Down and Out at 3:00 A.M. (Zim's)

Life is tough when you have no money. "Street" people who have

little money for food, however, often find food or money to take

care of dogs, as does this counter sleeper at the old San Francisco

chain "Zim's Restaurant", which was open all night. Photo taken

about 3:00 a.m. during the all-night rest hours when management

seldom disturbed the "street people", a "hot political potato(e) to

this day in San Francisco. Your ratings and comments are most

welcome. (Please submit a helpful and constructive comment if you

rate harshly or negatively/Please share your superior knowledge to

help me improve my photography.) Thanks and Enjoy! John ;- ))

Part of my new Black and White II portfolio

Very strong emotional content...a definitive look at quite desperation. Well captured.

I'm interested (among other things) in comments about this photograph's composition, especially the lines and the geometric figures -- for instance the 'pentagon' or unequal five-sided polygon created by the mirror, upper left, among other things. Have you other images or have you seen other images with such composition or such geometry? Other comments are invited as well. J

The progressively slanting lines (the one in the near center is parallel to our universe) would normally cause me problems, but in this case everything sloping away only adds to the loss of reality (at least my reality). So, how do the people in the mirror fit in? Our homeless guy even seems more homeless, and hopeless, as a reflection. And the feeling that this whole discouraging scene is about to slide towards us and, thankfully, out of our frame of reference, gives us hope that we can get back to normality without much sacrifice. And isn't that all we ask...observation without commitment, empathy without involvement.

 

God bless Henri-Cartier Bresson.

I thought you were ready for the loony bin when I first read your comment, then I re-read it twice, and the more I read it the more you sounded like a seer and a philosopher with great vision (which I know you are with a camera), so I'll add just one more talent to those I know you have. ;~) John

EDit: We should be commenting on the aspects of the image only, so I edited my original angry posting: Its an average shot, technically nothing special. I find the subject matter controversial. Just because you're homeless doesn't give folks "automatic entitlement" to take your picture. To expound further here, some of the other images posted by John are indeed interesting and of good quality. This particular image I see in a different perspective. However, others are entitled to their opinions and viewpoints as well. Please note that I judge each image I see as unique.

John, it seems there's going to be no automatic "entitlements" anymore, (according to Bush and Co.) but answer me this: If there is no "entitlement" to take photos of people sleeping on the counter where I want to place my hamburger and Coke at 3:00 a.m. when I'm hungry and thirsty, and have a camera at my side full of Tri-X, but it's OK to take a photo of "beautiful people" or buildings or flowers, is the corollary that such people are thereby "exempt" from being photographed? Doug Hawks made a comment about the technical, compositional aspects of this photograph and added some philosophical observation that I found VERY PROFOUND. John, how many photographs have you seen that have used a polygonal mirror image (non-equal pentagon) to complete the image, and does that mean anything to you compositionally? And is this particular man and his two dogs (there are two, do you see?), somehow exempt from being photographed when he commandeers a corner of a public restaurant in downtown San Francisco, and sleeps there for three or four hours while paying customers can't find a place to sit? And, furthermore, does it mean anything that Zims eventually went out of business, and does that suggest anything about WHY they went out of business? Your answers might temper your anger and set your thinking along a more analytic path and toward thinking less that I'm exploiting than recording. (Or after all, wasn't Henri Cartier-Bresson the world's greatest exploiter, then?)

John

Agreed, just for the hhh of it, I went and looked at some of HCB pictures today for some perspective. Also, a local photo Gallery (Etherton)is displaying some of his images And he took a lot of them, many of them matching the "zeitgeist" of Political Left Wing France at the time. So, in the quick glance thru the old used book, I saw lots of pics of (of course)Sartre and (of of course course) Albert Camus and so on. Plenty of pics of people on the street as well. The point I want to make is that certain social classes are not always the best photographic material, regardless of the photographer, and that photographing them needs to be approached in a "new manner." Some of the images of these folks are taken in a non-emotionial manner, while others posters of this image style "feel for the subject" without being able to acknowledge that perhaps it is the subject's fault to start with. One poster on photo.net was homeless himself for some time. Before photography, homelessness and poverty were also the topics of paintings, often in a political manner as well. We should acknowledge that these images can be controversial. As I noted in another thread, a Dutch photog by the name of John Lambrichts has a photo study of 4 homeless brothers, with various addictions, that became homeless in a relatively wealthy town. His images were taken in a different manner and show a different perspective. BTW Tucson's homeless population is estimated at over 2,000 (Why be homeless and cold, when you can be homeless and warm in the Southwest?)of this population, it is estimated that somewhere around 130 die in a 12-month period.

