Parisian merchant and mannequin

Merchant and Mannequin, Parisian Street Scene, Spring, 2004. Your

ratings and comments are invited and welcome. (Please support any

harsh or negative ratings with a constructive comment/Please share

your superior knowledge to help me improve my photography) Thanks

and Enjoy! John (Crosley)

Sorry, I don't understand portrait.

Is it possible to make the colour behind the manicans head all black or grey? This photo doesnt work for me in colour

 

Rebecca, I belong to the school of "you find 'em as you see 'em" especiallly in "street photography", and I compose in the viewfinder. I am loathe to use Photoshop to recompose an image or "clean it up" since I do not have a client to please and an image to sell to some advertising agency to push some household cleanser, a beer, or some other product in which perfection would be expected. Of course darkroom technicians often "burned" in areas such as the "printing" behind the mannequin's head, but I judged it out of focus enough and cut off enough and therefore unreadable such that it would not be distracting to the casual viewer, and the clear-cut outlines of the mannequin's head are well-preserved and well-defined enough I judged that interference would not be justified. Thanks for your comment. This is an unusual photo, even for me, and I am the photographer -- I have mixed feelings about this photo too.

I can see from your comment and rating that you don't understand this photograph, and perhaps like a joke that has to be explained, it will suffer from the telling. If you examine the composition of this photograph, you will find it divided roughly into two parts, each a separate side devoted to the head of a man-image, one alive and one a mannequin, created to look very much like a man, but with exaggerated features. Upon closer viewing, you will find that the mannequin, Caucasian (white), has hair of a certain style, and that the race and hair style of the proprietor on the left match the mannequin, and even the salt and pepper color of the proprietor's hair color begins to match the mannequin's strange white hair. So there are resemblances. There are also differences. The mannequin is turned with his head at a right angle to the viewer; the properietor stares directly into the camera; the mannequin is a portrayal of a young man, the proprietor an older man. The mannequin has exaggerated features, but not facial features and a normal or small head; the proprietor has outsize facial features and a larger than normal head for his body size, further exaggerated by his nearness (less than two feet) to the camera. This is a study in compare and contrast, and it might have worked quite well in black and white, also -- perhaps even better. And I also have mixed feelings about this photo, even though I am the photographer, but I still find it somewhat compelling. I found it compelling when I saw it in the viewfinder, when I reviewed it on my digital camera in the street and even now. I agree with most raters that this is not a "feelgood" photo that is visually stunning, but it is sufficiently complex that I found it worthy of posting, and I find it visually interesting -- although I would not stake my photographic career on creating images of this sort. However, variety is the spice of life. John.

John, I found your comments of explanation interesting, though I don't think this image really needs any justification-- it's great, perfect!

Just like mine, judging from comments in my portfolio I found this morning. You made my day, and helped me justify putting up some of my more unusual and "strange" images. Thank you. John

Cartier-Bresson once told a story during a documentary I saw, about how he was photographing an elderly lady; she complained to him about how her wrinkles were going to show up in his portrait of her. He replied that her wrinkles were what made her special, an individual and what he loved about her face. He commented to the documenter that he thought (my paraphrase) "life gives us the wrinkles we deserve."

That comment about wrinkles and Henri Cartier-Bresson's rejoinder during the documentary again has made my day. I would like to see this documentary -- can you direct me to it, either on the internet, by name or what language it is in -- or other identifying information? H C-B was famously reclusive, almost never gave interviews, and I would enjoy very much seeing it. John

I saw it years ago when I was a teaching assistant for a photo class in Boston, so I don't know for sure which documentary it was, but it was exclusively about him and had many of his images with his own voice over interview / commentary. There is a documentary available on him on amazon.com that was made in 1994, which seemed to get good reviews, I doubt that's the one I saw in 1989, but perhaps they incorporated elements of the older documentary. I'll keep looking on the internet and check with some galleries. He was also interviewed a couple of years back on 60 minutes, I never saw the segment though.

Regards from afar, where your efforts at providing me information about the most beloved of photographers (not personally, but his images) is most highly valued. I personally never took a photography class (Oh, I took one, but dropped out, as it was given by a photolithographer whose primary emphasis was on technique, and I couldn't have cared less about it -- he couldn't shoot his way out of a bag -- he took photos of semiconductor chips and reduced them -- and that somehow qualified him to teach 'photography'.) I'll go by my 'street' training any day -- just get a camera, shoot, and end up in the 'New York Times', 'Time -- Life' as freelance clients, 'New York Daily News', etc., and get job offers simulataneously from AP and UPI -- that's the school of hard knocks -- the same school that H C-B founded. See it and shoot it. See interesting stuff and shoot it in an interesting manner and hope that it will be good enough to make an audience. HOW he did that is of great interest to me. I very much appreciate your continuing efforts. Maybe I'll post something very interesting soon. Regards, John.

There was also a recent interview with HCB on the Charlie Rose show, which I've heard was very good.

Thanks, from a far-off land from a guy who just took 2,400 photos in 3 days. Maybe one or two of them will make it onto Photo.Net. I think H. C-B must have taken hundreds of thousands of publishable photos during his lifetime, (he'd probably throw away what I show) he was so prolific, if my personal book of his from the late '60s is any testimony -- it's filled chock full of images, four to the page on one side and the other devoted to one single image from around the world, from Russia, India, Europe, Mexico, China, Indonesia, etc. It's my treasure. Respectfully, John.