'Last of the Old Time Service Station Mechanics'

This aging mechanic is hard at work on an auto mechanical problem with two vises

grips and a broken mechanical part clamped in a vise, high energy lamp overhead.

He seems oblivious to his cluttered mechanic shop surroundings in his service

station repair shop in a what may be one of the last of the old fashioned gas

stations -- this situated high on the edges of one of the Western US's tallest

mountains, in northern California. Your 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

Use the link to my home page or this link, which is an alpha numeric link which may change into another sort of link (not under my control) to my portfolio on ImageBrief.com, which shows several views in color of this guy, which are licensable; and maybe compare the color with the black and white versions, and maybe compare color with black and white.

http://www.imagebrief.com/photographers/john-271#/portfolio

john

John (Crosley)

Ah, A man after our own hearts! Many of his tools are very familiar! Including the SS bowl- but we do use ours for salads :)

We checked out your web site and found the photos very interesting.

Thanks for posting!   G+V

Just to get the fabulous detail in this man's shop clutter.  You may use that stainless steel bowl for salads, but he has an 'original' use for it, but they're both equal in my mind as the bowl is absolutely multi-functional.

This man, extremely hard of hearing, was a man after my own heart.  Reluctant at first to my intrusion, I told him I would exit in five to seven minutes and maybe take some fabulous shots, which I am not sure he heard  . . . . just he wondered, where could he see them . . . . and I said the 'Internet' and he lost interest in talking since he could barely hear even with devices on his good ear or both ears and went back to his task with this a standard/tele shot, then others with a standard/tele and standard super tele shot all at super low shutter speeds, but he was moving slowly, and I had latest equipment with very high ISO capability so I just jacked up the ISO and got what I think is quite good quality.

I stopped to ask directions and walked out with what I hope are some great photos -- it pays to be a little 'lost' and to stop at the most 'old-looking' place that appears habited around, when you have a camera and as always a dual intent (find your direction (a little gas) and always, always, always be prepared for great photos.

Whether this is 'great or passable is up to judges to decide, but it passes my test -- when I grew up most 'service stations' actually had younger mechanics who worked like this man -- no computers, and in fact, no vise grips (they weren't invented so far as I know).  (great devices!)

I'm glad you looked at my portfolio, just some 1,200 of 12,000 images on that site.

john

John (Crosley)

We always enjoy your pics as well as the stories with them. We always "look large"  :) Thanks for bringing us into your world.

I just write what I please and take the photos that please me.

I'm just now going through photos (again) from the years 2004-5 and also sets from 2006-7 and finding that I was a much better photographer then than I ever gave myself credit for  -- I was shooting a style then that was 'street', 'color' and also things that work well for 'stock agencies' which I had worked for at one small time in my life, and I do mean a very short period.  That is to say, I waltzed into a New York office of an agency that represented some famous name pros, but they also solicited amateurs (and I was one), they had a list of subjects they were interested in, and if you had color transparencies, they wanted those only.

They went through my transparencies I deemed worthy of showing and picked a great number which frankly was less than 60, but over the years they sold almost every one, and as my career skyrocketed, I never shot for them again but at earthshattering prices from the middle hundreds to the thousands of dollars.

Later this mom and pop shop was acquired by an outfit that went microstock, then it went bankrupt, it returned my photos, but they turned out to be someone else's and some clerk should have been fired, but liquidating photos to their original photographers in a bankruptcy action has got to be the lowest of the low jobs and attract the least motivated, least talented bodies, who could care less.  

So, I got in a packet with some photos of Philadelphia -- just a few -- which I had never shot, and someone got some treasures of mine which I had.  They'll never be seen again, though the transparency frames had my name on them.

I learned a lesson then about backing up and that has turned into an obsession. Nothing gets uploaded without three sets of backups then two sets fo the cloud within two weeks on two different services for 'worked up' photos. I've heard too many stories of GREAT photographers and angry girlfriends throwing priceless prints out upstairs windows in rainstorm onto lawns, a member here lost precious photos (and I do mean he was a top member)when his household moved and business prevented his supervising - the negs were never seen again, he lamented, and so forth.

And who'd ever have dreamed that G and V Sava double clicked on everything I post unless they told me so.

That's a complete and welcome surprise.  I'll have to be much more careful on my 'selecting' before Photoshopping now that I know my work is getting such close inspection!

Lots of what I produce goes onto my approx 45 hard drives never to be seen again, but I'm reviewing those frame by frame and finding wonderful stuff -- some so sophisticated I now wonder how I ever 'saw' those photos, but they were just part of the mix.  I then did not crop or even understand the magic of some of my frames, or some frames could be 'saved' by judicious photoshopping especially when in NEF but I didn't then have the skills.  Now I do.   Those old photos are interspersed in my present output here.

