Everything in Place/The Precise Moment (B & W Ed.)

One moment, I was focusing on cooking utensils, then two nurses

showed up, and finally a motorcycle came roaring around the corner,

so I snapped the shutter instinctively. Everything just fell into

place, and with a press of the shutter button, I captured this

moment. Let me know what you think. (Those are cooking utensils in

foreground for use by street vendors/scene in a Bangkok, Thailand

street/alley). (If you rate harshly or very negatively, please

submit a helpful and constructive comment/Please share your superior

photographic knowledge to help improve my photography.) Thanks!

Enjoy! John ;-)

The color version of this photo can be viewed in my Early B & W folder, where it has been displayed since the early part of this year. Regardless of ratings received at that time, I consider this one of my very best 'street' photos, considering range of exposure, balance, capturing the 'moment' and other factors that go into 'street' shooting. (Also, notice the wealth of 'threes' in this photo -- the three x three number of cooking utensils for nine overall -- the centermost has the product of the cooking stacked in a portion -- a sort of dumpling like kreplach (phonemic) or won ton, but with a Thai name I don't know and I don't think used for soup. Also notice the two nurses and the motorcyclist for a repeated theme in my photography -- threes. (Three squared plus three)

 

I felt when this photo was originally posted that eventually it would be desaturated and posted in this Early B & W folder, and that it belongs better in B & W than color, since it is not particularly 'color dependant'.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

John

You are right it is not color dependent, I think it is even enhanced by being B&W, details become more important. Your choice of a strong contrast makes it more intense, overpowering the everyday feeling that a less contrasted version would have or the color one has. You pointed to meanings and composition; I confess that I did not realize the nines and threes you point to until I real your text. Composition is indeed well succeeded. I like too that contrast between those busy people and the inert cooking utensils, the effect is very dynamic. I think that it is not easy to decide which one is your best street photograph but this is undoubtedly one of your best.

 

Of course you put words to it: Inert vs. Dynamic. How could I have overlooked that? Even in the prior posting in color in my single photo folder, no one brought up the difference.

 

This photo seems to be entirely self-contained and something few want to comment on. For 'street' shooting, you have to be ready for almost anything, as it can fly away in a fraction of a second. Here, the minor photo gods smiled as when I was setting up a possible shot, everything just moved into place, I snapped the shutter, and promptly moved along. (Coke Poster guy, one of my highest-viewed photos, was taken just a few blocks away, -- two figures, one on poster with cola, and another looking skyward, one of my very best photos ever -- all happened in just a fraction also. It was a very good day.)

 

Thanks for the comment.

 

John

This scene reminds me of a science fiction drama I once saw on television -- perhaps a Rod Serling 'Twilight Zone' or a clone from later years.

 

In one of the independent episodes, the entire story was centered around a crew from the 'other side of time' who scurried ahead of each of us, constructing the 'props' in which we live each scene of our lives.

 

The construction crew from the 'other side of time' was busily constructing a house or store, and putting various props into place, all under the guidance of a foreman who reminded them that they had to have 'everything in place' for when the human figures from the 'opposite of time' marched through the scene -- of course entirely unaware of the 'behind the scenes -- other side of time' construction crew, and the two sides of time only met when the human figures on their march steadily forward through time, intersected with the work of the construction crew who had built the props into which our daily scenes were lived out.

 

The construction crew from the 'other side of time' like scenery technicians everywhere, even 'aged' the scenery to specification, according to how 'old' it was supposed to be.

 

It's a different kind of 'intelligent design', I think.

 

Life proceeded, the story taught us, scene by scene, and how are we to know that what we think is a building there from day to day isn't consructed just for us (such as by a crew from the 'other side of time') each time we pass it, instead of seeming to be immutable and everpresent.

 

The relationship to this scene: Imagine that the crew from the 'other side of time' had just paved this alleyway, placed these cooking implements atop their giant propane tanks, and even -- as a finishing touch -- had placed those doughy won ton or ravioli things in the centermost implement, just as this scene was ready to unfold.

 

Then, the construction crew from the 'other side of time' waits and the two women begin walking down the alleyway, the motorcyclist rounds the corner (Crosley snaps his frame) and then, the scene having unfolded as is always was going to, the 'construction crew from the other side of time turns into the 'demolition crew from the other side of time', and begins taking away the wonton-raviolis, the cooking implements, tears town the buildings and tears up the alleyway -- all because the scene has unfolded.

 

If another scene is to play itself out here, in fact as each and every scene plays itself out here, a separate construction crew builds scene props for those human actors as they plunge forward through time, -- each scene built anew.

 

Whew!

 

(I liked the program -- it was a suggestion of another aspect of time -- perhaps another dimension to our universe, other than the seemingly immutable 'fact' that 'time marches on'--in that drama, time marched on only for the human actors -- at least in the human dimension.

 

The 'construction crew from the other side of time also moved forward through time, but in a different speed, jumping forward from future scene to future scene, always erecting the 'props' for our daily scenes ahead of us, and then tearing down our houses, our beds, even first unscrewing our lightbulbs each time we move in and out of a room or a house.

