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© © 2015 John Crosley/Crosley Trust, All Rights Reserved, No reproduction or other use without express prior written permission from copyright holder

'Meager Pickings'


johncrosley

Software: Adobe Photoshop CC 2014 (Windows)

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© © 2015 John Crosley/Crosley Trust, All Rights Reserved, No reproduction or other use without express prior written permission from copyright holder

From the category:

Street

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It's almost never a good time to beg on the street, but when the snow is falling

fast and blankets you, the beggar, you must be determined as people walk by in

the slush, as you hope for a few kopecks, or even a little more so you can buy

some bread. You ratings, critiques and observations are invited and most

welcome. If you rate harshly, very critically, or 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

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I have never been indecisive about framing photos or snapping the shutter, but sometimes my presence forces shots that could stand more care in framing.

 

This shot, in a very short time, however, because she was unaware of my presence, allowed me to frame properly AND to get the passersby in the proper orientation to show their disregard and her isolation with emphasis on the snow crusted on her back, with its 'cracks' showing only slight movement on her part over the time it took for all that snow to accumulate.

 

BRRRRrrrrrr.

 

There but for the grace of God, I felt.

 

And still do.

 

(Color was very muted and showed only barely, so incredibly the almost monochrome color version of this shot shows almost equally well . . . which was a big surprise.)

 

Thanks for a spot on critique.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

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It feels like a sweet punch in the stomach... shocking and irresistible ... from a documental and artistic perspective it is obviously a great image. Congrats and regards.

ricardo

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Yours is an outstanding critique, one of the most complimentary and best written I have received on this service.

 

I'm proud to be the recipient.

 

Once in LA I happened by a gala charity dinner affair, was invited to another, it was suggested I 'donate' a photo for their next charity affair auction, and I said 'you'd better look at my photos before you agree to auction off one of my photos,' because though I had a reputation, no one had seen or knew of my work or my (sometimes) subjects.

 

I also then was asked to bring 'pretty' work, and if they only knew, that I regard work like this as pretty, just like Ansel Adams regarded his El Captain, his Moonrise, and his Aspens as 'pretty'.  It's a 'good subject' and good subjects know few bounds for me.   I declined to supply them a 'donation' for fear I'd shock them and be run out of the next charity event.  

 

I don't usually attend such things, and besides at the  time many of the women there -- they were mostly women -- really were unemployed and 'networking' - looking for their next job as many were (it turned out) financially desperate I learned after I talked to some for a while, and their presence was 'just putting on a show'.

 

This woman is not putting on a show -- look at the snow on her back.

 

Part of my mission is to make photos with good compositional 'balance' (explained in comments to previous photo).  

 

Another is to highlight (sometimes) the plight of those who can't speak for themselves.  

 

I can take pretty photos too -- in the traditional sense -- but then it seems so can almost every other half way competent photographer, so highlighting the plight of the down and out is part of my own personal charity -- not pandering or 'using' these people as sometimes (in general) has been suggested by critiques who object to photographing the down and out, though no one has accused me of that so far that I recall, and if they did, to hell with 'em.

 

I have found that a well composed photo is a well composed photo regardless of the subject, and if it serves a social purpose, all the better.

 

Bless you for kind words, well expressed.

 

Thanks.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

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Hey John.  Was pleased to see this great shot from you.  It is bleak and sad but, in my opinion, worth shooting and showing.  I like photos that have a social message and can't imagine restricting such expression.  On the technical side,  I think the high contrast in the image is metaphorical for the contrast in economic situation.   Really top notch work.  Dana... 

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Thanks for the encouragement.

 

I have a mile-long list of photos that might be posted, and it's a consternation which ones to post -- I'd always like to post something that receives critical acclaim and get a few viewers, but then again, sometimes what I think is standout differs very much from raters and viewers, (like the last photo I posted, for instance!).

 

You make a good, metaphorical point -- high contrast photo mirrors high contrast in economic status -- well said.

 

I purposely didn't pull much detail out of the passing woman, left, though I could have easily, in order that she would be 'block-like' or appear as a 'monolithic' element, or perhaps a compositional device, rather than a warm-blooded human, in part because here she is, not stopping, not giving any money, and not even giving a passing glance.

 

Of course, as any New Yorker from the '60s and early '70s when times were really tough could tell you, you can not pay attention to everyone who crosses your path or whose path you cross by acknowledging them, due to sheer numbers, or you'd simply go crazy!  

 

And of course, many who lacked filters to be able to pass the screwballs, needy, criminals, oddballs and riff raff etc., by and felt compelled to pay attention to each of them often did go crazy (or already were crazy).   In an urban center, you have to learn to ignore the vast numbers of people.  

