'The Unexpected Meeting'

A woman gets on the subway/metro, unexpectedly runs into a dear friend, and

this is her reaction. 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

Cheers

PDE

Good timing....

All the best!!!!

Yes, indeed, this is a photo that hardly needs explanation; the wonder is capturing such an elusive moment without stationing oneself at what used to be an easy place -- the aircraft arrival gate -- now a place where the arriving passengers are screened from the greeters by airport security.  Back then, such captures were easy to anticipate, but this, well, this was completely unexpected, but was 'telegraphed' by their introductory sounds and emotive movement of arms before the big embrace.

Luckily for me, I had three or four frames of outstretched arms before this frame; I'm quick, and often sound and/or commotion is a great giveaway of 'something happening' that helps make a good alert.

Thanks for a kind comment.

Best wishes.

john

John (Crosley)

I'm pretty quick at my timing, and if you read above, you can see this one was 'telegraphed' by prior commotion.

In any case, stories of back stories are of little point if there is no good photo to accompany, and in this case, the woman's delighted face carries the day, and frankly, it's a wonder anyone commented at all; the photo is so self-explanatory.

On the other hand, look at the guy, left.  I had a chance to zoom to capture just the women by moving forward and instead made a conscious decision to keep the disinterested man in the frame for artistic reasons.  It just felt better that way.

Thanks for your comment and letting me know your thoughts.

john

John (Crosley)

Very nice catch.  A memorable, high energy moment for the two ladies vs.  The Bored Guy.  Excellent exposure and composition.  I'd suggest cropping a bit off the right edge, to but the backpack needs to be complete.  Nice job!

John,

As in some of your other works, the gazes of human subjects not only become focal points by themselves, but redirect the viewer's attention to other focal points. Here also, I first notice the man on the left, then follow his line of sight to the hugging buddies. Kudos for catching such an awesome moment. I also can't stop noticing the orientations (and the inherent harmony) of the three hands. The man's hand forms an interesting angle with the leftmost lady's arm, which in turn is in rhythm with her other hand. The contrasting shades of attire of the three major characters add a balance to the composition (light dress in the middle with darker shades on both sides). Lastly, the overall slant of the horizon is in line with the dynamism of the moment. The lady's joyous expression gives the illusion of motion despite the fact that the image is a still photo. The man's composed but alert gaze is similar to that of a movie goer, who is enjoying the joyous unification but from a distance from outside the silver screen. Being from the Los Angeles area, where the metro forms a part of daily life, this scene is little bit of a dejavu to me, and to many others I suppose.

Thank you for such a very high compliment; this one seems to connect with so many it's overwhelming for a guy who takes so many simple photos lusting to catch 'the moment' and in fact does catch 'that moment' but in so many more subtle ways.

As to a right crop, this indeed has a slight right crop, to cut off the face of the woman, right, whose face was directed out of the frame, pulling attention away from the center, but that's about as far as I'll go; I'm quite leery of cropping, especially a photo so intense as this.  In this case, more seems to be better so long as nothing pulls viewers' attention away from the action.  

Thanks for a very helpful and welcome critique.

john

John (Crosley)

Supriyo,

Your comment is outstanding and so far above the regular course of usual comments that I am going to let it stand as is and direct others to read it in hopes they will be able to see as much as your discerning eye can see.

It's another way of saying 'I can't say it better myself, so why say it at all and leave it to someone better able to say it.'

Congratulations (again), and thanks.

john

John (Crosley)

By the way, Ukrainians are notoriously reserved, and to see a scene such as this makes me enormously privileged, let alone capturing it as it has occurred right in front of me.

jc

Great capture.  I agree with all the previous comments - love the relationship of the hands, the bored look on the man's face, the elation of the women.  I also agree that the half girl on the right is a bit distracting and you could either crop more of her away or perhaps darken the right side a bit so the attention falls on the 3 main subjects.  The only other criticism I have is that "I wish I had taken this shot!".  

So much joy and passion in her face- so much ennui in his- what a moment caught! You must  be quick on the shutter :)

Yes, I am quick on the shutter.  Indeed I had three or four frames BEFORE this capture as they recognized each other and vocalized their excitement, causing me to start firing away.

My first instinct when I hear noise in a crowd in to aim my camera and if I see anything at all, to press the shutter and hope.  Here the hope was fully realized several frames later.  ;~))  I even had time to compose all of my captures!  Others are view worthy, but just not up to this standard, one with arms flying as the embrace is about to take place.

It's nice to get your feedback; thanks so much for the compliments.

john

John (Crosley)

In the words of a friend then who was a Lucie Award winner, People use Photoshop  because they can, not because it's necessarily the best thing.  He was lamenting it's too often overused.  He was preaching to the choir, as I use it minimally, and 'darkening' an area is something I might do to 'save' a bad capture, but for this one, no such way!

I very much appreciate your compliments.  I remember Elliott Erwitt (three times head of Magnum Agency)'s famous quote about how he got so many great photos, explaining it to a woman at a cocktail party: 'Madam, f8 and be there,'

I just happened to be there (as I have a habit of doing)

Luck favors the well prepared, and my camera always is preset for the exposure conditions and possible zoom range . . . . making my choices far fewer and my reactions far quicker.

So, I guess you might say, I'm just well prepared, and while others are taking off their lens caps, I've got the photo and am looking around for the next one!

Best to you, and thanks.

john

John (Crosley)

John,  Excellent image - even though there's lots of clutter in this image, your terrific handling of the focal subjects make what otherwise could be clutter just blended background.  Larry

Yes, there may be 'clutter' or better yet, 'detail'.   This photo's strong message seems able to overcome any such minor things, and in fact they give verisimilitude to the scene, I think.

