The Bus Station -- Please View Large **

The Bus Station. Study in Anomie and 'Street Life', Santa Cruz.

Let me know what you think. Your ratings and especially your

critiques are welcome and very much appreciated. (If you submit a

harsh or very critical rating, please submit a helpful and

constructive critique/Please share your superior knowledge to help

advance my photography) Thanks! Enjoy! John

Each participant in this photo has a completely different level of awareness and area of attention, from the girl at the right (playing an unseen videogame at which she is seated) to the woman seated atop her cane adjusting her glasses -- to the two women with their backs to us, and finally the two lovers exchanging arm and hand touches oblivious to anyone.

 

That's why this photo was taken and posted, as well as the distribution and placement of the individuals in the photo

 

John

Sorry, This shot just doesn't work for me. I keep wondering what you wanted to say with this photo and can't come up with anything. The couple with the guy scratching his arm are kind of interesting had that been the only thing in the phot as well as the two friends talking and the woman changing her glasses but together it just seems too much. Anyway, just my opinion.

by the way, I do not consider myself a superior photographer to anyone I just know what works and doesn't work for me.

Nice shot Mr. Crosley. I enjoyed it. Clean colors, no clutter, reflections.. Frozen in time.. It makes a calming effect on me. I suppose it was shot with high ISO, I even like the grain.

One of the things about 'art' (whether or not this is 'art') is that it evokes feelings and reactions -- sometimes strong and sometimes not.

 

I see plenty of highly regarded photographs in magazines devoted to photography that leave me essentially 'cold' but sell for thousands and tens of thousands of dollars and older ones that are considered masterpieces.

 

This was not intended to be a 'feel good' photo and certainly was not intended to appeal to the 'Top Rated Photo' crowd, and I knew that when I posted it. But it does catch a moment frozen in time, and it is not a simple moment at all. This is a 'busy' moment, with each person caught in his/her/their own world(s). That's what this photo is all about.

 

I am more interested these days in what a photo agency would showcase for its stock or assignment photographers as part of their repertoire of photographs -- their 'style' if you will. Go to Corbin, Getty, Magnum, etc., and see what they showcase and you'll see their featured photographers' portfolios are miles apart from what you see on Photo.net.

 

That's also what this photo is about.

 

No hard feelings at all. This photo is challenging for my viewers, I think.

 

John

You have understood this photo and are at apparent peace with it. That's the 'magic' of posting a photo like this - some people very much dislike it, and some people very much are 'charmed' by it.

 

This was never destined for high ratings, as is much of my recent work, and that's OK with me -- some of my work certainly will get high ratings, and I post that. I can afford to take 'chances' and I do.

 

I like this photo, and thought I lost it when (1) I couldn't find the film and (2) after I shot the photo, I discovered the camera settings were wrong, I thought, but apparently not, as the scene was very hard to read and apparently the film's latitude was sufficient to recover if there was an error. (I did use shadow/highlight tool in Photoshop because of the influence of the strong backlighting from the window over the exposure. I could have 'brought out' the details in the 'couple' more but preferred to make the viewer work a little more.

 

What do you think -- should I convert to B&W, or should I just let it be? I mean is it strong enough, or should I just let it go?

 

Thanks for the comment.

 

John

I would leave it as it is. Because I was attracted by the colors in the first place. See how the reds form a diagonal. The blues are kind of tangled up with the reds. Other than that the rest is all muted. Also I wouldn't want to lose the reflections on the white wall.

Hallo John

 

Be true. You engaged a modern artistic dance theater company to improvise this photo. And Pina Bausch did the choreographies. I espacially like that cool pink headed outer space girl on the right. She gives the scene a vexing touch. Looks like she is shortly taking off. The grain and the colors including the color bleeds and reflections are an essential part of the composition.

 

I would like to see this scene develop to other and even more absurd positions, but I guess it changed to boring normality one glimpse of an eye later.

 

You FROSTED that moment in your pic. (Means: cool picture)

 

Alexander

Pina Bausch.