 

Sadly.

 

It's the price for living in an urban center, and Dnipropetrovsk, a former closed city and a place where the Soviets built rockets, electronics, steel and things to bomb America and the West to smithereens in the Cold War, was and is an urban center, and although it's mostly Russian speaking and 'Eastern', remains firmly Western and allied with Kyiv against the Separatists, somewhat surprising given its large Russian-speaking majority (but the farm people around speak Ukrainian). 

 

It's main product now is steel from a huge factory, acting as a regional center, and students -- including some of Ukraine's most beautiful coeds, most without jobs, as there are few, and little money, but a number of universities, some of high repute.

 

If you ever lusted after any of my models, most came from Dnipropetrovsk students; I paid their tuition indirectly.

 

Thanks again for the kind words.

 

I'm getting a nosebleed from the ratings so far, but could get used to it.

 

;~))

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

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Very well done, John. This is an excellent picture of an all to common reality in much of the world. As a picture and a statement it's a very good union of content and composition.
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One Question?

 

How can you possibly say to much in so few words so eloquently?

 

My deepest regards and thanks.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

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This is like a novel - about hope and desperation, about snow constantly falling down, about indifferent crowd, about... max from me!

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I 'feel' photos, and occasionally in my hurried and sometimes very impatient way, I get an opportunity, like here, to engage in brief study before depressing the shutter, and the record shows I hit it just one time this instance.  That's not always so.  I can also 'work a subject' until I get it right.  

 

It seems I got it right in one shot here; I wouldn't change anything (but you should see the color version; it's  lovely with just the right touches or color, the woman's shroud and the umbrella being the same color).

 

I intuit what I do, even now, though I've written about compositional theory, and I try to follow my own advice with each move in the field, but the 'instinct'  was maybe 'imprinted' in me, like the baby deer that nature exhorts to stand immediately after birth to be able to run, possibly to avoid being a wily wolf's dinner.

 

I just had it in me, I think, and I"ve been studying it consciously and honing the craft and skill, and simultaneously admiring those with different skills in this same art and craft who can do with ease what I can never attempt.

 

I studied this for a few minutes (that's all it took) and realized that this photo has two major compositional elements besides the emotive side with its sociological message.

 

One, I have positioned myself so the beggar woman cannot be identified (not hard since she's shrouded and the shroud is covered with snow).

 

She's at a diagonal, lower right to upper left, and that diagonal I have positioned myself to intersect with the opposing diagonal of the sidewalk (which with the vanishing point fades nearly to a triangle in the distance), then waited for the exact moment when the woman passerby would be compositionally sound and also show maximum disdain and disregard for the beggar woman.

 

Moreover, and you may have missed this, the beggar woman has a 'crown' or 'cape' of snow covering her, all white.

 

Similarly, the woman disregarding and passing her by her is protected from the elements by a mostly light umbrella, a sort of light analogous covering.   Few photos are lucky enough enough to have such happy elements in synch.

 

Those things are things i see that I can't always enumerate as I take the photo, and so many photos don't have such good elements, but I keep trying to recognize other good compositional elements, knowing that this will never repeat itself, nor should it.

 

Life's incredibly varied, and so should the photos that memorialize it.  Even if one can recognize a 'Crosley photo' as some claim, such photos can vary widely despite any commonality, and watch, I'll surprise you.  

 

You don't know what's lined up through this year and into next, that I took yesterday or the day before that's 'aging' like fine wine, an expensive cigar (ugh), or whiskey, waiting for the day of uncovering (and I don't know when even to the moment of posting -- It's entirely almost always a matter of whim as I skim my folders of unposted photos).

 

Keep watching; there'll be some surprises, regardless of ratings.

 

I play more than one game here, and enjoy the heck out of it, often switching from one genre to the next, from this photo to the next.

 

I like good ratings, but I like photos I like personally even better, whether or not the membership lauds or lambastes them.

 

Thanks for the good words.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

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Excellent image... and your comments enrich your work. We could say that technically this work can overcome ... but the meaning of this picture as a social document exceeds the aesthetics and technique. A master work IMO.

 

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Wow!

 

I read and heed every word, including the words about improving the image, though I must say, i know how to make it 'technically better' but in doing so, I think it takes away from the message and its impact as a document.

 

I think the harsh blacks/darks, of the woman passerby, which I easily could have brought texture to, would have made the entire photo suffer, and instead it was proper to keep the darks here dark, rather than eeeking out some texture for the sake of creating tones where aesthetically blacks were required.

 

It's my artistic decision.

