new -- color & b&w 'Tiredness'

It's been a long day making Middle Eastern type fare for passersby at the local central

train station for throngs, and now this pair (see reflection) gets a rare break. Your

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

or 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

Fantastic!!

I searched through 3,000 to 5,000 postworthy photos from this year and late last in search of something that I thought would uphold good photo values and came up with this.

Your endorsement means a great deal to me; this is a rare capture but on a posting the day prior to Thanksgiving in the USA, views and ratings are very hard to come by -- something I hadn't counted on.  I post to let others see and give me their opinions, good or bad, and literally had to sweat an hour just to get five views after posting and hours to get three rates.

I can do different, but I don't think better, despite the subjects.

Best to you and thanks.

john 

John (Crosley)

P.S. The last photo posted was from 11 years ago, almost; I can sit on the good ones for a while before I recognize their worth, sometimes.  jc

Hi John,

Many of my best shots were obtained by sifting through stuff taken years back.

What I find interesting here is the split expression on the man's face. He was into something else when your camera distracted him and his one eye is looking at you while the other one is still engrossed in his 'thought'.

Often times, street photography is about capturing human actions stealthily, where the camera is a mere observer. Here (and in several of your other images), the camera is interacting with the human and we are seeing his reaction on screen. His alertness to the camera's presence is creating the interesting perspective here. This is what makes this shot exceptional I think.

An ill-considered remark - 'the day prior to Thanksgiving in the United States'.  It was a week early, but I was judging by the amount of Black Friday mail in my e-mail box, not the calendar; my apologies.

I guess my photo was just uninteresting to initial viewers; no excuses.

john

John (Crosley)

Besides the 'split expression' which you so aptly pointed out, there are several other compositional devices working in this photo's favor, which I will attempt to explain at a later time if no one comments on them in the meantime.  I prefer to let commenters have a stab at it first, and sometimes they come up with ideas I absolutely never would consider, and can be right on.

Thanks, and be patient.  If I don't post remarks, feel free to remind me after two weeks.

john

John (Crosley)

The other compositional aspects: let me guess. Three persons, busy in their own worlds, disconnected from each other, still sharing the same space. The three characters are aligned in a perfect line, as highlighted by the straight countertop. An overall atmosphere of humor and easiness surrounds the scene.

 The curved panel in the background is in perfect harmony with the emphasized curves of the person's hand from the wide angle and also serves as a framing around the main character's head. I think this is a very effective compositional feature here.

Since two weeks have passed, may be you can provide some comments on this work now.

Thanks,

Supriyo

I wrote a very long, detailed and I think exhaustive analysis that I was proud of, copied it before posting, then posted it and found my Internet connection was 'terminated' at the moment.  I went on to other things, and in the process used the 'copy' function, thereby erasing the text of my comment.  I'll write another along similar lines and post it, today or as soon as I have an hour or two, as it was a task (but one I liked), that was time consuming, and I don't just want to take my misfortune and replace a really good comment with something that is not as good or just a space filler -- your patience deserves better, and my observations I think were worth sharing for somebody interested like you. 

john

John (Crosley)

I wrote you previously that I wrote a long evaluation of this photo and it got lost in the ether,, and possibly I'd try again, but it was long and the job took hours, so here's another try.

Look at how many subjects there are in this photo.  How many do you count?  Three?

Look again. There are two indiivduals, but three subjects, with the mirror (zircola) on the wall reflecting Picassoesque two sides of one individual, the far one, so you can see him from two views.  In a two dimensional world, withoujt more, you and other viewers might easily assume he's a separate individual, and for photo purposes of spacing, perhaps he is a separate individual.  That's the magic of photogrraphy.

Not only is spacing important for the 'three' individuals (actually two), but look at the trays of condiments for the felafel in the window -- evenly spaced out, for a stab at parallelism with a vanishing point, and so there are two vanishing points -- the men (two or three) and the condiments too,

And the arrangements of heads and arms bear a close look:  First man, fatigued, supports his head with his right arm up and left arm folded.

Second distinct man uses his left arm to pinch his nose in a classic fatigue position with a folded right arm also indicating fatigue.  But his mirror assumes another, hunchback pose, where the arms do not play such an important role - they are in his 'front' -- it's the same guy, but to the casual viewer, it's really the third indivudual.