 

That's a name I haven't heard since I went for a very weird and somewhat diastrous time with a ballerina and other form of dancer (is that enough of a euphemism for echdysiast) through the ballet companies of Europe trying to get fantastically dedicated but aging, very muscular, scoliosis-backed ballerina at 28, weighing 128 very pounds (not an ounce of fat) a job against 93-pound, 15-year-old sylphs who had their whole careers in front of them.

 

At least in Germany almost every regional city then had a ballet company, the classical 'arts' having a following and civic payroll sponsorship -- unlike the United States.

 

It was really a wonder to behold, being in all those 'smaller' cities outside of, say, Frankfurt, and to find my lovely, depressed companion knew half the ballerinas and male ballet dancers in Europe since they came from America and, yes, the name Pina Bausch was prominently pronounced then -- even if not in the ballet idiom. Ah, yes, it brings back some very horrible, twisted memories -- a very awful time in my life -- I had my hands full and learned very much, not least about others' narcissism.

 

But this scene does look very choreographed doesn't it, Alexander?

 

That's exactly why I took the photo.

 

Nice to see you back.

 

I've missed your wonderful commentaries.

 

Y'all come back now; y'hear?

 

John

I love the commentaries -- I learn so much from them. Sevtap, you have taught me something -- I hadn't noticed that the reds formed that diagonal, and now I can't miss it at all, and won't miss it in analyzing my and others' photos in the future -- wonderful analysis -- also same for the reflections on the wall.

 

I think that this photo might do well -- blown up big -- in black and white, and may try that when I get my various Epson large printers starting with the 2200 printer into gear.

 

I think that with some careful sharpening -- perhaps using the 'Noritsu' -- take the file to a Photo developing store for sharpening on a Noritsu machine for sharpening instead of using 'unsharp mask' in Photoshop because Noritsu does it better without breaking up the photo into grain and other artifacts, and it might look pretty good -- even better.

 

Sevtap, you have taught me something.

 

Thanks

 

John

The young woman/girl, lower right was very concerned I was photographing her, and she 'was' in the frame. I told her I was not photographing her (truthfully) as she was not the 'subject' but merely an 'accessory' and told her I was not 'focusing' on her (also the truth -- see). I tell the truth to bystanders and participants such as her, but sometimes they draw conclusions that are not exactly warranted by what I say if they listen exactly to the words I say. I'm VERY literal in such circumstances. She WAS in the photo. She was NOT the subject and I was NOT focusing on her. She was INCIDENTAL to the photo, but her placement was important to the photo -- without her the photo is a failure in my opinion -- just a view across the room and better just to walk across the room or zoom a little bit and make a different composition.

 

The rule in landscapes often is to include a little foreground for perspective; it also works in 'street' photography, just for interest -- I've learned that from viewing Henri Cartier-Breson's works that were not published (as well as the published works). He took the 'whole' scene, from foreground to background, merging or melding it, and made the whole scene a composition -- that was his 'magic' and 'magic it was.

 

But did the woman/girl at right have a problem being recognized? I couldn't recognize her from this photo/could you?

 

Often in 'street photos' people who avoid being photographed are violating parole or probation or 'on the lam' from husbands, abusive boyfriends, parents, bosses whom they don't want to know they are playing hookey from their jobs, or they're just not dressed up for a wedding/the races at Ascot, etc. The whole point of 'street photography' is to photograph people as they are -- to make a documentary of circumstances that are 'real' rather than make a 'wedding photograph' or an 'event photograph' such as those 'benefit cocktail party' photographs one sees of the glammerati in People magazine with the glitzeratti all dressed up in their strappy sandles, slit evening gowns with bosomy fronts and elaborately coiffed hair.

 

This is the opposite -- A guy scratching his arm, his girlfriend resting her head on his shoulder, a woman adjusting her glasses, two women talking, and a young woman/girl playing a video game.

 

What binds them all together? -- A bus trip -- seats on a bus to who knows where. . . .

 

John

The Girl/Woman, right corner, might be the bus driver . . . . seated as she is. Maybe she's playing a driving game . . . you know the type . . . keep the car on the road.

 

John