'The Fail'

Not everything is a bed of roses for this tired cyclist who first sat on the small

wall, then laid back onto the grass for a smoke when a fellow youth came by

and decided to apply a little pedal power of his own -- to our bicyclist's face!

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

rate harshly, 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

A masterpiece, John. Your images continue to amaze us, just when we think we have got the best ever. Although many people will say that photos don't need description, I like to read your fluid commentaries accompanying your images. This one is no exception. A story that is at its most dramatic moment, but not without the anticipation of an aftermath. The bike and its owner are nicely separated by the embankment. Both are supine, on the ground, although the bike seems to have a better luck than its poor owner. I can't help but notice the orientational similarity between the bike and the kid. Both with hands (or handles) outstretched. The converging lines created by the bike and the legs of the unseen character lead the attention squarely onto the main protagonist. His bright bare skin and the dark pants of his assailant create the contrast that only uplifts the scene. lastly, one just wonders how this will end. Will the victim overpower his assailant and return the honor vested in him, or leave it for a future opportunity. 

This one, and your last one at the felafel place depict the humor of day to day life in the most raw unbiased way. No anchor of culture or context or space time necessary to enjoy such images. I can place them anywhere, now or the fourteenth century, in a park in New York, or a street in India, and they will have the same appeal. That's how we can call such images timeless.

You call my photo 'a masterpiece' yet it is your critique that is the masterpiece, and I commend all who view this photo to read it for a full understanding of one major critic's (and person with superb understanding of my photos) to take in this photos fine points, from your point of view.  In other words, I endorse your critique, and will simply remain quiet from here on out about what you say; you said it better.

This photo was taken with an earlier digital slr, after dark with a not-so-sensitive low light sensor, and suffers one might say in quality for the lack of clarity in the youths' sharpness, not only because they're out of focus, but because they're out of sensor range slightly and not so well depicted in the original or even here.

But many of my greatest photos were taken with similar cameras, only not where detail might be important, and the next question is whether detail in that aspect of the photo is important, or whether seeing the outlines of the action is sufficient in itself; e.g., lying down cyclist with cigarette has other youth's (cigarette in hand) with that youth's foot in his face.

I passed over this photo in earlier times because of lack of clarity.  New clarity was possible because this was a NEF (raw) capture and improvement lately to my Photoshop skills through Photoshop 15 latest version AND Google's recent free distribution of the NIK plug-ins have made working on this photo to best completion a possibility and a reality.  

Without both, it might have been unviewable  

Thanks, Adobe, for which I pay a license, and thanks Google, which gave me the plugs (and you too if you want) for free.  

Wow! Great Plug-Ins, for free, and not just great, superb!  My understanding is Google bought a company for some other product, found themselves with owning a dead-end product and bought some goodwill just by giving away a product they no longer saw having major profit potential -- the Nik software company.  (correct me if I'm wrong).  

In the process, they bought from me major goodwill as I heretofore, for eight years have not used plug-ins since the advent of 64-bit processing.  Older plug-ins were pirated and none were found that fit a 64-bit system.

That left arm with the cigarette on the standing guy and the tone of the grass were both important to the photo and in Photoshop conversion to B&W, it was impossible to separate the two sufficiently, so a major point of the photo was lost; with Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 plug-in, that was accomplished with ease and voila.

I frequently save better photos that do not show well in hopes photo software will improve, or my Photoshop or editing skills will improve (or I can afford to do commercial editing as I once had done).  Time has born out this practice as having been sound.

In any case, Supriyo B. regardless of any naysayers who may appear, and regardless of today's presently low score (in my view), this is one of my outstanding photos.

Partly it's because this started out as a photo about composition; see the placement of the bike and the supine youth with cigarette.

Then as I was framing the shot, along came the guy with shoe who shoved it into my subject's face.  You can't ask for a better shot than that!  That was a day where the photo Gods smiled.  

For a view of the color version (as good or better) see the link to my home page portfolio.  

Or copy and paste this link and have a look for the color version.  Right now the color version is at page 3, top, but the page numbers are dynamic and under the numbering system at present it will get progressively farther from the front with time.

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

That link is to my color (primarily) photo portfolio on ImageBrief.com where there are many photos that do not warrant posting for critique but licensing is potentially salable plus many photos I just haven't had a chance to post, color versions of black and white favorites (I post primarily B&W here, but they almost all are shot originally in color and the color shots can be almost the same or look quite different).  It's worth a looksee to compare).

There are over 1-1/4 thousand photos just under my portfolio there, which I am sure must drive ImageBrief crazy, but it's a great showcase for the day-to-day shooting I engage in -- some of it long ago and showcasingma 'new look' for my work.

And get this; some of the work they're choosing to give top or special exposure to in their Global Marketplace where their best stock work is shown is work that I often uploaded 'on a whim' not at all sure that anyone would be interested at all . . . .

If they can sell those, they're selling the squeal from my butchered hog.

Or their cultured editors' eyes are seeing things I just passed over.

!!!!!

john

John (Crosley)

:--] !

This is part of a series on 'fails' which in my nearly 2,300 photos posted here, one can find about three or four others.

Imagine the good timing (and luck) to capture not only the composition but the exact moment when the assailant, left, puts his foot on the recliner, right/center, in (I hope) mock combat.  I have a similar photo from La Boca, Camanita, Buenos Aires, Argentina, to show that such mock vanquisher behavior is not confined to this circumstance.

And, for that matter, imagine any puppy rolling over to expose its belly to a superior dog, male or female, when threatened, in a gesture of complete submission -- submissive gestures are not just limited to humans, apparently and may be 'hard wired' into higher mammalian species.

Best wishes,

john

John (Crosley)