'And I Told Her . . . '**

Spring's tall weeds form a backdrop for these two young Hispanic

girls as they walk along a sidewalk (hidden by the growth) near

Watsonville, California, a city where over 80% of the residents

speak Spanish as the primary language at home. Your ratings and

critiques are invitged and most welcome. If you rate harshly or

very critically, please submit a helpful and constructive comment;

please share your superior knowledge to help improve my photoraphy.

Thanks! Enjoy! John

This photo was taken from a parked car across a busy road.

Mommas were far behind walking down the same sidewalk and they freaked when an unknown man was spotted taking photographs.

They yelled' why are you taking photographs?' and I explained with a polite but loud yell across traffic that it was my hobby.

They called the sheriff's department.

A half hour later, a sheriff's vehicle pulled me over in a different part of town as I was legally stopped at a stoplight.. I smiled and told the sheepish deputy I knew why he had stopped me; 'an overwrought mother who thought she owned the image of her daughter.' 'Yes,' he acknowledged.

(But he was backed up by another officer and by his shift supervisor. I presented my license, said I was a contributor to Photo.net and had millions of viewers but did NOT offer to show my 'captures' and said his dispatcher could look up my photos on Photo.net and could put my name into Google.com to find them auickly, and that of course, he should understand he had no cause against me, but I would be cooperative -- for a while).

He came back, somewhat sheepishly and was very kind to me; and I was certain that their dispatcher had reviewed my photos on Photo.net (having Googled my name to find them as I suggested).

Exhibiting on Photo.net has certain advantages in these times of hysteria.

The sheriffs were so polite, when they were polite and apologized as they left, I stopped them and said 'I'd like to show you my photos, which the deputies looked at, admired and walked away with a smile . . . no unhappiness at all.'

Good public relations.

(And you should take a look at momma -- there's no wonder she was about a block away . . . she was so overweight she could barely walk and did not appear to have finished even lower grades of school.

Sometimes stuff happens, and ya gotta be prepared 'on the street'. She was a person who goes through life determined to misunderstand everything in life -- I ran into such persons all the time when I practiced law . . . all the time calling me up or coming into my office . . . asking 'do I have a good case to sue . . . . so and so? . . . and always no grounds at all, while those who had the best cases never wanted to sue at all and were most reticent even to raise their voices.

(such is life).

John (Crosley)

In California, ethnicity is a big issue.

And in Santa Cruz County where I live, there is an unofficial divide -- with the Town of Santa Cruz being almost all 'white' and traditional, whereas Watsonville, about 17 miles away, in the agricultural Pajaro Valley, is predominantly Hispanic.

Ethnicity relates to the obesity, in part of these young girls, which is commented on elsewhere in my folder (see elsewhere in my earlier folders, such as 'A Travelin' Man'. It's unnatural for young people and a result of immigrant parents overfeeding their children; refusing to deny any wish of theirs for food, no matter how outlandish or ill-chosen, because they are 'making up' for a life and land of poverty in Mexico. Look for the photo 'Fast Food Kids' and the comments under that.

That's why 'ethnicity' is important here. It relates to a theme that is developed through my portfolio/folders, and a national health epidemic of obesity, which is exacerbated in particular in communities like Watsonville because of ethnic/nationality reasons.

Those are perfectly legitimate means of inquiry, at least within the context of the comments section of my photographs, which you'd see if you did a thorough reading of them, all 2,000 or 3,000 of them. These comments and observations about the content of the photographs spans the gamut of modern-day subjects, and ethnicity/obesity connection is just one of them, plus the disappearance of the 'white majority' in California is one that is of current 'newsworthiness'.

I think those are all good points and worth making/you may differ. I hope yuo respect my right to make those points, and before quibbling you'll read a major part of the discourse about such subjects in my thousands of comments.

Thanks for your sensitivity (I have some too).

John (Crosley)

I finally got my corporate registration finalized. That combined with a website and a few tear sheets should be enough to keep the cops happy.

I used to visit that area all the time and lived on a steady diet of convenience store sandwiches from Half Moon Bay to Morro Bay. In the Santa Cruz area I was advised to always be alert. At the time there were (and probably still are) issues with gangs, panhandlers, and drifters. Tourists carrying camera bags are always an easy mark.

The color detail and use of limited DOF are good. It might have been better if the grass was not in the girls face, but any frame before and after might not have had the same expression.

Well, the Santa Cruz county neighborhood has gentrified, and although there once were gangs, the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are buying up Santa Cruz -- average bungalow price is around $800,000 and trending up, though sale are slowing. There are drifters still and panhandlers, but the downtown is becoming very, very upscale. The riff-raff are now in Monterey County -- Salinas and Northern Monterey County. Murder is still sport in Salinas, as I recall.

Still drugs and problems are not far away; I got attacked (yes, physically attacked) by a guy who's going to jail tomorrow, when I was photographing at the Elkhorn Slough in nearby Monterey County tonight -- by a guy who had very poor impulse control and decided he owned the right to photograph on public property -- he chased me around a parking lot with a barbecue he took from the bed of a truck (photos at 11:00, yes I had the sense to hit the shutter button) and cops now on call to take him away, I hope, as I have a handicapped sticker in my car and I'm disabled, certified.

He tore off my rearview as a parting gesture after calling me 'bitch', chasing me around the parking lot with the barbecue over his head, and telling me that he was going to make me photograph his penis (and bragging of his sexual prowess and control saying he could be a porno star . . . all in all not a happy early evening.

Well, the day started out very uneventfully, with wonderful captures and even a wonderful capture of that guy when he was being 'friendly' -- I am sure not only was he probably drunk but also on drugs -- a very dangerous combination that I have little knowledge of, since I seldom drink and never used drugs or hung around with those who did.

I try to keep my cool, and have been through Russia, Ukraine, Argentina, Turkey, etc., including bad districts with beaucoup expensive cameras around my neck without so much as one-tenth of the problems of this guy, an American I think, (an immigrant's child, or an immigrant teenager, with exraordinarily poor impulse control, a candidate for state prison, I am sure.)

You never know when you have to have your wits about you, even when you go to waterside where it's peaceful to photograph birds, etc. in a world-famous nature preserve, as the sun goes down after a perfect late Spring afternoon/evening.

You're right about the weeds in this capture, but it adds authenticity -- nothing staged in my photographs. Depth of field was rather random, caused by picking up a camera from my right front seat with little time to make adjustments. Just pick it up and shoot, after parking where the girls were going to walk by (some considerable distance away).

Kindest regards.

John (Crosley)