'Life's Contrasts'

A hunchbacked (osteoporotic) old man walks painfully one way, and in the far

background a sprightly young women lightly strides in another direction, for a symbolic

view of life's contrasts. . 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

defiantly a life contrast here, both are booking to their destination. I like the tree on the right serving as a natural frame for this piece and the frame for that tree points its corner out to lead our eye, well thought out my friend 

Youth and Age....could be described as "just different sides of the same street" and here is the poignant visual example. 

Excellent! 

Alf 

Maybe too much space left on the right, John?!

However, very good life photo as always!

Cheers

I also allow comments on my pics!

PDE

Is a photo caught in right moment and contrast life as you say is what catch viewer attention,very good snapshot.About right part,me too I think I would remove it,just another opinion.

Any amount of time would be worth this moment of juxtaposition.  Well composed, John.

Your critique is flattering and far more well thought out than my photo.

I agree almost completely with the compositional points you make, in spite of the call of two critics below for less space at the right.  I think the spacing is perfect for the sudden occurrence.

And sudden it was.

This was as near 'spray and pray' as one can imagine, not so 'well thought out' as you give me credit for.

First I spied the old man, thin and with a can walking rather fast for his lameness down the broad, park like esplanade, and noting he had well-pressed suit and was 'businesslike and old enough to have  been a Soviet official, it was clear I had to take his photo, so I began to focus and tried to take a couple of photos to establish good focus and framing as he moved closer thinking 'perhaps I'll get a good composition or a good juxtaposition.

It seems I got lucky and got both, which proves my point made often about pressing the shutter now and editing later.  You never know which frame will resonate, but if you don't release the shutter, you'll never find out what you missed.

Days of restraint because of film's expense are over, and a new style of photography is justified by that economic factor.

During the period he was passing, the young woman appeared in the background, and me being me, I determined to get them in juxtaposition, and had less than a quarter of a second to time that feat before there was no hope ever again of making the shot, with no chance to guess what kind of shot it would be except it would be 'young and old' and 'male and female' -- a juxtaposition.   I did hurriedly stop down my aperture to increase depth of field; something I seldom do as my camera almost always is preset with little room for adjustments on the street in the middle of a circumstance.

But you have given me far too much credit.

The real credit goes to my image editing.

This is a photo a little outside outside my normal 'style' of tighter framing, but it looked 'great' and felt 'very good' so I posted it and girded myself for lousy ratings and said 'so what?' -- I've had some good ones recently, and if I like it, that's enough anyway.

Wow, did I underestimate.

Your comments on composition are 'right on' and well thought out -- I endorse them.  

I vote for a wider frame, and note he (and she) are at the center of the frame, horizontally, and right cropping would destroy the frame's balance.

Thanks for such a concise but rich comment -- an admirable job.

Best wishes.

john

John (Crosley)

A poingnant visual reminder of 'two different sides of the same street.  How well put.

Go to the head of the class for metaphors.

Thanks for taking the time to reflect and let me (and others) know your thoughts about this very sudden photo, taken with NO real time for planning.

Best to you.

john

John (Crosley)

I am very grateful for your review of my humble (and I mean it) effort, taken just a day or so ago.

I am trying to 'make a go' from photography as time marches on and it occupies about 23 of 24 hours a day, leaving little time for the social part of being a good friend and colleague giving extensive reviews, and worse, long ago, I made the choice that giving reviews (I would mainly give 'good' ones because I see things that way, and people don't take well to fault-finders) would make me look like a suck-up, and as I approach my 19,000th comment, I can't ever be accused (and never have been) of 'mate rating' -- which was the most vile thing that existed in my mind when I first joined Photo.net for five or six of the first years after I joined over a decade ago.

I rate you (highly) so you rate me (highly) and ratings wars broke out (comments too) so strongly it was written about in sociology journals -- especially the snipey Leica forum.

So, i just withdrew and established a long-held pattern of not rating of commenting.