(As for Bush, I find it hard to believe that he came up with these thoughts on his own..I have the feeling that this fellow is being spoonfed and rehearsed to the nth degree before he is let go for a brief appearance in public)

As for entitlements and Bush, you should read PNAC (Project For a New American Century) in which a conservative group which has morphed into many defense department officials and our estimable VP speculated that it would take a "New Pearl Harbor" (exact quote?--Google it and read it yourself) for America to abandon essentially the UN, various treaties, and project America's 'rightful' dominance throughout the world, including the Middle East powderkeg (published pre-Sept. 11, 2001), signed by many, including Wolfowitz, Perl, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al., and I think Condoleza Rice for whom a Standard Oil tanker is named.

And such people also have eyes on the giant commissions that can be earned by stockbrokers taking a cut if we are forced to "invest" our Social Security by taking it out of the hands of "government" where it has a positive surplus until well after 2050 or so (despite talk of gloom and doom), and it has long been a Conservative goal to cut a hole in the "social safety net" so that everybody falls through as it goes against that ideology -- they still HATE Franklin Delano Roosevelt and what he did and hated Clinton for what he continued to help do in that regard.

As for H-C Bresson, he was and remains my photographic ideel, whether he hung around with Socialists or not (almost everyone in the 30s was or knew a Socialist or symphathized with Communist ideology because then they sold apples on the street and had no food and wondered what was wrong. (I am in a former Soviet Country right now, wrecked by Soviet economics, and watching the citizenry trying to work through the pain of morphing into capitalism, even to the point where it has taken a death toll on the male population of about 9 years on average on the average male. And THEY have men selling apples on the street under Capitalism! Pravda! (The truth!)

But it must be done because Socialism through Communist totaliatarism was totally bankrupt, although the cold water treatment is literally killing people, and the tobacco people are rushing in to addict them as fast as they can, so they can kill them off next (as we in America and those in Europe are sending the tobacco people away and mulcting them for damages -- actually the price of "staying in business" -- even a former wife got them for literally billions of dollars in damages for harming the citizenry of her state. But almost none of that money went to repair the tobacco damage, and went to fund other things, and this poor guy here probably is dead right now, and probably needed medications and never got them.

Whether we "need" a new way of photographing them, I don't know.

Take some of those "new" photos, post them, and let's look at them.

This is not recent, you obviously should know. With respect. J

By the way, what moral imperative says we "should" find a new way to photograph such people? You take your photos and I'll take mine. I'll look at yours and maybe appreciate them, and maybe be moved. Bruce Davidson did a nice job on E. 96th Street for the denizens there -- I watched him preview his manuscript in a slideshow as he searched for a quality publisher, but it was a work of love and years. This photo took seconds only and there were only two frames taken, both equally good. J

John: Bruce Davidson's pictures are excellent. Their content is a continuance of a style of photography in the US that started during the depression and which is still done, but cannot get any exposure, because galleries are so "frigging hung up" on "art" photography. Personally, I find them much better and courageous than Bresson's, both in subject matter and sheer technical quality. BTW There is no "moral" imperative. But I stopped photographing folks like this when 1). I couldn't find a different aka "better way" of doing it, and 2)some of the folks objected, including one angry fellow in a wheelchair who stated "why always us?"

