Closing Time

A Waitress and manager celebrate a shift change that will leave each

other with a free morning the next day, after a grueling day of

work. Location: A roadside filling station and diner, near

Interstate 5, San Joaquin Valley, California. Your ratings and

critiques are invited and most welcome. Please keep in mind that

this is a 'street photo' when rating. (If you rate harshly or very

critically, please submit a helpful and constructive comment/Please

share your superior photographic knowledge.) Thanks! Enjoy! John

I'd appreciate a translation. It reads as Chinese, anyway, not Farsi. (Thanks for providing the explanation of the Farsi 'nice picture' -- below and I've removed my question, jsc)

John

I discounted it right away. There are lots of beginners on this site, and besides, ratings are

'just for fun' as I say in the site forum from time to time. This is a 'high energy' shot, despite any aesthetic shortcomings. It IS a crop, and even the full frame has much to speak for it, H C-B style, but this is a PN crop.

Thanks for the defense. Shakespeare: 'The Truth Will Out'

Sometimes, though not always on Critique Forum

John

I think the energy was from sheer exhaustion, like when a child cries or runs around excitedly just before it falls into a crumple of sleep.

This is the second photo submitted for rating today in which raters have a hard time figuring out how to rate, because it's not something that fits into the mold or a Top Rated Photo. It's got energy and the 'moment' which is what I look for more than anything, or composition, or something to carry the photo and which is why I bother posting photos such as this, but previously I didn't bother submitting them for critique - just posted them in subordinate folders and let the viewers 'discover' them.

And I'll continue to do that with other photos. When you submitted your rating on this photo there were 6 discrete, nonidentical ratings, and on another photo, also indoors at night, 9 discrete, nonidentical ratings on that.

Photonetters just don't know what to do with 'street' photography that captures a moment, but is not technically perfect, in general. Some do, and their rates show it, but others just don't seem to get it.

Thanks for the nice comment.

John

Hi John, I guess we have to cope with the childish games here, unfortunately. I notice that two of the names rating this picture, have also rated (seperately) the two pics of mine that I put up today. Curiously, those pictures have a couple of very low ratings too.

I'm only paranoid 'cos everyones out to get me ......

:-))

I have nearly 2700 ratings and only a few 1s and 2s and a whole host of 5s 6s and 7s, so an occasional 2 or 3 hardly matters statistically, although it irks a little, just to think that someone does it to be a 'stinker' or a 'spoiler' and not because of anything related to photographic merits.

The wonder of this site, frankly, is that those kind of things don't happen more often, and that in the more blatant case we have abuse@photo.net in which the able Jeremy has been mostly amenable to viewing things agreeably when there is a case to be made.

Here, the case is less clear cut, as the ratings are all over the place - one can either hate this photo and its aesthetics or love it, or feel somewhere in between.

This is the kind of photo one would place in a photo essay for 'Life in America' on a certain day and it would get play in a book of photos for that day, I think, as opposed to photos of diving pelicans, which have little relationship to life as it goes on day to day, or sunrises (or sunsets) over the Great Smokey Mountains, beautiful as they are.

One thing you must say about this photo, is it is unique. . . . and love it or hate it. . . it should score fairly high on the originality scale if it otherwise is a worthy photo (which is how I usually approach abuse@photo.net when someone gives me a stinker rating for aesthetics and a commensurate rating for originality and/or vice versa arguing that a recognizable photo can't be both in focus, properly lighted, have a proper subject, tell story or have a composition and still be a 1/1 or a 2/2. If it has 2 or a 1 for aesthetics, it must mean it's like a black cat in a coal mine out of focus at night (or underground) for aesthetics, or for originality it's so trite it's been taken a thousand times before, or it's an accidental shutter trip, like a photo of one's shoes, cockeyed, when one trips the shutter as one advances film before the first frame advance.

Fortunately, I've only had to approach abuse@photo.net less than the fingers on one hand, I think, as raters seem to give me wide berth -- I'm respectful, and they're generally pretty respectful in return and I don't pick fights.

I think I've caught a moment here, and for the person on PN who wrote every photo has been taken before, I challenge them to look at this and tell me where to find its duplicate.

Thanks for the kind comment. Don't be looking over your back -- bad luck sometimes comes in groups, like sets of powerful waves, and then things die down.

John

I think that just as a soldier in WWII could march 100 miles then fight for 2 or 3 days straight, we all have more in us than the 9-5ers would know about. I think the prospect of getting up late the next day and being able to lounge in bed was a most happy thought for her, and for him too. I was happy to capture that very brief moment of happiness before she slumped off to her car for the drive home.

Thanks.

John

This is a surprise.

I post because I like and I want to share what I like (generally).

This is one of those photos, totally devoid of artistic merit, but, as you say, making up for it in 'soul'.

I treasure your comment.

The color's wrong and needs color correcting and maybe I should have desaturated it -- I would have desaturated currently if I couldn't properly color correct it, but essentially, it's just a lively photo, and that's important to me.

I have artistic photos, beaitiful photos and lots of other kinds, meaningful photos, and this.

I'm glad you endorse my choice - that you like it.

John (Crosley)