Where the Tears Fall**

Where the Tears Fall, a street photograph, was taken for color AND

composition. Tell me what you think. Your ratings and critiques

are invited and are most welcome. (If you rate harshly or very

negatively, please submit a helpful and constructive comment/Please

share your superior knowledge to help me improve my photography)

Thanks! Enjoy! John

There was a good place in the W/NW forum for this, but I wanted to post in a folder, and you can't really do both.

 

John

Nice shot.

The clown really didn't look like he was going to cry or keeping his tears inside - in fact, he looked like he should be a cheerleader for Michael Jackson at his trial. I'm always suspicious of clowns, and especially this one if you could see his face -- people say it is especially chilling, and the thought of him hanging around children . . . .

 

John

When visiting the circus as a child I was always a bit wary of clowns, in fact I might not have liked them - just as today I'm not exactly enamoured of mimes.

Great colours, John; the comp. is strong too - and the idea has merit, a fraction of the being is captured, but somehow the whole is revealed. The marks (oil?) on the paving can easily pass as the tears which run in rivers beneath the chalky facade.

Angle is good, the balance of space occupied by subject matter and bg is about right.

It's sunny while simultaneously one senses an emotional thunderstorm. Bittersweet. Cheers, Seven.

You have more than competently understood this photo, both from a sociological and compositional point of view. Thank you. I always appreciate your commentaries as they are delightfully always 'right on'.

 

This photo isn't about having just taken a photo of clown's feet and placed the clown there, but having recognized when I glanced at the feet that there was a photo there and framing it as such to get the maximum out of the framing from the spacing of the filled crack at his left foot tip and its intersection with another filled crack as well as the other unfilled cracks which are not so prominent. The filled cracks, being prominent, give this photo a geometric quality of 'squareness' (actually because of the angles -- polygons) that contrast interestingly with the round shapes of his shoes and which is repeated in the round circular and eliptical figures of his pants. Of course the colors are most remarkable.

 

I never ever was comfortable with clowns. There was a time when neighbors in a very wealthy suburb where I lived (houses now sell for $2 million apiece, just old 1955 bungalows built nicely), sometimes hired clowns for their childrens' birthdays and I never met one who made me feel they were anything but losers and people I wouldn't want to know under any circumstances (e.g. not nice guys out to have some fun and enjoy the laughter of children and make some money at a nice job); most were pretty much low-class losers, who found a 'gig' in which the kids could not see how much a 'loser' they really were.

 

That's what I think the paint really is for.

 

And why clowns really are said to be 'crying inside'.

 

And I think it's no accident that John Wayne Gacey dressed up as a clown to attract children -- patholotical serial killer and pedofile that he was. (no suggestion that this guy was any of that).

 

Nevertheless if I do post a photo of this guy's mug, I would like comments of how his mug makes viewers feel -- comfortable or not comfortable and whether they'd want him around their children.

 

The cracks (filled or not) in this photo are an interesting compositional device, and without them, I doubt I'd have taken this photo.

 

On more than one level, they suggest imperfection, as well as framing the subject and adding important aesthetic qualities.

 

John

I often don't take full sunlight color photos, often because of the harsh lighting and shadows; I prefer the softer lights and lesser contrast of dawn, dusk and predawn and post-dusk hours as well as the interesting lights of night and indoors which are so hard to control, but allow me entree into situations where other photographers seldom venture.

 

This is a rare example of my photography in late midday in full sunlight.

 

John

Hi John. This looks very nice. This is a very good example of capturing a photo with a theme in mind. I think using hard light actually adds a special mood which goes with the title of the photo. The crop leaves many things for the imagination and keeps the viewer thinking about the rest and the caption directs your thoughts.

 

 

Nicely presented. BTW were those marks on the ground coincidental? and if not the the composition is exquisite as they symbolise the tears.

 

 

Kind regards.

No, those marks were not 'accidental', well, yes, they were 'accidental' in that I didn't move the man over them or pose him there, but without them there as they were, I wouldn't have taken the photo as I did. They were the element that 'made' the composition and caused it to be posted. He just happened to be standing in a most felicitious place, and I wouldn't have happened to take his photo as I did if he hadn't.

 

Is that clear?

 

Nice to see you stop by. Nice, thoughtful comment.

 

John

It just occurred to me that the colorful balls or orbs on this clown's legs, might indeed be the 'tears' that are described in the caption. It took some thought, but now that I've put it into words, the thought won't leave. After all, wouldn't clown tears be colorful like those?

 

Anybody else with the same thought?

 

John