So, there's an up down, up down quality to the heads and arms of the individuals in this photos which further emphasize their droopiness and fatigue which i find fascinating and tried my best in a split second to capture.   I'm in the photo too, as the subject of the leftmost man's weary gaze, as in 'who are you and why are you bothering me?' but it's really a friendly gaze, as he's not at his most chipper trying to sell me a felafel as the guidebook would dictate, but 'oh, you, I know you, and we're friendly enough that I don't have to assume a company stance of false chipperness and can 'be myself' for you since we've seen each other so many times' and this is the real me.

And this is what you see, the real 'me' of two and then 'three' individuals, but composed of two men, almost chain linked together.

It's not just two (or three men) but it's a design, that's a little complicated or complex, but for me it works and I think on reflection, for you maybe also.

I'm happy with this work, and it's made better by the weary face of the leftmost subject.

This is a not a 'hit you over the top of your head it's so clear' composition, but as you noted, it seems to work, and I'm proud of it.

Thanks for having the patience to await anther try at my evaluation, however deficient.

john

John (Crosley)

In my previous and deleted comment, I also remarked on the rhythm or cadence of the figures, up, down, up, down, etc. and the same with the condiments for Middle Eastern Fare behind the sneeze guard.

john

John (Crosley)

John,

Kudos to you for writing such a detailed commentary, for not many here would bother to spend time to educate the viewers about such an engaging composition.

My gut reaction to this picture was that, it simply works. I couldn't fully explain in words why, but after reading your account I realize that the unique perspective created by the three subjects (or two) converging to a vanishing point plays a major role in my aesthetic judgement. However what intrigues me now is the mirror on the right which I completely missed. It's as if the person on the right is so amused by his own reflection, that he has turned away from himself, fatigued and overwhelmed by sudden bout of laughter. The atmosphere is relaxed, at the same time there is this feeling of weirdness, because the viewer cannot take part in their joke since he is clueless why they are laughing. However the viewer is definitely curious, which holds his attention to the image.

the scene is reminiscent of a theatrical performance. The person on the left behaves as if an actor is facing the fourth wall. The audience is of course the photographer here, and if there is a fifth wall beyond the camera, that would be me.

Thank you for remembering our old conversation and writing the commentary.

But to you, no fault at all.  I actually feel an obligation, and further, I left something out of my supplementary self-critique above.

Not only is there a sort of rhythm to the figures in this photo, but ALL the figures are a sort of rhythmic fugue in fatigue (try saying that four times in a row rapidly).

Think of finding by chance two guys lined up hangdog tired, then a figure of a third (actually a reflection as noted) also completely of course hang dog tired too, equally spaced or rhythmically spaced enough almost so that one could form not only a visual composition but if transposed into music, a musical or keyboard composition.

One can imagine playing the score of this photo, couldn't one, with its highs and lows and the clef being I suppose treble in the key of yogurt sauce and sliced, pickled onions accompanied by a touch of heartburn.

There was this of something akin to this and more in the accidentally deleted (slip of the fingers) previously authored critique, that I felt a necessity to work it up again, because this is not an ordinary photo, though it may well appear 'ordinary' to the casual viewer.  To me, it has special compositional values.  

john

John (Crosley)

Note that this, like many of my more close-up photos, involves not only you behind the mirror as the fifth wall, but I am in a hidden plane directly in front of this guy, and he's reacting to me, the photographer, just as so many of my more wide angle subjects are. He's either surprised by me, he's allowing me the space, or he's not going to the energy to get excited enough to drive me away, and in fact knows me enough to know if I'm an 'intruder', I'm no real threat so he expends no energy vamping for the camera or mock chasing me away.  He just 'is', and I have a good enough shot.

I play an important part in many of my photographs taken more up close, though you almost never will see me depicted.  That's because I don't hide, except in plain view, nor do I seldom hide my equipment; I just walk around, camera(s) around my neck, one in my hand frequently enough that most ignore me eventually, and when action presents itself, I will just move into view regardless of the consequences if the view is good enough and there is no danger.  The greater the view, the more I'm willing to expose myself and my photo-taking intentions.

There you have it, probably the end of the addenda.

john

John (Crosley)