When I first came to Photo.net, nobody would write about their secret little techniques for producing their work; it was all a secret that could not be revealed lest someone 'steal' the magic of their work.  I believe just the opposite.  I think NOBODY can steal the essence of the way I SEE, and I'm happy to share any so-called 'secrets' I have.

In other words, my snoot is not in the air about 'how I do it' -- and for that matter, I  don't comment on lesser work because who am I to say that today's lousy photo commented on derisively might discourage some great artist in his first post.   Who am I to judge?  I've also made a career here of NOT commenting or rating, as I came here at a time of 'mate-rating' and by not rating, no one could accuse me of mate-rating, either for or against, as that once was rampant.  

I got well know here for being honest, and also for some pretty long posts on 'how' to do this or that -- especially how to approach subjects -- there's a great book in here on the 'how to' of street shooting or just normal every day outdoor shooting and 'how to get along with a camera in a photo environment'.

All I need to do it excise, cut, and paste, then rewrite to re-author that book, and I think I will do just that, with photo examples.  I think that's part of the reason you read these things to find out the 'how and where' of the photos, and I'd like to write a book for others who do not want to read these 18,500 comments to find out.

I'll bet it would be a 'trade book' (bookstore) or online good seller and required reading in journalism, street shooting and other photo classes or at least recommended reading.

A friend of mine (a colleague at least) long ago when he was a hippie lawyer) wrote 'Finding and Buying Your Place in the Country'.  A quick Google.com search says Les Scher's perennial, written with his now wife, has sold 200,000 copies to date, many before e-books were ever a thought in man's mind and sold then for big, bookstore prices, year in, year out.

I'm sure the copyright has been valuable to him.

I take trouble especially for what I write here that's essential to 'street shooting' to put the copyright mark after my most trenchant words (and all photos), so nobody can purloin my words (or photos) and claim authorship or public domain.  © 2016, John Crosley/Crosley Trust, all rights reserved, No reproduction or other use without express prior written permission from copyright holder.

People may think I'm crazy or stingy as that appears under each of my photos everywhere, but I practiced law, and I know the power of claiming what already is there automatically and worry aboutproposed legislation that would put 'orphaned' works (photos for whom it's claimed the authorship can not be determined) would be in the 'Public domain'.

I guard against that, though that's not present law and you owncopyright from the moment you press the shutter, but you can file for additional copyright protection as well that gives you fearsome leverage over those who would steal your work.  At any one time at least 38 blogs have 'stolen' my work, but they always spell my name right, and it's too expensive and hard to sue them all!

If I'm ever sidelined, that's a book already written, just due for a cut, paste and rewrite job.

And maybe a lifetime annuity?

;~))

Thanks for kind words.

john

John (Crosley)

When I promised this man I'd be in his shop only a few short minutes, that was a promise I intended to keep.

Often in street shooting I get one chance to take a shot, and that shot must count.  I took one the other day:  I spied the shot, turned away to ensure my camera was set properly, wheeled about, raised camera to eye level, framed and shot in one motion and got the shot, all in less than a second.  It was beautiful - a keeper in both color and black and white.  I'll post it as among my best.

Street shooting is great discipline for the ability to deliver.  One has to know one's capabilities, and one's equipment and what one can do with the two together in very limited circumstances.

Sure there are a huge number of misses in street, but it translates into ability to take photos (and adjustments) on the fly, as here, where I had to make complex setting adjustments to accommodate the adverse lighting, chimp early shots, and then shoot away, both with a short/tele lens on one camera then a medium -- long tele on another to get close up.  Street shooting is great training, and no one knows if you fllubbed one or a hundred because no one sees except the very best.

Then, when one comes on an old fashioned setting like this (now it's old fashioned, then when I was a youth it was 'just the way things were'), one can make a promise, of shooting in a few short minutes 'then I'll be out of here' and know you can keep that promise.

Street shooting is great training, and I"d recommend it even for the studio shooter, since you have to deal with light from all sources, even conflicting sources instead of creating light and moving it around.

Voila, if you can shoot 'street', I feel except for things that require extensive Photoshopping, you can shoot almost anything.

My theory at least.

john

John (Crosley)

:-->

I entered this shop; this guy was hard of hearing, but I conveyed to him I would take my photos (lots of them it turned out) and be out of there in short time.

I kept my word and ended up with what I think are fine, timeless photos.

I felt good about keeping my word; and in return this guy actually had to be reminded when I left that indeed I had been photographing as I disturbed him to say 'goodbye!'

This is where mastery of your equipment comes in super handy, and also the art of 'street shooting' when you must take photos in a fraction of a second which I did, but in a long series,. nearly all of them good, landscape and portrait, color and b&w.

Win Win!

He was not bothered; I got what I wanted and quickly.

Best to you.

John (Crosley)