 

Perhaps I was one of those members of a construction/demolition crew 'from the other side of time' memorializing this scene as it passed my dimension and our time dimensions intersected.

 

It has been posited that if the universe were to contract that perhaps time would run backwards, and people would pop from their graves and vanish into the wombs, until the entire universe reversed the 'Big Bang' and reverted to whatever it was before.

 

Who's to say or prove that the construction crew from the 'other side of time' isn't watching our every move -- our every preordained scene of the stage on which we carry out the scenes of our lives?

 

Who?

 

If you believe in 'intelligent design' for the universe as a scientific fact or plausible scientific theory, then you also must accept the hypothesis that events also take place as in that drama.

 

And if you reject the plausibility of the drama as recounted, must you then reject the plausibility of 'intelligent design?'

 

© john crosley, 2005, all rights reserved, first publication, 2005.

 

(and no I ain't been smoking or poppin' nuttin'. -- jc)

John, it looks as if you have been browsing through Stephen Hawking! Though I am at the fourth reading and I am a scientist by training, I still do not pretend to have grasped it all. It's amazing though how many friends I have from varying backgrounds that say they did! I am often amused not only by the photos that you post but also by the accompanying comments. However, I am not surprised, because to be a good photographer you must not only be highly receptive to your surroundings, but also be able to mould them into some cohesive meaning, be it real or imagined. Whether the universe is in it's state of expansion or will ultimately contract (unlikely!), and if the randomness of events predicted by the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics is true (which it is), a photo captures a unique moment that will remain a record of that event for some time to come. Whether pictures are taken through prediction or opportunistically by grasping the significance of that instant, they nevertheless represent a record of our interraction with the universe at a given moment and as such they are personal and unique. That's what makes photography so much fun to follow. I guess some people's work is more fun than others' .... no rights reserved!

Seriously John, I never had a doubt that you had an extremely serious side to you; your non glamour - non-fashion, non-female work shows it clearly, as well as the technical proficiency of your Photoshopping -- tasks which I find ever too tedious for my short attention span.

 

And, a pro pos of the above discussion and photo, who's to say, that in the passage of time, as it marches forward as our universe expands (and perhaps again in reverse if it ever contracts), that the pixels (or the droplets or silver) isn't changed each time someone views a photo, by that same 'construction crew from the other side of time'.

 

My God, I forgot I had penned that almost hallucinatory and fairly narcissistic paen to science fiction, forgetting that people might actually read it -- actually believing no one of consequence ever would read it, and there you are, not only reading it, but actually -- I am sure -- understanding it.

 

And no, I don't read Stephen Hawking, though he lives a short ways down the pike -- a virtual stone's throw or two from where I live, but who can talk to him, as he's just a little more reclusive than I and completely mute, a complete invalid who lives for his theorems, writings and science -- a homunculus of a man who is literally changing our view of the world -- perhaps the world's greatest argument against abortion on demand (not a position of mine, but I recognize the worth of the argument from his existence).

 

If you ever come to the San Francisco Bay Area of more particularly to the Santa Cruz Area or Monerey Bay Areas, please be sure to let me know, as I would love to say 'hello' and meet you in person -- possibly even escort you around.

 

I sometimes get to your lovely city, as your comment on one of my Eiffel Tour photos has shown you know, and I'm committed to photographing it in all seasons, including a reservation to return briefly in a couple of months, perhaps again earlier, (I keep a prepaid Eurail pass in my bag, just in case I can break away or get a superlow fare and stay Chez Ibis ou Chez Accor bon marche si vous comprenez, commme les Francais, pas comme les Americains.

 

And if you ever see a rumpled guy, possibly with a shirttail out, looking distracted, with a Nikon or three around his neck hobbling around your city, pointing his optiques just beyond you as you stroll votre beau cite, it may be I, and I may actually be framing you, not knowing what you look like, especially if you happen to be with one of your photo subjects.

 

I may 'look' distracted, but trust me, I'm not, and even the Arab and gypsy thieves and the 'whirling guy' who acts drunk and crashes into passersby and steals tourists blind learn quickly that I'm far from an easy mark, as they often try to target me, only to find that I can simultaneously shove, run and bellow for les flics.

 

J'aime votre cite, and if I had my druthers, I might join the residents of the many 'villages' that comprise it.

 

Addendum: I once had a physicist and his family to dinner in another life -- a man entirely confident of his scientific knowledge, who was engaged in sending a satellite to circle the earth to test Einstein's 'special theory of relativity' involving speed and time.

 

I bet him that Pluto of the then known planets was right then and there not the farthest planet and suggested a suitably large sum of money.

 

He smirked and took my bet.

 

I handed him an almanac and asked him to look at the perturbations and orbit of Pluto, and it showed him that AT THAT TIME, the orbit of PLUTO brought it within and closer to earth than the orbit of Neptune, then the farthest known planet.

 

I waived my winnings.

 

He was a little less smug.

 

I try to be a man for all seasons, sometimes.

 

My best regards.

 

John (Crosley)