color -- then and now The Kiss ** *@-j-c-n

The Kiss (II) speaks for itself. This is a 'street' photo, so

please rate accordingly, and also taken indoors at night so please

make appropriate allowances. Your ratings and critiques are invited

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

submit a helpful and constructive comment/Please share your superior

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

Please note that this 'subject' -- the guy, is a moving subject for this very low shutter speed photo. He literally was 'making his move' (although it seemed to be entirely welcome).

 

John ;-))

Very good shot, sharp and clear, 6/6

Hello John.

 

Great photograph! The colours, the pose, and the background are marvelous!

 

Was this a set up, or a candid?

 

7/7

 

Regards, Nick.

This was entirely a candid.

 

Not only this, but the couple was sooo oblivious I have a half dozen of such shots.

 

If you see, the background, which is across a city street, is absolutely in focus, which means at night, I had plenty of time to stop down to f8 or f11 for this shot, and the V.R. lens and ASA/ISO 1600 film speed allowed me to still capture this guy 'making his moves' without substantial blur (his target was NOT moving).

 

We had a few rating trolls on this photograph (and another I posted today).

 

Thanks for the nice rate. I particularly liked this one and broke into a big smile when I looked at my LCD, but it took the shadow/highlight filter of Photoshop to bring her out without blowing out the highlights of his shirt.

 

(FYI: I almost never do 'setups' and only then they're just a repeat of something I saw 'candid' the moment before.)

 

Thanks again.

 

John

Like the couple exploring Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo County's Wine County -- one a wine snob and one just a regular guy -- in the movie 'Sideways' on the movie marquee, behind this couple, this photo can be either 'swilled' as one actor did his wines, or it can be savored for its nuances.

 

This is a photo that seems to evoke a broad range of responses from raters, and I'm not surprised -- street photos, particularly at night seem to do so.

 

Yes, your comment about 'Diner' and 'American Graffiti' hit the nail right on the head, and the marquee in the background was absolutely essential to this photo.

 

I have many others of their kissing, even of them wrapped up together, but in this he's going for his mark (he hit it, of course), AND the marquee is sharply in focus, so you know it's date night.

 

Thanks for the helpful comment.

 

Be sure to come back; you're always welcome.

 

John

Great capture of a moment but I am finding the hugh very distracting. If this is digital can you play with the white balance.

If you look at this man's white shirt, it's white, as is the white of the marquee in the background.

 

Night 'street' shooting in color is exceedingly difficult and one can be tempted to shoot or convert to B & W except that whites, as his shirt, tend to look 'blown out' and lose all detail.

 

The shirt is illuminated by overhead lights, his face by other lights of another color temperature.

 

While a super photoshoppers might be able to 'select' and color balance each part of this, then it will look like a setup, not a candid photo, which this is (notice somebody else asked if it were a setup?).

 

A continual problem with nighttime shooting in color is color balance where there are multiple light sources.

 

The Nikon D70,D2HS, D2X line is world champs in auto color balance or even for manual color balance when one takes a few test shots and makes manual adjustments for blue and/or red adjustments and very easy to do so. But with flesh tones under varying light sources, WYSIWYG, sorry.

 

The only answer is to convert to B&W and I tried that and it didn't work well, with blowouts on his shirt. I would have liked this as a B&W, too.

 

Thanks for the comment and the feedback and the honest rating (which I could determine since it was the eighth different rating;-))

 

John

Well, he's certainly not 'phoney' -- he's got his eyes closed and he's going to engage in some serious smooching, and he doesn't care who's around, what's going on or who sees him.

 

He doesn't even care if he looks 'phoney', because he's a little 'engaged' for the moment.

 

John

Doesn't look phoney to me. This shot captures so much and looks gritty and real with it. It captures a moment that we all have shared, and all aspire to. I love the background which is colourful and adds a story to this couple who could be waiting for a show, have just seen it (and presumably enjoyed it) or are just hanging out in town. A very enjoyable shot that you can spend a long time looking at.

