'Wheelchair Dreams'

Wheelchair Dreams. Taken in Oakland, California, USA recently,

speaks for itself. Your ratings and critiques are invited and most

welcome. Please keep in mind that this is a 'street photo'. (If

you rate harshly or very critically, please attach a helpful and

constructive critique/Please share your superior photographic

knowledge to help my photography). Thanks! Enjoy! John.

John, whther you consider yourself a good photographer or not, this is a very powerful image, you are to be congratulated. In my view, these types of shot are about being in the right place, at the right time, and having the foresight to press the shutter, which you have done. Excellent shot. My preference would be for a conversion to monochrome, but hey, its great as it is.

Max Zappa.

'The right place at the right time' involved considerable thought. I passed this place several days earlier on a previous trip to Oakland, and staked it out, judging this freeway underpass with its several giant murals good fodder for a photograph or several.

In fact, there are numerous parts/sections of the giant mural(s) there, although poorly lighted, (sidelighted) and each can support a different theme.

I parked my auto across the street and when passing cars allowed, took photos from 'holes' in the traffic, always keeping in mind the 'themes' of the murals.

There were several mural/pedestrian possibilities that occurred, rich in opportunity, and this was the the one that was richest in my opinion and it required considerable pixel processing to make it happen. (This is a 2/3 crop).

I may try it in black and white, as you suggest, although it's pretty 'busy' and the 'colors' help to 'separate' the 'subject' from the 'predicate' e.g., the characters representing 'joyousness or freedom' above the wheelchair bound man.

Thanks for the very encouraging comment (and the very high rate) I was afraid this 'street' photo would be ranked poorly for 'low resolution' as opposed to its message; the message is why I posted it.

(I take a lot of chances because I believe in my postings . . . and only hope that others will see why.)

John

You may live in 'mural heaven' as evidenced by one or more of your recent postings, and your postings have inspired me to keep my eyes open. So when I saw this giant mural (only part of a larger, greater agglomeration of murals under a freeway) I felt very inspired.

When the guy in the wheelchair rolled by, I couldn't click the shutter fast enough.

It was only when I went into pixel processing and 'sharpening' (this is telephoto of a man moving quite rapidly at 120 mm with a 1-1/2 multiplication factor = 180 mm equivalent, taken at 1/30 of a second) this blurry image, that I realized the man had a cigarette in his mouth and his hand to his mouth.

I was very afraid to post this image because of poor resolution, even after sharpening, etc., but the message simply overwhelmed, and I went with instinct.

Thanks for endorsing my instincts.

John

I sometimes judge the raters themselves by what they post: Wow, your folders are impressive. Thanks for the high rate and the encouraging post.

John

The wheelchair was practically 'jet propelled', the scene was under a freeway overpass -- about an eight lane freeway, the time was after or near sunset, and the ISO was 1600.

Before pixel processing the wheelchair guy was almost unrecognizable in any size other than thumbnail and I spent considerable time 'selecting' and 'sharpening' then 're-selecting' and 'resharpening' the wheelchair guy's image until he could even be discerned.

In the original, he was just a blur -- in this image he's really a guy and his cigarette can even be discerned; I consider that one good reason for the use of Photoshop, which if you follow my work, you probably know I usually eschew.

Photoshop has its purposes in my photography, which is to save an excellent or necessary feature of an image, rather than to just make good photos such as landscapes into wonderful but supersaturated photos.

In this case Photoshop 'saved' the image, made it minimally 'viewable', and gave it meaning and postable, rather than consigned to the 'other folders' and never posted for critique.

Believe me, with the 'quality' or 'lack thereof' of the wheelchair guy, blurry as he was when this image started, it took some 'guts' to post this image at all, and some gumption to continue to process this image to a level halfway acceptable.

Thanks for your kind remark and rating.

John

Little is written on Photo.net or elsewhere about the power of a caption.

Decades ago, I made a living writing captions and caption headlines (or whatever they're called . . . I forget now).

In view of the 'subject's' importance to the 'theme' and his poor resolution, it seemed absolutely necessary to write an explanatory caption -- which I did, in two words --which seemed so natural -- 'Wheelchair Dreams'.

John

Thanks for the kind comment.

John

I learned to use 'channel mixer' using directions from a British Photo magazine -- somehow nobody and no publication I own (and I own several) could lead me through it so easily as that magazine, and it's really as simple as others have told me, and the results are far more clear than those of the 'desaturate' command under 'image' > adjust > desaturate under Photoshop.

Here is an in-line version of the same photo. Question: Should it be posted under my Early B&W Folder, or should I just let it alone?

Here is a second try for an in-line view using 'channel mixer'.

Here is a link to the full-size web version of this photo, desaturated in channel mixer. Can anybody do a better job? If so, let me know your formula, would you? This is a very tricky photo to work with -- if you could see the original, there would be a separate PN award for 'ingenuity' and maybe 'perseverence'.

John

I don't paint murals such as these. I just happened to be there when the wheelchair went by and lucky enough to hit my shutter release at the right moment -- he was going pretty fast and I had no advance notice -- he was obscured by cars in traffic until he appeared from behind a break, full speed ahead.

Thanks.

John

I worked on this photo overnight to the amazement of my 12-year-old stepdaughter, who has an appreciation of such things and needs an example of self-directed, non-paid and self-motivated work. She watched the ratings come in, despite the poor quality original, after it was improved-on, after intensive work on its technical quality, especially of the wheelchair subject, and only then boosting him to barely acceptable technical quality.