Of course you are one of the very best photographers on the service with absolutely among those with super well honed taste, and a review from you is always welcome and NEVER wrong or misplaced, even a few words or just a notice.  Trust me on that.

Please forgive me for not being more active; right now it's 3:15 a.m. and I have eight or more hours of 'work' to do, then photoshopping and rephotoshopping and a whole lost night of sleep before I can think of putting head to pillow.

All for the love of this art and craft.

You have not just high esteem but super high esteem in my estimation, and I should have found out a way to tell you that long ago.

Thanks (as always), for noticing my photography just as from time to time I sneak over to your photos, notice them, and take great pleasure in them.

Best to you.

john

John (Crosley)

Thank you so much for noticing this 'little' photo, which I first thought I would be the only person ever to appreciate.  

Boy was I wrong.

As to the issue of cropping right, where?

The planter box boundary, gives a leading line which helps in the composition.

I can hardly think of trimming off the tree, as it (as noted above) provides a natural 'frame' which by itself 'trims' the frame's right, without actually changing the photo's dimensions or the spacing of the subjects.

One of the keys to good photography, I am told by  experts is 'balance' which does not necessarily mean centering, rules of three, or anything rigid, but for my taste, the centering of the man and woman, horizontally seems to work and gives 'balance' to the photo.  

If there's any 'extra' about the right, the placement of the sapling and the leading line of the planter box, right, helps complete the photo, and trimming either from the photo (or taking away any space from around either)  was to me unthinkable.

I like to shoot and post full frame, but if a photo is lacking, I'll crop; I'm no Henri Cartier-Bresson (and of course no Jack Kennedy . . . if you get the joke).

They don't always make a 2:3 aspect ratio frame to fit all circumstances, and sometimes it must be 4:5 or (once popularly 5:7) etc.

I make note of that.

But I crop when I see the need; here I don't see the need, and cropping NEVER was a consideration in evaluating this photo.

I like it like it is.

And it's my photo.

I respect your cropping decision for this as your photo (if you could only tell me where to crop, maybe I'd rethink the entire process?).

I can't think of a natural looking crop position that 'makes sense', and I like what I look at, but I respect that you have taken time to give me your estimation of what you might do if this were your photo, and you are a highly esteemed member of this service, and a great photographer.  Maybe I'm must thick headed?

Probably the latter.

Best to you, Radu.  

And thanks very much.

john

John (Crosley)

In Honolulu, at a shopping center a great photo of a jaguar/leopard running down a sidewalk in Paris posted in a shopping center store under construction promised a 'GREAT' photo, if only the right circumstance would occur, but I waited,and waited, and waited, and it didn't.

I purchased five newspapers, including the local blats and the NY Times and Wall Street Journal and waited for the few people to pass by the notice and react to this shocking photo of a jungle animal racing past pedestrians, posted in large size and for these shopping center pedestrians to make a good juxtaposition.

After two to four hours, I'd read EVERYTHING, and had  few photos with my tele, as I sat on a far bench, but nothing worth posting, then two guys came along, local young Hawaiian guys, spied the photo and began joking with it for their third guy with a camera as I shot several GREAT frames, still posted here (you can look).

They feigned fear for their friend's photos, and I captured the scenes and the feigned fear for my own GREAT photos, and they never saw me.

Waiting for the proper juxtaposition IS important.

Here I waited about three seconds -- maybe four and suddenly it was over.

That's how the cookie crumbles.

One day you see it and wait, and get something really, really memorable.

Another day, you don't even know you're going to get a juxtaposition because the woman was NOT visible as the guy started into the scene, then she appears as I am firing and voila, I frame them both together and suddenly, a good photo.

That's just the way it works out on the street.

I don't wait two to three hours; good photos seem to leap into my lens (with some rare exceptions).

Your point is well made, though, as I've tried to illustrate.

Thanks for making it.

john

John (Crosley)