Sidewalk Supervisors I (I Love Work: I Can Watch It All Day)

There's a class separation here at noontime near Grant Street as

workmen install fancier paving for the entrance to San Francisco's

Chinatown. Your ratings and critiques are most welcome. (Please

submit a helpful and constructive critique if you rate harshly or

negatively/Please share your superior knowledge to help advance my

photography.) Thanks, and Enjoy!! John

At one time I was a top world service photo editor who specifically wrote captions for photos and sent them worldwide -- I chose which photos went where and wrote the words that went with them. I was extremely successful, and in the competitive world I worked in, I was congratulated for my caption writing which very often resulted in my worldwide news organization's photos being published over other, rival organization photos that were similar. Also, the caption encapsulates part of an old family joke. Sorry if you found it offensive, trite or overly pedantic. You can't please everybody all the time. I take full responsibility -- no regrets. I am sure not everybody feels as you do. In fact some have singled me out for praise for my "explanatory" style. Go figure. John

Lee Park in another critique on another photo got me to thinking about this one. It seems that the 'class distinction' here also is exemplified by the barricades between the two sorts of workers -- the financial district workers on their lunch hours and the 'blue collar' workers doing their business (as a distraction or entertainment for the others -- perhaps a novelty.) I am NOT making a comment on the relative value of either as AP rescued me from being a financial trader on Montgomery Street (financial district there) to come work for them as photographer which morphed into writer. John.

These guys in the badly fitting suits are wishing they could do this kind of productive work themselves. They are thinking about their own home improvement projects and wishing they had skilled workers or the skills of these workers (who seem to be oblivious to the watchers) themselves.

To the guys building the road, this is 'easy' work. Easy in the sense that they don't have to think about what they are doing. They are constructors, building makes sense. The guys watching and baffeled and thinking, 'that's interesting, how do they..."

 

If we switch roles, put the guys in suits in their workplace, maybe finiancial, maybe law, who knows, and allowed the blue collar workers to peek in, the blue collar work would be baffeled and thinking, 'that's interesting, how do they..."

 

Granted, not everyone is interested in every job someone else does. But, to some people, building a road or a building makes perfect sense. Other people would be completely baffeled. Some people like the financial world others are baffeled. etc etc.

Cool pic.

WAY COOL COMMENT! I LOVE IT! I would love to see more comments like that. That's exactly the "thought" that many of my photos are the "food for". That's HALF of the reason I post and share my photos -- to learn about the reaction of others to the "food for thought" I provide. There's the artistic and compositional elements and there's the intellectual content. With luck, they coincide. The quality of your comment and the ability and ease in which you summarized a complicated thought with the use of this image are a great boon to me, and might be to others. I had long hoped to publish, and your comment gives me hope that with such commentaries, I might someday be able to. (Also your rating wasn't recorded, if you did rate it.) Thanks and With Respect (Respectueusement) John.

Chad's comment was truly insightful! I am also impressed by your long and (I hope he finds...) helpful comments on HIS photos. That's the best (to me) part of marking someone as "interesting" - one can go and read their remarks to others and learn from them! Hope you don't mind.

His remark made me think your shot is similar in feel to that fascination that most people have in watching heavy equipment operating! I think someone has even made videos! I can't explain why this should be so intriguing - unless it's the joy of watching creation - but also the lure of power and skill.

I'm extremely flattered that this photo and Chad's comment on it made you think. This site is more than about "aesthetics" meaning "pretty" but about things also that have "meaning" and, after all, shouldn't some good photos have you "thinking?" With respect. John

I have read your "thanks" at the end of my portfolio comments and accept the thanks for my voluminous comments on your photographs for which you essentially "pleaded" for help instead of just lower ratings. I am happier to give comments, far more than ratings, if anyone looks at the no. of ratings I have given. In fact, I comment rather liberally when I think it will do some good and is welcome. Chad, I'm glad it was welcome, for I always take a chance. Mazel Tov! One of your photos truly was a good photo and it shows that you have talent in taking photos -- one other skill is in picking the photos to show to the public and other Photo.netters. I care less about that than most, because I also have to please myself, and sometimes I see something in a photo that others simply are too myopic to see and rate (conversely, sometimes I'm too myopic about my own images too; go figure -- but that's what ratings and critiques are all about).

John