Life: Movies vs. Reality (Ole)**+ *@-j-c-n

Sometimes movies portray 'life' as 'larger than life' or 'better

than life'. Contrast this balding bus passenger, left, with the

ebullient superstars of this 'foreign' cinema showing abroad and

advertised literally everywhere in foreign capital(s) as shown on

their movie poster, background. Second in a series. Your ratings

and critiques are invited and most welcome. Please make allowances

for the fact that this man and poster were inside a glass bus stop

enclosure taken from outside the enclosure in early evening with

great reflection problems. (If you rate harshly or very negatively,

please submit a helpful and constructive comment/Please share your

superior knowledge to help improve my photography). Thanks!

Enjoy! John

Beautiful capture . He do look like an actor in the movie

I worked hard for this positioning. I didn't try to take out 'all' the reflections, as this was a 'street' photo. It almost looks as if it were 'posed' doesn't it?

 

Best wishes and thanks for the comment.

 

John

Left to Right, the movie stars are Gad Elmaleh and Gerard Depardieu. The latter is France's famously huge actor, a sometimes whale of a man who is not young at all and maintains a reputation as somewhat of a sex symbol. (Those French women don't have it all wrong . . . ).

 

(john)

Like many 'street' photos, ths one requires a little 'thought'. I won't go so far as to say this is a 'thinking man's photograph' though, however, the entire genre of 'street photography' suffers somewhat because sometimes it goes over the head of casual viewers who 'don't get' what is being portrayed (some might think this is just a photo of 'three guys' taken commercially perhaps . . . and not realize it is a 'street capture' . . . or do I have it wrong?

 

John (Crosley)

excellent color and motion, lively and bland, colorful and dull - very expressive photograph.

I like how you stated the contrasts here Charly M-R -- it's exactly what I was aiming for.

 

The original was almost ruined because of reflections off the glass between me and the figure and the wall poster, but selecting them in Photoshop and using highlight/shadow filter etc., helped me control them, one by one. I left some in for sake of reality, as this is meant to be and always will be a 'street' photo, although practically unviewable in original form.

 

I'm interested that no viewers have complained about he random yellows and reds - reflections of taillights and traffic lights from the nearby traffic and feux (traffic lights) from this early evening capture (I had to stop photographing soon after or switch to nighttime mode (f 2.8, use shop windows for illumination, etc., ISO 800, 1600, 3200, for subsequent captures).

 

Thanks for the comment.

 

John

Actually the red and yellow spots, re: tail lights etc., ad greatly to the spontaneity of the image and thus imbue the composition with wonderful "street" qualities. People are too quick to edit out what they perceive to be distracting artifacts in their images when in reality they sometimes help "make" the image. I appreciate the fact that your compositions are "what you see, is what you get" and not edited to death. Now before someone thinks I'm opposed to manipulating an image, I'm not, there are a very dedicated and talented group of photographers on PN who do some very creative and dramatic (even humorous) manipulations that I much enjoy. But "street" and or documentary work should reflect the "moment". Many years ago I saw a movie with Gerard in it, can't remember the title, but I didn't find him particulary sexy, a good actor yes, sexy no.

Once, when I practiced law, I had a sign that said in 'old style type' 'Honest Lawyer' given to me when I graduated law school.

 

Maybe I should post it in my biography here on Photo.net instead of all those words: 'Honest Photographer': What You See is What He Shot, Not What He Dreamed Up To Do Because He Had A Dearth of Captures and Lots of Spare Time With PhotoShop and Lots of Imagination.

 

I save the imagination and the photofinishing for others. Like Cartier-Bresson (I don't claim to be like him in many ways); he was a big game hunter to start out, and his interest in his 'captures' diminished when he had the film in the cannister; he had his personal printer do his photofinishing and took rather little interest in that except to ensure that it was all printed 'full frame' -- a point of personal honor with him which he carried to extreme -- so much so that if he misloaded a film cannister in his 35 mm Leica so that sprocket holes were exposed, those were required to be printed also, or not be printed at all.

 

Imagine a publisher accepting a photo with sprocket holes as a requirement! Cartier-Bresson was an old 'f a r t' as I told the curator at his 'Fondation de Cartier-Bresson' several days ago in Paris, and the curator smiled broadly in return and seemed to know what I meant, as C-B was more than a little persnickety, but a genius nevertheless.

 

I'm far less a genius, but I plug along, and as you can see, I've been at this thing anew for less than two years. (had a stab at it in my very early adult years and very intermittently thereafter -- separated by decades or almost so).

 

(I had hopes women could see Depardieu as 'sexy' so there'd be hope for me yet . . . my beautiful wife, 25 when I met her and 29 when we married, saw me so -- but then got brain cancer shortly after marriage a little while ago in one of life's little cruel twists.