I took some of those photos today, flower photos, all kinds of street people photos from drunks to people who WANTED their photos taken (some actually drunk, some not), children photos, and all kinds of others. What you see is what you photograph, that's all, at least as far as I'm concerned. You'd be astounded if you could see a roll of my film or a gigabyte card of mine from today or yesterday. From a beauty, with her hair tousled (and a bit of basil on her teeth for amazing realism), to a drunk buying alcohol at a decrepit falling down storefront liquor alcove, to a child diving into plush toys at riverside from floor height, fishermen at riverside, an old woman's smile of gold teeth (and her whiskers in closup), a tent top restaurant in abstract--all red and yellows with black structural elements and black vents, a street sign advertising cosmetics and a girl in beneath in reverse profile, a man peering out of a broken down old window, a woman helper walking by, etc., a woman pushing a chrysanthemum (large) my way, beautiful women and faces, old women and men and their faces, street scenes, intimate scenes, hotel scenes, and so on and so on, until I see something different and photograph it, I know not what -- just what I see and can photograph interesting and well. J

It's a very nice image. I know that in moments like this one, you just shoot,but I think that if you had aimed slightly higher, including maybe some more information from the mirror, you could have come up with another interesting perspective of the same subject.

Actually, because of his inertness I had a little time to study the scene, and did in fact take two photos of the scene, but I was not tempted to take one by raising my camera to nearer level.

 

Instead, I turned my camera to the right, to include the sleeping man, left and the man on stool in mirror right then became the figure in the new photo, right,, with an expanse of counter between them, for quite an acceptable photo, also.

 

I would have posted the other, except I just don't post two of any scene (or haven't so far), even though it would be hard to tell they're even from the same scene/planet.

 

It's scanned, and I may eventually post the other image.

 

One problem was getting the precise composition, which I was able to achieve here. The compositional effect (See Doug Hawk's explanation above) is very elaborately skewed, and hard to 'explain' precisely, but he's done a good job --- I'll refer you to his 'critique'. The other is that with mirrors you have to be careful because the objects in the mirror can (1) become distracting and overwhelming and (2) can often include the photographer -- especially if there is another mirror or reflective window as there was which will send the photographer's image to the mirror, and completely distract the audience.

 

Little is worse than finding a photo of the photographer taking a photo, hidden in a good image. (Aha, I see him, . . . there he is . . . with his camera, see. . . in the chrome on the door . . . or in the window reflection next door'. It's distracting to the extreme from the subject of a photo.)

 

Thanks for taking the time to examine my portfolio and post a thoughtful comment. It's highly flattering.

 

With respect.

 

John

OK, so here's the other version. I like it and the mirror, but think I prefer the other version John. The other shows more of life as it is for this guy

I prefer this one, a little bit, but am torn between the two - they're entirely different photos, aren't they?

 

This one is completely original, for the use of the pentagonal (irregular at that) mirror that nearly bisects the photo, and I'm happy to have posted it just for that.

 

John.

John, I for one am very grateful that someone is taking these pictures as a reminder that things are not as they should be. In this case, I see no basis for complaint at all, since the identity of the person is completely hidden. Even if it were not, I think that it might be justifiable.

 

This is powerful stuff, and, as they say, one picture is indeed worth a thousand words. This (homelessness) is one of many of our almost unspoken unresolved social problems, one not being addressed by our government led by military adventurers with no social vision at home--yet inclined to export that lack of vision to other parts of the world.

 

Thank you for this one, John.

 

--Lannie

This photo, which one might assume is of a Viet-Nam veteran, actually occurred during the Viet-Nam war, and the guy's just a bum.

 

At least, he's homeless, and he may have had severe mental health and/or substance abuse issues.

 

The real issue is this.

 

Psychiatric medications caused the government no longer to have to maintain psychiatric hospitals (such as the one in 'One Flew Over A Cuckoo's Nest' written by a hometown guy, Ken Kesey, who worked at a similar place while at Stanford, I understand.)

 

Psychiatric medications allowed 'mentally and/or emotionally ill' persons to function somewhat in society instead of having to be 'confined' -- often against their will.

 

So, the hospitals were shut down at great savings to society, but they were replaced with what?

 

Basically, nothing, except a social welfare system that took bare-bones care of such people and then only as 'bums'.