I appreciate your thoughtful response to my quick impression. It helps me think through some of the same issues that I am working through. I also appreciate that you are posting work that trys something different. I am shooting with a D-70 and find the white balance pretty dead on much of the time.

Any critique of my portflio would be welcome.

 

thanks

 

John

Gosh you're fast ! Great street shot

Apparently not as fast as him, sorry to say. ;- (

 

Actually, he already had smooched her and was coming back for more. I already had photographed them smooching, but I realized that they just looked like a lump together, and resolved to photograph him again with the background included as he went for his target, so I stopped down my lens, framed the shot and hid my camera. Then, as he took his hands out of hers and put them around his neck, up went my camera to my eye, I framed the shot and voila, I got it.

 

His closed eyes were a bonus. Kind of like a shark rolling its eyes as he goes for the prey? ;-)

 

Yes, it took some 'quickness' to frame this shot, because my camera was hidden and had to be brought to the eye to frame, but I was prepared, after all.

 

I would have traded places with him, I think.

 

John

(Belatedly) I like your comment about how they might have just been or be going to the show. I hadn't considered that, just that the marquee made a good, interesting background, and hadn't realized the extra context it provided.

 

Thanks for the 'right on' comment.

 

John

The more I like this photo and am glad I took the chance (and it was a chance) to post this photo.

 

Despite problems of pixellation and other problems arising from cropping this nighttime photo, color photo taken indoors from under more than one light source, I feel that I have captured 'the moment' that is emblematic of every young man's 'moment' -- a Friday or better, Saturday' night out with a girlfriend, downtown (here at an ice cream parlor) across the street from 'the show'.

 

For those of you who have lived through it, isn't it a wonderful memory and for those of you who are going through it, despite all the agony and heartache of being 'accepted' by your peers, isn't this the apotheosis of your social lives and your development into an adult?

 

John

Absolutely with you on that one John. Lots of images appeal to me, some are just beautiful, some are challenging some clever and some all of the above. However, I find very very few pictures that actually invoke the feel of their subject in me. This shot, though, is one of them.

right place at the right time! I love all of the light and colour in the bakground. This photo is really happening, John! Regards, Anna

This couple was heavily 'engaged' in each other in this ice cream parlor and completely oblivious to almost everything else.

 

The key, of course, to a shot like this was being able to anticipate it, and it wasn't hard as they had been smooching previously, and they were focused so intently on each other they just never saw me and my large lens.

 

Another key is the 'stacking' of colorful and interesting elements, placing 'the kiss' in context as a 'downtown' 'Saturday night' sort of affair by lining them up with the theater marquee across the street. I had to move around to do that, but it was what 'made' the shot, I think, as well as the moment.

 

Interestingly, I have photos of them smooching and they literally aren't worth showing, as they just form a kind of visual 'lump' that is hard to decipher. This photo illustrates the consequence (the kiss) by anticipation -- you know it's coming so you assume it's 'a kiss', but you don't see the kiss in the photo. But you absolutely KNOW they did kiss, now didn't they, even though you didn't see the touching.

 

This is a photo in which the part (the preparation) suggests the whole (the actually osculation).

 

;-))

 

John

If one were sitting where I was sitting as I took this, and had only a narrow field of view and was looking at these two through a telescope, this is what one would have seen.

 

But to the casual observer, this is not the scene; the movie marquee is actually twice or more farther away from the observer (photographer) as it appears here.

 

In life, the couple and movie marquee appear to an observer greatly distant.

 

The key is 'compression' of the elements, made possible through use of a moderate telephoto lens, which luckily enough because of adequate light and a fast lens, I was able to hold steady enough for this night/indoor shot.

 

The benefits of foreseeing a possibly 'very good' photo are apparent but the winning photo sometimes escapes notice until one actually gets behind the viewfinder and makes a few photos and finds what works. In this case, the couple kissing made a poor photo until juxtaposed by a telephoto against the marquee background.

 

A digital camera 'view' always helps understand what works and doesn't work, just as professionals often used Polaroid Backs on their 2-1/4 square or larger 'view' cameras to 'see' how the finished product would look.

 

Polaroid backs are out, now that digital is here, of course, and that's one of the wonders of digital shooting.