 

And she looks more like Uma Thurman than Uma Thurman. (You'll find the cancer-stricken version lurking in my folders somewhere).

 

Thanks for the comment, Susan.

 

John

John, didn't I read somewhere that Cartier used only a single lens for the majority of his images, he wasn't a gadget freak like so many of our current photographers? Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.......I judge men more for what's on the inside than what the package is wrapped in. And so sorry about your wife, this cancer stuff is so insidious. Live well and happily in her rememberance. And keep shooting those great street shots.

The 'cruel twist' is my 'wife' believes perversely I 'caused her brain cancer' and continues to punish me, with her 200+ IQ going to all sorts of idiotic and exasperating means to do so, but I thwarted most of those most dangerous threats about three years ago.

 

Those efforts still come back to haunt me from time to time/she began to invent 'transgressions' alleged by me out of spite for 'causing' her brain tumor/cancer and out of self-interest -- her life depended on keeping US immigration status and deceit was no bar to her -- that was something I halfheartedly repelled but consigned myself to acknowledging and allowing on humanitarian grounds only.

 

After all, as regards her brain cancer, she is quite 'crazy', but she conceals it now from others (not me), as she has been told repeatedly it is 'crazy' and 'unpopular'.

 

So she now 'disguises' the argument as 'we had stress together,' 'stress causes cancer' ergo 'that stress caused her cancer.' which is the same thing as 'I caused her cancer'.

 

The cancer was thought to have been stopped but it had reappeared during her three-year disappearance once, and being of an extremely slow-moving kind,it will take another 10-15 years probably to claim its toll if it is not a kind that science will cure in the meantime (which I fervently hope)

 

In the past, after a 'disappearance' of 3 years, now I get three or four hateful e-mails a day telling me what a scornful person I am from the woman I have loved the most.

 

It's not much fun to be so hated, even for such demonstrably illogical reasons.

 

Maybe I'm the man on the left . . .

 

John

Interesting that as I prepare to write this, I realize that I've only taken the time & energy to lightly skim the earlier comments...which, if I may stray off topic slightly for a moment, leads me to equate myself with the man on the left a bit. Here's why :-) Wonderful juxtaposition (love the word but not sure if I can spell it) between the drab and mundane of our every-day "face-in-a-crowd" (me) as he plays out his part in this "life-is-a-stage/play" completely oblivious to the colorful frivolity & emotion of our escapism/cinema/etc... Chances are he wouldn'be be caught dead stradling the lines of sexuality (the fan?) and it's probably been years since he's felt his shoulders free of his daily burdens enough to launch into such carefree outburst. He is our working class blue (hard to tell on my monitor) collar everyday man...coexisting with the fantasy land that we all need to make things bearable. (makes me think of a short story my father recently recommended... The Secret Life of Walter Middy (or something close anyway)). Ok, back to work now for me

Cool shot John. I think that the glass here actually contributes to the effect; it brings the man at left into the poster. Took me a while to figure it out :)

What amuses me is how often the theme of people on poster vs. a real person comes up in street photography. I have a similar one and was quite fond of it earlier, but now it just feels like a cliche.

Eugene, I viewed your 'capture' which you may have waited a half day for, and have to tell you I would have taken and posted that if I had seen it. It's pretty wonderful. (see comment posted underneath).

 

The idea of two women in a poster talking on cell phone(s) and a third woman walking by, also talking on a cell phone is just too much . . . you anticipated that one clearly (as I did this one, taking about 18 photos, getting it on the second and third from last shot, I think, without reviewing my captures).

 

I was able many times to capture the man, left, looking straight left, but it was capturing him looking toward the camera (actually looking for a bus) that I think helps 'make' this photo, don't you? I had to wait a long time and make many images to get that particular look. It's a lesson to those who are afraid to keep pushing the shutter -- when you find the right situation and it's not perfect, keep trying until you get it right.

 

There's often a reason that the best shots are taken 'last'.

 

That's because the photographer didn't get the capture (s)he wanted until a certain frame, and having achieved the capture, just stopped snapping the shutter -- hence making that perfect capture the 'last' capture -- sort of a tautology. (If it's right, you'll stop and hence you'll often stop when you get it right -- the last capture).

 

and so on.

 

If you get my drift.

 

The idea, of course, is to press that shutter until you get something that really pleases you, film's not terribly expensive (for Westerners anyway) and digital shots can be deleted if you're running short of memory (bad habit though -- best to look at and examine your failures is on download to see how your shooting develops, I think).

 

Best,

 

John

I could feel the juices flowing -- something in this photo really hit it off with you. It's really the 'Secret Life of Walter Mitty' with two 'ts' rather than 'ds' I think but that's hardly relevant.