 

You should (and may) see some day the color version, which even though you may doubt it, seems just as or almost as strong, with just a touch of color, and the color being 'mirrored' from the shrouded woman, the snow and the umbrella -- shades of tan/brown which hold the photo together.

 

I won't post an in-line copy so I possibly can post another day.

 

Thanks for such kind, supportive words.  I live and shoot for such approval by those whose opinions (such as yours) matter to me.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

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I have correctly described the color version as being 'very strong' and perhaps the equal of this image - and also a little different it appears with more 'depth' and somewhat more complex because of the additional color and its favorable distribution.

 

I wrongly stated the woman's top was brown; it is purple/violet which contrasts heavily with the snow on to of it for excellent contrast.

 

The sidewalk is almost brown from slushiness even from fresh fallen snow, the umbrella held by the woman is a shade of tan/brown, and then,-- a point I entirely overlooked -- the walls of the bounding buildings, left, all have a brownish cast to them in this properly color balanced photo, and it is those browns and tans that seem to bind the scene together in the color version and provide a common vernacular different from this monochrome shot.  The color version is different, more complex somewhat, but still I think very, very good.  

 

Some day i'll post the color shot here or elsewhere; it's a shot to be proud of, so I won't be posting it in comments here now lest I steal its thunder, and it'll be a long time before the color version is posted -- maybe here or possibly on another service.  

 

Who knows?  

 

I don't even know until the exact moment my cursor falls on an image in one of my 500-image folders of unposted photos which one is going to be uploaded, and often there's considerable cross-talk within my head about the merits and demerits of each rival posting candidate thumbnail, and then sometimes, i'll see another photo not even in consideration seriously before, put my cursor on it, hit 'open', caption and submit it to posting.in an instant's whim . . . that's how haphazard my posting process is.

 

One thing:  I aspire to give viewers variety.

 

No one wants to look at the same tired version of 50 ways a photographer posed his girlfriend on their last date before he made moves on her, or how many ways one can photograph the same flower or bunch of flowers.

 

I know that this may place me in the realm of being a photo dilettante, but I like to work in various genres, and although I strain to post 'street' photos, I also strain to put the label 'street' on photos that others might call 'events', 'architecture', 'sports', and other categories, just to keep it simple.

 

I love street photography, but I'm far more than a 'street' photographer -- more so than my category/genre labels would reveal.

 

I've got a small number of wonderful blurry shots, some attributable to inability to hold a camera steady, others to being too optimistic about shooting in almost total darkness with a stopped down aperture, others from forgetting to change my ISO as I walked in from outdoors to indoors then saw something I really had to shoot and right THEN without a thought that the ISO might be set at 100 or 200 but the scene calls for 3200, but sometimes some of those shots instead of being garbage are the absolute best and most daring when they work out.

 

Others were planned.  All that really matters is that the image is a success or not.  

 

One great photographer from here, now on hiatus and I hope he comes back, posts only blurry photos, and he's a master whose work belongs in galleries.  I post blurry photos because I just like the ones I show you, or want your opinion, since I'm more 'reality' based.

 

I've other shots -- cityscapes, not many, that are wonderful.  Just a handful, but I'll put them up against work from any other member.

 

Portraits -- well, I've thousands of those, and some are as good as I could hope without substantial image editing (Photoshopping) or other manipulations, such as double exposure or other 'tricks' and relying only on single representational exposures -- even if that exposure is entirely of a shadow or a silhouette.

 

People seem to take my presence with a camera as an excuse in many cases to reveal parts of themselves that others who know them may never see.  I don't judge and only coax out that part -- because it helps bring life to people who know they're being photographed.

 

I've got an entire folder if I ever get to assembling it from various other folders, of 'silhouette' shots, so many that one fan has even assembled a blog of such shots from various services including this one.  

 

I hadn't realized until I saw the blog how many I had shot (or in some cases how effective or different from others' work they were).

 

The list of categories and genres goes on and on.

 

I have main principles.

 

Put four lines at right angles around the photo, or it won't be a photo.

 

Keep all the interesting stuff inside the frame.

 

Have a subject, and try to make that subject interesting, maybe from a geometric or compositional standpoint -- maybe from a sociological or other standpoint, or maybe from a variety of standpoints, as for instance this shot which combines compositional balance, vectors, and a strong sociological, emotion laden subject matter -- all the more interesting because for intents and purposes this woman beggar is nearly a silhouette, and if stretched, this image of her (excerpted) would fit in my 'silhouette' folder if I ever get around to assembling it.

 

We don't 'see' her, or the face we suppose she has, all distressed and frozen -- we are left to our own fertile imaginations . . . and the actuality does not even matter.  She could be a supermodel, but it matters not, because we'd never know, and of course we absolutely know what she looks like in our hearts and minds.