 

But before they would have had a cot and three squares; now they were 'bums' and disreputable instead of being 'ill', and some wouldn't take their meds or couldn't and others had substance abuse problems or just bad judgment or bad luck and ended up living from paycheck to paycheck and one day a paycheck didn't come in, they lived in their car, couldn't take a shower, then the car got in a wreck and if there was a job, away it went and they were 'on the street' with no way to free themselves.

 

San Francisco, where this was taken, has, since this was taken, wrestled with a big-time homelessness problem ever since, and under new major Gavin Newsome is making 'some' progress, but who knows if it's enough. Bums still camp in Golden Gate park. Nobody wants to provide a place for homeless people to go to the bathroom, for fear they're going to 'shoot up' or defecate in the wrong place -- all well-founded fears. (or use such places as launching pads for an assault or a rape as well).

 

It's an enormously big problem with no money of the sort as onetime used to treat these people with some dignity and respect, and now they are completely marginalized and judgments are formed about them whereas before psych medications they were simply 'sick' and needed institutional care.

 

Times have changed.

 

This photo, taken in 1969, actually is timeless, isn't it?

 

Thanks for the commentary.

 

(Did you realize this was from 1969, or thereabouts?)

 

John (Crosley)

Thanks for all the info and the commentary, John. I didn't know the photo went so far back. I have seen a lot of homeless people at night in both Gainesville, FL (as recently as 2001, when I went back to grad school in Spanish) and certainly in Chicago. UF certainly doesn't want them near that campus. (Go [to hell], Gators.) I was in contact with one homeless guy for many years after meeting him on the street after a professional conference in New Orleans in 1994. I haven't heard from him since Katrina. I hope that he made it. He was claustrophobic and would not get into a car, and had to walk everywhere on bad legs. He lost several cats during Hurricane Andrew in 1992. He won't leave his animals, and the fact that he hasn't called (and I have no number to call) since Katrina is not a good sign.

 

In 1995 I was in Chicago, leaving the Palmer House and heading for the nearest subway entrance. A guy approached me for a handout and I had nothing smaller than a twenty-dollar bill. I reluctantly gave it to him, and he ran diagonally across the big intersection outside the hotel at the midday rush and shouted at a woman up the street. They collapsed into each other's arms, crying.

 

I never found out what that was about--perhaps a sick child, famine, whatever. I have a hunch that that twenty was not used for dope.

 

I am not quite resigned to the biblical teaching, "The poor you will have with you always."

 

Bush is a disaster, and the Republicans have no soul and the Democrats no spine.

 

It's a curious and cold world out there, John, as you well know.

 

--Lannie

Some people are counting on a by-election (and an October surprise) to win an election by virtue of a poor turnout for the general voter populace and turning out their party faithful.

 

The antidote to that is to get EVERYONE with any brains to vote.

 

And I'm a registered Republican.

 

Go figure that one out.

 

Things are a disaster, and voting machines run every chance of being rigged, but a massive turnout of ordinary voters will result in a count hard to manipulate through 'miscounting' or machine rigging through those famous 'Diebold' machines and other (no paper trail) machines.

 

(However, remember, the Democrats probably used fraud in Texas and Chicago to cement Kennedy's defeat of Nixon, something Nixon never wanted to have publicized for reasons that are not entirely clear -- maybe 'thieves' honor?)

 

John (Crosley)

BW classic

I enrolled in a Dreamweaver class just to make a site to show my OLD work, without thought to shooting once again. I was going to make a web site just to showcase the old stuff; I had long dreamed of an Aperture Monograph but much old stuff was gone (Vietnam stuff was gone, all negatives and these are from prints, but highest quality, some from 4 x 5 copy negs when prints were in highest quality).

(I recently found the cache of negs, too and had them rescanned!!!)

There are only a few, less than 60 and only one in color from a transparency, but it's good.  (good color coordination and two color shots from copies of prints, also good but more standard Photo.net fare now.

Notice the irregular pentagon formed by the mirror; such a form appears in more than one shot, though not many.  It's an unusual shape.

Thank you for the high compliment on this photo and for reviewing my portfolio as I see you are doing.

john

John (Crosley)