 

Well, the guy on the left is hardly a 'blue collar' kind of guy, I think, since he's wearing 'white collar' but France is a formal kind of nation, where a very sincere Frenchman taught me thirty years ago how as a hotel concierge/front deskman in a small city in Northern/Coastal France for 25 years he greeted the hotel's cook/chef/kitchen employee with a formal handshake a 'bonjour monsieur' using the formal 'vous' rather than the familiar 'tu' for the word 'you' -- something that somewhat has disappeared from French life among younger Frenchmen.

 

But the guy, top left, has a look of the more formal 'vous' and maybe a 'bureaucrat' meaning he works in a 'bureau' -- meaning literally 'office' and may be a creature of 'habit' and probably 'class' to which he is consigned, probably with little escape as he waits to catch his 'autobus' or 'car' (bus) home from a more southerly arrondissement of Paris, near my hotel.

 

When I have to visit Paris, as I did here for medical/legal reasons, I often stick near my hotel rather than range far and wide, for why go all over to capture life when it's around you? This was just a short walk away from my neighborhood hotel.

 

I'm happy that this photo has touched you so/it seems to have a certain universality about it/ something I sometimes try for, and which I am happy with when I achieve it.

 

Thanks for the validation.

 

John

This 'seminal' photo has drawn now 15 comments, yet today has 2440 'views' -- a paltry amount of views for a photo that scored reasonably well.

 

I have had photos with scores less than 5.00 on Originality and Aesthetics each with views nearly 20,000, yet this 'minor' photo which requires 'thought' somehow has evaded being 'attractive' as a photo, but has had quite a large success as a 'taking off point' by those interested in writing about it and interpreting it (see comments above, and my numerous responses).

 

I'm very happy that my photos are a launching pad for so much discussion, yet feel a touch of sadness that the photo itself was less 'popular' for the image than as a starting off point for interpretation, as it is special to me on both points.

 

I think the comment above, about such a photo requiring some 'thought' is a pro pos. (People tend to overlook thought inducing photos except the more intellectual or verbal of the viewers -- those who are challenged by a photo, and perhaps skillful in analysis and not cowed by the challenges presented by putting their thoughts into words. (Note the lack of '6/6 Good photo' comments in all of my commentaries, or comments stating things like 'excellent depth of field' etc., and comments with more intellectual 'meat', which I prize.

 

John

ah crap. There I was getting all literary and snooty & I go & misspell the title. Oh well, that's an American education for ya. Chin up on the "lack of interest". I count myself lucky every time I get "any" comments let alone several on one shot (not counting the ones that say "nice", "wow" etc.. (not that I get those either)). You do very different work from what is "common" here & a not everyone has the time, interest, or brainpower to give quality work its due. Thanks for responding to our responses as well. What little "interaction" p.net provides is for me what makes it all worth while.

One of the wonders about my postings is the wonderful comments I seem to get. Don't worry about spelling issues; they're nothing so long as the sense gets through, or so court reporters long ago taught me.

 

As to getting comments, it's wonderful and certainly has helped me develop my photography, and each one enriches me, whether or not I agree with its content -- some of the more rankling have provoked me to become better and more thoughtful at what I do.

 

You are always welcome here, Jeff.

 

John

John, this is a revisited theme I guess, so for me it is even more valuable what you've managed to accomplish here. I think it is great that you haven't removed those reflected color spots, since they kind of make the passing man to look like inside the billboard himself. I also like his annoyed expression contrasting with the joyfulness of the actors in the back. A good reminder that real life is not made of paper or movie images, but that nonetheless it is easy in our "civilized" western society to fall deep and hopelessly into an empty lifestyle. I think my last comment may be biased by the latest imagehref> I've posted and that somehow I find related to this one of yours. Would appreciate very much if you could take a look at it. Best regards, Alex

Great image, composition and the contrast, as Alexandre mentioned between the joyfulness of the poster and the man himself.

 

Great image.

I thought you first wrote the 'joyfulness of the man himself' meaning the man, left, and wondered 'what kind of joke is Marco making, but of course, that was a misplaced modifier and you were referring to the joyful actors/characters and the comparison/juxtaposition to the meek/ordinary-looking man, left, which is the whole point of the photo.

 

I'm glad to see subscribers, like you, seem to like this photo.

 

I took many photos similar to this, including one in my first several shots which was similar but unsavable due to bad reflections and not quite so good a reflection, and then I caught this and said 'AHA!' and although I took a couple of more, that really was it, then the bus came and the scene disappeared. Just like that. Never to appear again.

 

Life's like that.

 

Thanks for your comment.

 

John