Impromptu composition

What the hell is this all about?

Story telling picture, one moment tells an hour long story, bravo my friend!

 

Cheers

 

I also allow comments on my pics!

 

PDE

Fantastic!

Or, as an alternate title, "No Muffler".  A timely catch... Mike

For me, the eye magnet is the masked Ninja warrior running toward us in the background. After I sort that out and discover that he's actually facing the other direction (sigh of relief--the world makes sense again...or as much sense as the world through Jack's eyes ever makes sense), I wander back into the foreground and discover the fingers in the ears, and suddenly I'm listening to the loudest photo I've ever heard as the truck roars by--that motion blur is classic here. And if all that weren't enough, it's beautifully composed, too. Impromptu? Not quite--it takes a lifetime of preparation to be able to pull this off.  

The woman who faces us has the most wonderful look of ennui! I find that the central note of the photo around which everything else takes place. Her stance, also terrific, puts her in contemplation of the truck but in connection to the foreground woman, as if they're each speaking a different language but in a strange sort of harmony. The layers of people and action, the linearity of that action, creates such a sense of purpose here, as if everything just had to be the way it was, but only for a passing moment. I love how I can feel and empathize with your presence here, as if I've adopted the very place you were in. Is it your eye or mine that's seeing this? Terrific photo!

Excellent timing and composure,  great story.

Thanks for taking the time to comment on this picture. When I posted it I wondered whether it would draw any response. Not that I thought that it wasn't any good but questioned whether it would find any neural receptors out there to plug into. Sometimes you'll put up a picture you think is pretty good and...nada! Anyway, I'm happy this has generated some really thoughtful and interesting comments - especially from Fred and Leslie; their comments could certainly serve as models for the kind of comment forum Fred proposed and Leslie has taken up the standard for lately. Wonderful feedback, nothing too terribly technical (which I probably wouldn't understand anyway) and all valuable from my point of view.

 

I want to drag out my soapbox and put in my two cents worth on another topic while I'm at it. Have you ever noticed how seldom quirky, offbeat pictures, avant garde work or much of anything that doesn't fit into some archaic idea of "mainstream" photography is chosen for the various pictorial forums by the moderators (or management or whoever selects the various photographer's work to highlight). Some names pop up again and again and others - photographers whose work is wonderfully inventive - are never to be found. You won't find any of my pictures there and few of Fred's, I think. Never a picture from Billy K. or Drew Bayless; seldom anything from Carlos or Steve Gubin and I could go on and on.

 

That's not to say the pictures selected aren't good. They are undoubtedly beautiful and competently if not professionally produced. But they seem all of a type. They don't really provoke, they don't evoke questions, most of them are simply there to be admired. That's all you can really do, admire them; they don't in the main involve you emotionally or make you see the world in a new way or break new ground. I'm not saying that these pictures shouldn't be featured but I would like to see a little more inclusion, more daring, more risk taking on the part of those who make the selections. Maybe that guy Glenn quoted, the one who said that when he wanted to revisit 1995, he went to photo.net wasn't talking so much about the way the site was laid out but about the kind of photography that is featured and encouraged. End of rant

Epitome of a great street image - provocative, opening many avenues of involvement.  Great ranting too, Jack.  You contribute to the site in many ways.  Thanks.

I get the feeling that decision-making and what's featured here is more a business than a photographic or creative decision. What seems to "sell" on PN is crisp, clear, non-challenging, readily digestible stuff that fits the mold of pleasantry and tried-and-true. I don't even get the sense that anyone with an actual deep photographic background is calling the shots or even implementing them. Anyway, thanks for this photo and your kind words and rant anytime you like!

Thanks for your thoughts, Wayne, that's very kind of you. Fred, I have a feeling that's pretty much it. Like you, I think they have a very middle of the road idea about what photography is and their discussions are probably centered around business decisions. I don't think they're very good at that either.

I'm still blown away by this one, Jack--I keep coming back to it. I'm assuming you knew that the woman on the far corner was going to be revealed when the truck passed, but how did you get the timing so absolutely perfect? There's just enough of the far corner seen to make it make sense and frame the woman on the corner--that's got to be mostly planned. And the near woman is so perfectly framed by by the dark panel on the truck (hiding the fingers in the ears until we study her--a classic slow reveal)--I can attribute that maybe to a little bit of luck. But you must have been sitting on the shutter waiting for the instant, and that ripe instant couldn't have been more than a fraction of a second. (Actually, if the shutter speed was 1/100 sec, your window of opportunity lasted exactly 8/100 of a second, as calculated from the motion blur...)