Sunset Scene, Oakland

This scene, taken after sunset during the last evening light, was taken at Oakland, CA's Lake Merritt, the focal point of the city. This is the city that Gertrude Stein said famously was

'no there there'. However, Oakland, despite its large lower-class and ghetto neighborhoods, also has rich culture and upper-class neighborhoods, tree-lined with beautiful homes, elegant murals on underpasses (see photos to come), wonderful older buildings and a vibrant working waterfront culture with a progressive city government (headed by former 'Gov. Moonbeam' Jerry Brown who now is talking tough on crime, one of Oakland's most difficult problems). This scene of evening tranquility in early March shirtsleeve weather is far from civic issues.

 

John

This is the scene, one early March evening, after sunset, on Oakand,

California's Lake Merritt. I invite your comparisons to any

published photographer. Your ratings and critiques are invited and

most welcome. (If you rate harshly or very critically, please

submit a helpful and constructive comment/Please share your superior

photographic knowledge to help improve my photography). Thanks!

Enjoy! John ;-))

Very nice.

Hallo John

 

Hope you had my mail.

 

What I like about this one, is the drifting to the left empasised by the perspective and taken up by the orientation of the boy. Also the antithesis of lines and points represented by the wood structure and the groups of people/animals is strong. The rest of the waterside to be seen on top and the surrounding water somehow complete the composition in a conclusive manner.

 

 

This is a 'little photo' and easily overlooked, especially because it's in B&W.

 

Thank you for the nice comment.

 

John

Regrettably I didn't get your e-mail (re: photographing in Germany -- perhaps it got misdirected; could you send it again?)

 

As to the composition: At first, I saw the pier, and I thought, this is interesting, then the couple walked to the end and seated themselves.

 

Then the two children came and seated themselves in the middle of the pier and I thought, that was very interesting, and I photographed that too, because it made for an interesting composition, and then the little boy came and peered over the side for the longest time.

 

Then, as he was peering, the ducks paddled around and I waited for them to paddle into a pairing, so there were three sets of twos, offset by the boy peering into the water, left, for an interspersal of figures and the balance, I think you write about.

 

Sometimes you wait and a photograph just unfolds before your eyes -- and sometimes you wait there with a camera and it evaporates . . . .

 

This was made all the more difficult because even at ISO 1600 the figures were almost blocked out by darkness, at it was after sundown -- but it was unseasonably very warm. Even in summer it doesn't get that warm. In fact, shirtsleeve weather in Oakland in summer evenings is often unheard of.

 

John

Your e-mail got through -- the German police do NOT understand German law -- photographing is free in German, just the publishing is restricted, as other places, and the 'right of privacy' is an American invention - circa 1890 by some American jurists, though not mentioned previously in American law (just as though it were 'assumed' it existed previously, is the rationale in American law.)

 

Thanks.

 

John

Question for PNers.

 

The original photo, in color, showed the horizon 'tilted' which most on PN find objectionable, so I cropped this photo, and in the process to keep a semblance of the original 'aspect ratio' (ratio of width to height), which defines the shape of the rectangular frame, I ended up naturally cropping various parts of this photo.

 

The question to viewers is whether I should have continued and cropped off part of the base of the pier where it's at a slight angle to the foreground, and cut off in the middle.

 

In the original, the pier base is parallel to the frame causing the background water to be 'tilted' unnaturally, which I judged would be unacceptable to most viewers.

 

Should I have taken the further step of cropping the foreground of the pier to eliminate the 'cut-off' line where it was cropped, resulting in 'smooth lines' for the pier, without any sense of where it begins? And if you comment, how would that affect the aspect ratio without further cropping the rest of the scene/or if it would require further cropping, where?

 

Your comments are appreciated.

 

John

Sometimes, getting to close to the point is not making it clearer. And some distance is giving your thoughts and your perception relief.

 

You must find an end with any action taken. You never know what is left when you go too far. Proportions have to be kept and keep you going. So, as I said:

 

I would leave it like that.

I think you maybe right -- though I am open to other comments on the subject.

 

I vaunt my ability to 'see' in the camera viewfinder, and not to 'crop' my photos, yet the last two views have been 'crops' - this one especialy causes me difficulty because although an out-of-level horizon causes me no problem, I know it causes raters and viewers on PN a problem -- so I cropped it for conformance to expectations.

 

In another, less problematic, post made today, the crop was necessary because the image to be posted was square and my camera aspect was rectangular ('Wheelchair Dreams'), and no more, and that causes me less trouble.

 

I truly love to compose in the viewfinder and however many problems overtight cropping sometimes causes me, that's the price of trying to use a 'camera' for what it's intended for, as opposed to worrying about 'darkroom manipulation' to 'create' an image -- e.g. rescue an image from any old 'something' caught out of a larger view.

 

(By the way, I'm brushing up on my legal German, which you may not have known is somewhat rudimentary -- but considering I never had a German course, don't speak or read German at all, I am somewhat (if marginally) proficient in legal German. (It seems that gobbledygook has a universality all to its own).

 

I have had other occasions to encounter 'legal German' or rather 'German legalese'. Seems that lawyers and giant corporations write the same way the world over, and deciphering what and how they write is easier for the long-ago lawyer in me as an American than for a German linguist who is not familiar with the lexicon of lawyers and or the structure of legalese. Go figure.

 

John ;-))

 

 

This photo represents what Alexander Ziegler has commented on as 'balance' and which I see as two things:

 

1. The three sets of pairs, from foreground right with the ducks, to the two children in the middle ground, seated to the couple at the end of the pier.

 

2. The interspersal of the figures. This interspersal or dispersal of figures is essential to the balance of this photo and is the reason for its being posted. It doesn't keep to any precise geometric pattern, although the pier does recede to a 'vanishing point', and if possible I like to incorporate some geometric pattern; and however much there is lack of a defined geometric figure as a theme, there definitely is geometry within this photo -- much geometry, and in fact, this photo is as much 'about' geometry as about anything else.

 

John

Nice composition, John and a very creative and innovative use of threes. I'm not sure I've seen it used on a vertical plane before. Another first for Mr. Crosley. Terrific work. P.S. I like the way the slope of the dock reinforces the boy peering over the edge...gotta be careful. You call it a simple photo that is easy to overlook, I call it simply eyecatching.

This photo has had an underwhelming reception by raters and among those who give critiques, but a positive reception by you equals a dozen lukewarm critiques.

 

Somehow, you can 'see' what I am doing far better than almost anybody else on Photo.net -- it's a sort of 'in synch' thing, or maybe just that you're into photos with strong angles and composition being the former architectural photographer that you are, and specializing as you do in such wonderful, strong and very classically inspired architectural work -- all very inspired.

 

I'm highly flattered that you have taken the time to stop by and comment on this 'little picture' -- I thought enough to post it, and wouldn't have ever considered taking it down -- it has the qualities that you have seen even if it was overlooked by others.

 

Thanks.

 

John

John: A tighter crop IMHO wouldn't help this picture a lot. I like your particular use of threes in this comp., but I'll give my vote to the tilted version. I experimented a little on PS. but I couldn't tilt it back, so I took the easiest way I tilted my monitor. It is a good composition, but it lacks the strong punch you usually have in this type of images. The tilted version has it.

 

 

Sincerely B.