Thanks for the able and kind comment.

john

John (Crosley)

It's often easy to make a suggestion 'crop this' or 'crop that', and one thing or another may detract somewhat or a bit more, but unless something is really wrong with a capture, my feeling is it's best to avoid crops whenever possible UNLESS the crop is to save the photo because of problems of aiming, problems in capturing the essence because a lens frame or zoom range is just inadequate to put a frame around the essentials, something very, very distracting is occurring at the side of a frame that absolutely needs to be eliminated because it pulls the eye out of the frame, or similar things.

Those are instances in which cropping I feel may be quite justified, but there is something that those who casually suggesting cropping often overlook, or at least they never (in my memory) have mentioned.

That is each photo has an aspect ratio, and to crop a side of a photo not only moves the 'center' of the photo to one side or another, but the aspecr ratio (ratio of side to length) is essential to the composition.  

So, if one is to crop a 2:3 aspect ratio photo, that may end up with the photo aspect ratio being cockeyed and throwing off composition.

It may be that in such a crop the aspect ratio can be made to match another format such as 3:4 or 4:5 in which case a crop may not detract so much from a photo, and when I crop, I try to match one of the common aspect ratios.

If one has a necessary or desirable crop, my feeling is it's desirable to crop by moving the corner in while the aspect ratio is fixed to see if that does the trick, and preserves the aspect ratio.  That can easily be done in Adobe Camera Raw, first setting the aspect ratio before a crop by setting the fixed ratio at 2:3, then 4:5 or 3:4 and doing a crop from a corner.  

If this doesn't result in the bottom or top of the frame being cut off too much, and a crop really is desirable, this may in my mind be the best way of handling a crop, because the end result very well may look just as it were framed in a camera, and the result is more likely to be a pleasing composition.

I know of one famed photographer who shot all his works for  books, exhibitions, galleries and advertising and ALWAYS shot to crop later, but he shot with a Hasselblad (square format camera) and there is not much one can always do with a square format -- it's just harder to work into a composition, though not impossible.  Also he shot woman and fashion, and shot 'large' knowing he'd crop.

I shoot with a 2:3 format, and if necessary, I will crop, but i dislike doing so, unless for a very good compositional reason, and when I do so, I first try the method described above . . . it just looks better.  

It isn't always so, but it's my first preference.

If one is hip shooting or shooting a scene suddenly and has no chance to frame, then cropping may absolutely be necessary.

But this is my NINTH frame of these two women in two seconds, taken with a 24 megapixel but pretty inexpensive camera . . . . and a kit lens with V.R.

My feeling now, after years of using all sorts of expensive and exotic equipment is use what is in your hands and 'get the shot!'

Of course, frame it if you can, as I did here.  Avoid 'hip shooting' unless giving away shooting may jeopardize your safety, or there's just no time to move the camera to eye level.

I had a choice to include or exclude the passive gent at left and chose to leave him in -- from the start of the 9 frames  and in all of them, he's in the frames, because he helped 'tell the story'.

I was awake and alert enough to understand that, luckily, because I happened to be looking that way, hearing the commotion even as these women boarded the train and thus I was able to start framing and firing.

This is NOT a one off.

This is frame no. 9, but frankly the only really good one of the bunch.  (Others were post-worthy, but none were 'memorable' as this one seems to be).

You just gotta keep pushing that shutter release until you get 'the PHOTO!'.  

Don't be afraid to 'work the subject' if you're not successful at the first shot or even later.

john

John (Crosley)

In my humble opinion, guy at the left actually made a picture....his expression is good enough for a standalone picture ie. You can even crop out these two women away...but all together is what makes this picture great! 

All the best!!!!

Frankly, I'm more than astonished by the number of views this photo has achieved.

I disagree that the man, left, is post worthy on his own, but do agree that he is extremely important to the photo as a whole; without him this is a photo of an expression and nothing more, but with him, it's a 'story' or 'narrative' to use a more popular term.

In any case, I've taken photos as skillful or even much more so, but without the great expression on the woman's face, and they excelled in rates at times, but in views fell somewhat average or even didn't do well.

As I've said from the outset of my membership, the ratings have some serious defects, but overall they work pretty well, and same with 'views' and number of rates.  This is a pretty good proving ground for 'popularity' of a photo if one is looking to determine whether a particular photo will appeal to photo aficionados, and I use it as that when preparing books (I've done one and have five finished and a sixth almost ready, but high cost is preventing their being published.

They're available in PDF format, but need page numbering, copyright notices,  and text, but the photos are first rate and the layouts are pretty darn good -- both color and black and white.  It's a hobby of mine to make them, but the software I use limits to 76 pages each -- a total of 76 photos at one per page.

I'm loathe to publish electronically for fear they'll end up on file sharing services, and frankly I'd like to see them consolidated into one great volume or two -- maybe one in color and one in black and white.

It took great skill and great depth of material to create juxtapositions across each two-page spread, whether in theme, composition, or whetever, and one has to hunt for what is the source of that juxtaposition when one views the two page spreads in these books.

In any case, it costs nearly $200 to publish just one copy on photo paper, and although I can download PDFs and even recreate them via Blurb or some other service the do it yourself web services of Adoramapix.com are simply great for creating books compared to other software I've used.

If I had a greater budget, the books would be published; they're essentially done, four of them at least with a fifth in final stages.

john

John (Crosley)

Oh, and I'm finally starting that book on 'street shooting, with is a distillation of advice given on this service from the nearly 19,000 comments contained here and the 200 plus pages of comments under my portfolio in which I've written about the 'art' of street shooting'.

jc

The man is hoping they will be getting off at the next stop.

Well made comment.

You made me laugh.

Points for you.

john

John (Crosley)

John, your fine shot popped up again in my comment followup, I enjoyed it yet again. Best, Sandy