 

Try whenever possible for compositional balance, even if it means that things are not in symmetry. as compositional balance sometimes does and sometimes does NOT equal symmetry.  A centered subject may work out, against most instruction, especially if there's an element 'off center' perhaps to balance the composition, or keep it from being too placid or perhaps give it some tension, if helpful.

 

About not letting subjects stare out of the frame -- I disregard that supposed rule sometimes.  From time to time a photo is best served by letting a subject gaze out of the frame to who knows where?  Perhaps that's exactly the point of the photo?

 

I try to 'fill the frame' but that doesn't mean there's subject in every part of every frame; some frames are almost entirely empty with a subject mostly surrounded by 'nothing' or 'negative space' as photographers like to call it, which may call attention to and isolate the subject.  'Negative space' can be as important as 'positive space' in achieving compositional balance in some photos.

 

I do what Elliott Erwitt said he was most attracted to about this sort of photography he did and I now do -- all you need is a camera and a good pair of shoes - no studio or other overhead except (then) film a camera, and printing expenses, now just a camera and a computer in many instances with many serious photographers NEVER printing.  I haven't had a print made in years.  

Erwitt also emphasized the ability to 'see' or 'visualize' from the world around those things and isolate them in an interesting manner -- that's basically just a description of most photography, especially what we now call 'street' but which was not a name in common parlance when he and Cartier-Bresson were shooting, to my memory.

 

If you could see, the camera shutter was important to depress to record your vision.

 

My 'vision' is not a singularity except in one or two regards.

 

I am guided by Henri Cartier-Bresson who got it right and set the standard.

 

He was a master at 'instant drawing' as he called it, but in reality he just excelled at finding composition within the viewfinder, and wonderful composition at that.

 

Moreover, on many occasions, the very mercurial man (he was independently wealthy and could say whatever he wanted to just about anybody, and had to answer to no one), had the luxury and the patience coupled with the decisiveness to wait for the moment and to seize the moment with a press of the shutter at precisely the right moment (or to have the good sense not to show the ones in which he didn't.)

 

'SEE, he intoned, in a video' [paraphrased] saying there's nothing to photography at all.  

 

One just depresses the shutter.

 

Anyone can do it.

 

I'd like to be able to depress my shutter 1/100th as well as he, have 1/100th the great portfolio he created, and I think people would hail me as a great photographer.

 

As it is, I just practice, practice, practice.

 

And keep pressing the shutter.

 

Sooner or later with so many shots and some idea of what I'm doing, I'm bound to produce one or two good images.

 

I hope to have more to come.

 

Some may surprise you.

 

;~)))

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

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This photo has been very well received by both reviewers/critics and viewers alike, and I wondered why I could not see in advance or predict why the great warmth of the reception.

 

I think in part that it's not only in the message with the encrusted snow, partially broken where the woman beggar has moved a little big leaving cracks in the snow on her back, bringing forth viewer feelings of 'boy it must be cold', and also 'boy, she must be very, very hungry to be so still in that cold for so long'.  That's the emotional 'hook', and I knew it was a strong one.  

 

I counted on that.

 

But in many of my best compositions, there is 'geometry' or 'geometrical' underpinnings to their success, and viewers and me alike so far seem to count this as a 'successful' photo, so is their 'geometry' in the composition?  I think so.

 

So where and how?

 

If one looks at all the black/dark parts, then looks at the white, this is a figure of snow and snow/covered sidewalk, almost completely encased by the three lines of darkness -- one part being the almost straight line of the woman beggar, and the other two lines from other parts of the photos.

 

All in all, they the dark lines enclose a triangle of whiteness.

 

So, the hitherto (and unexplained to me) compositional element of this photo, is the dark elements that form the dark outlines of a triangle, and they enclose the snowy whiteness of the inner triangle.

 

To that is added the sociological and emotive content . . . . and the analysis is much more complete, somewhat more complex . . . and, to me, satisfying, because now I can explain what to me previously was unpredictable about 'why' this photo (and no others of beggars) was successful, and somewhat inexplicable based solely just based on 'subject matter'.

 

|Again, it seems it's subject matter and composition that forms the strength of this particular 'composition', and even raises it from being a 'mere photo' to a 'composition'.