You can rest assured, I'll be using every trick in the book to perfect this image in the future, as I want to be able to display it among my best works. I have many excellent works, most not critiqued, and technical issues are weighing this image down.

I truly did not think PNers would accept this image for its technical difficulties, and truly hesitated to post it at all, but Pners can be a surprising lot.

I am reminded of the site forum's member's older post: 'There's no new photographs' and will direct the poster to this.

And to those who say that only over-sharpened, oversaturated images can score well on the Top Rated Photos (TRP) pages, let them look at this image.

(Sure the blurred subject wheelchair occupant -- in fast motion in a slow exposure in failing light -- had to be greatly 'sharpened' even to be viewable, and only marginally viewable to be sure, but Photo.netters are hungry it seems -- not for the same old oversaturated landscape and flowers cliches but for some genuine photos with messages and originality.)

[i've twice posted photos with 'messages' that have received decent ratings in which one-third or greater of each photo was completely out of focus (OOF), and have been greatly rewarded with quite decent ratings and good views (albeit street photos seldom get high ratings) -- and those ratings were especially high for originality.

One thing is certain -- judging from the technical issues, I didn't pose this photo. . . . ;-))

(My stepdaughter, who hails more recently from a former Communist country where disabled people still are viewed as 'crippled' and have no access to 'speed wheelchairs' views this photo a little differently, you might imagine; for her this man has some freedom, somewhat BECAUSE of his wheels.)

You might look at my various folders for a photo of a man in a wheelchair, no shoes and no feet, in a hand-propelled wheelchair, careering among traffic in Odessa, Ukraine, begging for a living, with the caption 'When Social Security Goes Private . . . And The Market Falls' or some such, to understand the difference in viewpoints betwee the 'have' West and the 'Have-Not' former Communist East about this issue.

Here, in America, at least we have high-powered wheelchairs, and curb ramps so the wheelchairs can scoot across streets without help -- so to a denizen of the former Communist East, those hailing figures at the top of the mural might, instead of representing 'dreams', have an entire other meaning -- such as 'dreams partially achieved because of motorized scooter transport -- than for those of us in the United States or Western Europe where we have catered to our handicapped (rightfully so) and life is less 'raw' for handicapped than elsewhere in the world.

In that way, this photo has two points of view -- the Eastern or poorer cultural point of view - he dreams of liberation view, and the Western view where because he has a motorized scooter, he HAS (partial) liberation.

(It's all relative, isn't it?)

Thanks for the comment.

John

I note your endorsing comment. Thank you very much.

John

Fine composition with great anticipation. Your patience was justly rewarded with this fine photo.

I do not think this photo requires much more PS work. The mural shows its age as it is, its location, and its counterpoint (the graffito on the bldg in the mural). The relationship of the surrealism of the mural and the reality of man in the wheelchair is blended together by the blurring motion of his passing by. There is only one suggestion that I would offer. A small crop at the bottom to reduce the distinction between the two worlds by minimizing the in focus concrete. Attached is a .3 degree cc rotation and a pip off the bottom trim. ( mabe even trim all the sidewalk, essentially dead center through the wheel of the chair...my 'absolute' preference...)

Great photo.

Thought I'd might as well attatch the no sidewalk one for your review.

You went to considerable effort to post that view, and it made me think about the nature of 'street photographs' in general.

Street photographs, unlike studio photographs, do not occur in a vacuum.

One reason I had difficulty, early on in posting on Photo.Net, differentiating my Early B&W photos from my color photos was that critics said my color work looked like 'clipart' because the color photos often were 'zoomed in' on and lacked 'context'.

They were right -- long ago when I did shoot seriously I had minimal lenses and shot first black and white, then as opportunity presented itself for remuneration, I shot color transparencies (slides) for sending to a photo agency and some of that ended up being used like the 'clip art; of today. In essence I had two different major styles of photography.

One was context specific -- the subject in its environment -- most often black and white.

The other was subject specific, often without a context, featuring the subject only, more as an abstract -- and that developed into more like what one knows today as clipart -- photos for the photo itself rather than the context, and often for the aesthetics of the photo, though not always.

What you have done in your exemplar is take a 'street photograph' with a 'context' -- the sidewalk -- and effectively 'zoom in on it' creating a subject specific image, divorced from its context -- the street.

But a subject specific photograph requires more rigor in its technical aspects -- we are not left to know that it was a chance occurrence on the street instead of a posed shot, and as an audience, to make allowances for that, as we probably must, in less than perfect 'street shots' such as this.

So, for this shot, for the reasons above, I'd have to say that the sidewalk, being a predicate for the 'wheels' of this scooter, and a context for the 'street' nature of the shooting is essential for this photo.

This does not denigrate from your crop -- probably in 35 years or more, I've had a time or two more to reflect on the nature of 'street shooting' than you have, even if this is the absolute first time I've ever put the differences between the two concepts into text.

And for the opportunity to pen this text alone, I owe you a great debt of gratitude, for you've helped me put in words a concept or several concepts that I had not previously thought out about the nature of 'street photography' versus 'subject photography' -- which is to say 'its context'.

Thank you so much for your help in aiding me to articulate the differences.

John

Thank you for sharing your insight. I believe I understand what you are saying about context in this genre.

I'll drop by now and then, tickle your knowledge base with a well intended comment, and learn more.