 

I once was in Ukraine watching the head (Moscow-based) photographer of a marriage agency in a nightcub photograph in a side room turned into a studio, dozens of young prospective 'brides' -- women for one of those Internet mail-order address and e-mail catalogs (where you write the young women for $8 and they return the e-mail with a paragraph or four and it costs $8 to open the return e-mail).

 

Well, having beautiful photographs (making the women look stunning) is essential to such a business, and the photographer, using a D-100 Nikon, was 'chimping' after each shot.

 

(Chimping: making like a chimpanzee, bobbing one's head down then up as one views the photo on the screen of a digital camera, supposedly chimpanzee like.)

 

He took a photo, then chimped, took another, then chimped and so on and so on, adjusting lights, etc.

 

In one case, he told a very, very large young -- read obese -- young woman with enormous breasts, to bare her decollatege more and more, all to attract those $8 to open and $8 to send letters when they posted those big-chested photos on a web site for 'mail-order' brides.

 

(Whether or not that young woman ever was aware she was getting those letters or whether they were being answered by someone else -- a man or a woman -- elsewhere in that country or Russia is anyone's guess. Too many men I spoke to later on another trip (I was photographing and happened onto a 'tour' of such men 'compained their correspondents they met 'in person' had no idea that a correspondence was being carried on in the name of the woman to whom they were writing -- buyer beware!!!!

 

I had 'tagged' along to the 'tour meeting for a day' (got a great photo -- see Early B&W portfolio) but didn't participate, and only was there as an observer.

 

There are thousands of 'scams' and 'scammers' in the Internet 'marriage agency' business, and somehow American and other foreign men take things at 'face value' when they should be very wary. (At the same time, I married a beautiful Russian woman half my age and she was superintelligent and pretty wonderful -- only her brain cancer intervened. And in Ukraine or Russia I get stopped by women half my age who are interested in spending time with me, and they are almost always very intelligent, sincere and honest. My age there (plus my vitality and photography) seem to present no obstacle to cross-generational meeting, with males or females, but particularly with females as they often have to keep their 'intelligence' partly 'under a hat' in that male-dominated society. (And that's extraordinary because the Soviets employed women in every profession, including physcians and surgeons when such was unheard of in the United States, in the '30, '40s, '50s, and '60s.

 

(As I write this, a supposed 'woman' from Africa who claims to be half Houston resident/half African and who e-mailed me (unsolicited) beautiful photos and a letter looking for her 'undying lover' is attempting to Instant Message me, but I suspect she's just a Nigerian guy with a scam, and frankly said so, and if 'she' really is a 'she' and wants to even message me, she has to send me a photo of her with a sign reading 'Hi, John' or I won't even reply!!!

 

It sounds hard-hearted, but frankly the odds are 95% it's a scam and a scamster, even if it is a woman and even if the biographical facts are true)

 

On the other hand at the same time my interpreter from Ukraine whom I haven't spoken to or written for the better part of a year this minute e-mailed me, and I must go, because this woman -- whose photo is in my single photo folder -- is 100% every man's -- or woman's -- idea of an almost perfect person -- beauty, brains, and maturity, and she's only 22.

 

(Someday this young woman may be the president of Ukraine -- if you saw the last President you would know looks are no impediment to achievement in Ukraine politics --- the last president looked like a photo agency model or a movie star.)

 

Reflections.

 

Inspired by this 'kiss'.

 

John

Simply love the photo. It's more like a painting or poster to me! I love your genre of street photography, synchronizing so intelligently the human dynamics on the street with objects like banners, posters etc.

It's what I do naturally.

 

I did it when I first started taking photos in the late '60s, and I did it naturally. I probably was influenced by photographic greats who were published in magazines I read -- that featured prominently great photography.

 

I gave it up for 35 years or more, but that 'style' has not left me. I've learned to exploit it.

 

Please look at my 'Presentation' Photographers, Watch Your Background, or words to that effect -- hundreds of photos long, found on my portfolio page. I think you might like it.

 

Thanks so much for the comment.

 

John (Crosley)