 

The color version analysis is much the same, except it's got more browns in it, from her coloration, to the brownishness of the snow in front of her on the path with its slightly colored slush, all echoing the minimal brown cast of the building sides comprising the long line to the left, and then completed in the somewhat brownish faces of the far-off pedestrians (they show as 'brownish in this photo) for, in my mind at least, an even more complex photo to analyze.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

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Strong image that shows the cruelness of poverty. The people that passes her are not aware that they could be the next victims e.g. in a financial Ukrainian state collapse. There are people in Sweden that categorise this type of images as social pornography (shame on them).

 

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I've made many images depicting poverty, but few seem to resonate as well as this, in part because, I think of the image of bitter cold, and in part because, I think of good composition.

 

You make a good point about the Swedes.  They make a good life with their Socialist system -- they're taken care of from cradle to grave, and taxed accordingly.  Ukrainians are hardly 'taxed' at all, except the 'tax' of the oligarchs driving prices up on everything, and according to the new government, and analysts, the 'tax' of corruption, which also pushes prices up, for all but the privileged.

 

The rest be damned, or at least overlooked -- or perhaps a few hryvnia (grivna -- local currency), dropped in the hat, assuages guilt, if any exists, though I doubt.  Ukraine life is dog eat dog, and in general the Ukrainian people are kind, and kinder in business than neighboring Russians, but still a 'businessman is a businessman' and charity among big business is a new, mostly untested concept.

 

Social pornography takes the word pornography and stands it on its ear.  Pornography literally means 'should not be shown' because of some obsenity  depicted too great that it's deemed unworthy of being seen; I find nothing of the sort here, except those who willingly would turn a blind eye.

 

If that's a widely held Swedish view, my high view of the Swedes just went down several notches.

 

If true, for shame!

 

I depict truth, and as 'Jack Nicholson' famously cried in a courts martial in the movie 'Guantanamo' "If You Can't Stand the Truth . . . . "

 

Maybe, as you recount it, some Swedes would be like those three monkeys, and old their hands over their eyes.   I have no personal knowledge however, and rely on your statement.

 

Best to you, and thanks for an interesting comment (almost overlooked).

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

 

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A powerful image in both a social sense, and as a photograph in and of itself in terms of tonality, composition, and atmosphere.  Odd as it may seem to some, there is a kind of beauty to be found here, despite the heartbreaking condtion of the woman in the foreground.

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This photo does what all great photos should do and that is tell a story. Impeccably told. Wonderful job.
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Thanks for the critique and compliment.

 

I aim to take 'interesting photos'.

 

This is a relatively old photo, taken when I spent half of more of my time in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine.  This is Karl Marks (Karla Marx Ulitsa) Street., the main street in the center of Dniproetrovsk in its main shopping district.  It is primarily Russian speaking, but did not consider going with the East of Russia in joining 'The Separatists' to join with Russians against the Ukrainian state, and although most of the city speaks Russian, many or most who live nearby speak Ukrainian - such is life in Ukraine.

 

I hardly knew such things then, and they had not yet come to pass when in the cold I stood in a snowbank with snow pouring into my shoes to take this photo (and I remember it well).  

 

I had time to aim and focus which I often do not; I'm the king of the one second (or less) shot, and this shot gave me time to make a 'composition' out of the scene.  It also looks GREAT in color, with the trampled snow looking brown, same as the side of the building (and I recall her coat too?).

 

In any case, triangular shapes abound, she is alone, covered by snow and her aloneness is accentuated by the wet snow accumulating on her back, barely cracked by her small movements, and contrasted of course by the passersby.

 

I only took one photo -- just one of many that day and others, but this one proved to have resonance.  It's funny, you take hundreds or thousands and one has resonance.  Cartier-Bresson maybe would just have taken this one and passed up on the rest perhaps, but then he did not shoot digital either and film was expensive with no auto shooting.

 

Part of shooting 'interesting' photos Cartier-Bresson taught us all, is to try to shoot for good composition, and this I think has good composition with a strong diagonal, a strong triangular shape defined,  and she is isolated within one of them, setting her apart and emphasizing her aloneness (together with that unbroken snow on her back).

 

Thanks for the analysis and the pat on the back.  

 

I just take 'em and post 'em . . . it takes a talent like yours to tell me sometimes to tell me which ones 'work' and which ones fail.  This one also should be seen in color -- I am sure you'd like it.  The colors work well and the composition is unbroken and is helped by the color, which is not always the case.

 

Best to you, Steve. Come back more often.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

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You have said in very few words, what helps elevate this photo above the mundane photos I take and other photos.

 

As Steve Gubin notes above, there can be beauty in such starkness and such an unhappy subject, and I attribute that to showing it well and with good composition.

 

I wish that all my photos could be so.

 

Alas, that was something that Cartier-Bresson, maybe, held an exclusive franchise on.

 

Thanks for the kind evaluation.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

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