photo of mine, based on my great experience and exposure to a vast variety of photos and art, and I am reminded that (1) the guy who only rates lizard or hummingbird photos highly may rate my photo low because it's not a lizard or hummingbird, (2) anybody can rate, including someone with a bone to pick or just someone who 'just doesn't get it', (which is why so many 'fine artists' would find their best work rated as 'junk' by raters, I think, including some million and hundred thousand dollar photo sellers/photographers), (3) there are no requirements for 'rating' a photo other than a membership, and so forth.

But despite all the infirmities, the rating system works rather well, and in the whole, the best individual photos often seem to end up at the top of the ratings -- so I have no bone to pick with raters or the system which functions remarkably well.

I often find that the first four or so ratings are indicative of how the total ratings will turn out - even when they're 15 or so ratings eventually or many more.  In some ways it's a good way to determine 'popularity' - rates and 'clicked views'.

People who rate tend to be pretty predictable, and when I post two photos similar from similar times but not identical at vastly different times, (so few make the connection), raters seem to rate almost identically -- within a few points one to the other photo.  

That's pretty remarkable, and whether or not they're rating 'good' photos is an entirely different question.

Are raters good at finding 'fine art'?  That's an entirely different question, for sure.

Some raters are wonderful at that, and when I post something that's truly 'fine art' I find a coterie of raters will come forward and rate (or comment) highly (or favorably), (if the photo truly is remarkable).

I truly do NOT have a bone to pick with the rating SYSTEM, which seems to work pretty well, but from photo to photo, based on my own evaluation, there are some outliers where the system doesn't work very well, and this is one of them so far, but so what?

I shoot and post for myself and my viewers who like my way of shooting and viewing.  I like to surprise them from time to time and to shoot for my own kind of 'excellence', often times with a little 'humor' and sometimes with a 'fine art'edge that is very eclectic.

Some who expect 'one thing' may find entirely 'another' from time to time, and that can lead to disappointment in trying to categorize me, even though I may denominate much of my work 'street'.  

I can shoot lovely 'landscapes', portraits, sports, aviation, war, nudes, women, or almost anything but prefer to post as 'street'.  But why post landscapes, say, or even take, say, landscapes, when almost anybody can, and I think the way I see, put things together, and shoot often times is singular (maybe good or maybe bad, but 'singular'.)  

Some like my work and some don't, but when I hit one, I think I hit the top, though rarely, and 'street's' a hard genre to excel in.

I like to think it's 'classic' photography or 'documentary' photography rather than the relatively 'new-fangled' word 'street', a word that Henri Cartier-Bresson never used, though he practically (after Stieglitz and a couple of precursors, invented the category, or at least perfected it.

I shoot for those who love photography and don't forget they have a sense of humor from time to time.  And I also shoot for all time -- hoping to make classics from today that will last far beyond my time, and so I shoot prolifically.  

I turned down a sure fire top gallery career conditioned on my schmoozing and stopping shooting' in 2009, then moving to LA and instead decided to keep shooting, and I'll stand by that decision based on the work I've produced since.  

I'm much poorer, but my work at times has excelled and I have a wonderful catalog of good work I'll stand by (I don't just post the best - I truly am looking for feedback even on sometimes 'marginal' work.)

Time will tell if i achieve my goal, though I may never know the outcome.

Alberto Giacometti's work was seminal and some knew it, and others saw skinny, tortured figures made by a madman, but now he's the darling of collectors, here in 2015.

He's not around to enjoy his prominence, however and his good friend and photo documentarian Cartier-Bresson even died last decade at age about 94.

Meanwhile the topic in the 'fine art' world is whether the sky high prices for today's auction art and collectible art will be worth anything at all in one to three generations. Will Jeff Koons' work be worth a sou a hundred years from now?  

No one knows.

At the other end, that famous Dutch painter whose name we all know (he was crazy, cut off part of an ear and was quite eccentric) through his brother, an art dealer in Paris, only sold one picture during his tortured lifetime, yet his work is considered among the best ever produced not only from his time but of all time.

I guess that puts the ratings in perspective.

And puts the emphasis on the phrase' time will tell'.

I'm thankful for your nice, positive note, Vlad.

You see, I do have perspective.

Even though it doesn't always show.

john

John (Crosley)