black and white: then to now Waste and the Ecologically Fragile Shoreline

This is my personal interpretation of how humans have impacted the

incredibly ecologically sensitive, and very biologically diverse

Elkhorn Slough, onetime mouth of California's Salinas River, where

often 20 sea otter can be seen at once, with numerous water birds

swimming and wading -- a marine treasure trove (with an electric

power plant next door -- but gas fired). Your ratings and critiques

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

critically, please submit a helpful and consructive comment; please

share your superior knowledge to help me improve my photography.

Thanks! Enjoy! John

Raters, please rate this photo according to the guidelines, by examining this photo for its message as well as its impact and its trueness to its message (its impact is part of its aesthetic, I think, under the guidelines) -- as opposed to rating it according to how you feel about smokestacks -- that is steam -- outdoor toilets and garbage pails.

 

Also, is there a photo composition here, and what about the tonality of the gradations of grays, blacks and whites? This isn't about 'liking' or 'not liking' a photo of such things, but did I do a good job, I think.

 

What do you think?

 

John (Crosley)

This Photo is bound for my Presentation on 'Threes', which contains photos in which the element of three presents itself in the 'subject' of various photos of mine.

 

It should be obvious why.

 

John (Crosley)

I generally don't touch things, or do what is euphemistically called 'groundskeeping'.

 

For intance, this toilet door was swinging in the wind -- I did not open it, I did not prop it open and if it swung shut permanently, I would not have remedied that by propping it open again. I take things as I come upon them. There are just too many photos to be taken to get into the business of changing everything to 'create' photos when the world's full of interesting, creative, ideas.

 

John (Crosley)

Excellent commentary. I drive by this every damn day on my way from my home in Aptos to my job in Monterey, and every time I look at these things you picture here, I wonder how much they impact our famrloand not to mention every aspect of our lives.

 

Paul Henri

Actually, this energy plant, owned now by 'Duke Power' is now fired by natural gas.

 

Whereas once it burned oil and churned out hundreds of tons of black soot and rumbled and rumbled so it kept the salmon fishermen at Moss Landing across the harbor (right) awake all night, especially in winter when all the boilers/turbines were going full speed, now it burns natural gas. No longer are oil barges plying the fragile waters of Monterey Bay National Seashore and Marine Reserve (or however it's named) but instead the fuel comes by pipeline.

 

And so, the plant just actually makes 'steam' (above) instead of pollution, as it formerly did, so in a way, this photo is 'misleading' and a tromp l'oeil ('mistake of the eye' in French), but it makes a point, nonetheless, no matter how 'false' the statement. It's a photo 'about' something, and the 'something' is about 'waste' and effluent (even steam' in proximity to Elkhorn Slouth (and if you haven't taken Elkhorn Slough Safari -- pontoon boat ride, it's a must -- one of Arthur Frommer's 10 most recommended places to see in California is Elkhorn Slough. This day I saw 20 sea otter sunning themselves in a rookery just below this 'edifice'.)

 

I'm glad you 'caught' this photo; it certainly must have some meaning to you, and probably you don't know much about Elkhorn Slough; it's worth more than a second look -- it's amazing, especially for a photographer and the boat ride now is $28.00 (office is in Moss Landing, pretty well concealed -- on the highway side of the harbor, and available through information).

 

You might want to look through my other photos to see a photo of Elkhorn Slough with the fog hanging over it, and the giant smokestacks over it, and a caption something like 'fragile co-existence'.

 

In reality, well behind the power plant are giant cattle feeding operations that generate huge, huge mountains of manure that require huge machines to move about. If any of that's getting into Elkhorn Slough (of could) that would kill off the slough by using up all the oxygen. That worries me a little, if no one has exercised control over that possibility and if you learn more about that, please let me know.

 

Thanks for looking and commenting.

 

John (Crosley)

Very interesting image :) Clearly has 3 main & several other interesting sub-subjects.(is that a real word?, Doubtful) Both the tonal range & the exposure are perfect. Not often can you place the horizon straight through the middle of an image & make it work, but it does work. The detail in both the light & dark areas is simply amazing. I love the textured sand. Everything works together to make not only a wonderful image but a "statement". I like that. Nice job!

I went to take photos of sea otters and other marine subjects, and came back with a photo of a toilet, a garbage can and smokestacks.

 

That's the way I take photos.

 

And it never occurred to me the horizon bisected this photo; that's also the way I take photos; completely inchoate. I just frame what looks good, and press the shutter, with complete disregard for the rules. I just hope I get all the good stuff in in and leave the bad or distracting stuff out.

 

That's my photo philosophy (and practice) in a nutshell -- six words, either way. 'Put all the good stuff in' or 'Leave all the bad stuff out' It's all so simple, really and the rest is mantra; artifices by people who have to have crutches to help them 'construct' a photo 'by the rules' because they need rules to get through life.

 

I pick up a camera and just 'see' things, and they're often quite different from what I see in real life; things become alive through the viewfinder, and my goal in life is twofold; to be able to look at life without a viewfinder and isolate all the things that will work well with viewfinder applied AND to be able to write the recipe book on 'how to take a good photograph' for those who do not shoot so inchoately as I. (For instance, I did figure out how to handle the subject of 'threes' by viewing past photographs, so I was aware of the use of 'threes' in this photograph, but even without that, I still would have framed it this way, because it just called for this treatment.) See my presentation on 'Threes', if you want.

 

Thanks for the fine comment.

 

John (Crosley)

Do you think you did a good job with this photograph? If so, then what do you care what anyone else thinks?

 

I would have to rate it pretty highly based on composition, exposure and depth of field. It is technically well grounded but you already know that. You chose to go with an editorial angle which in a way is a refreshing (pardon the pun) change from the silly attempts at humor we would normally see associated with this type of subject.

 

The success or failure of the image is largely dependent on the end use and the audience you play to in that context. If you are looking for commercial success then you might want to have a naked model stepping out of the toilet.

Of course, I did a great job with this photo, and with a lot of my others too, but this one in particular, for all the reasons you mentioned.

 

But one always likes to be recognized, but of course, garbage pails, outhouse doors and smokestacks are not the way to get acclaim on Photo.net and perhaps that's my way, without saying so expressly, or saying, 'I care, but not really very much -- at least enough to change anything I photograph or post, even if I carp a little.'

 

There you have it.

 

I'd like others (like you) to recognize the 'worth' or talent of the photo skills in taking a photo like this, but this is not the place; but then I'm not headed to spending my photo life here; it's a place for honing my skills and getting exposure (and with over 15 million views, I'm getting that).

 

And a thick skin.

 

And I do know what this is worth, which is why I posted it and wouldn't take it down for anything.

 

I like your comment.

 

John (Crosley)

In the following order . . .

 

I noticed the FG which reminded me of sludge, although I hope it isn't. I also like the direction of the smoke and how it connects to the portajohn. (I wonder if it would have been even stronger framed to the left slightly.)

 

But what really makes the shot is the bright white toilet paper.

My 12~24 mm is gummed up with 'oil on the blades' -- the first time I've had that problem with a Nikon lens -- and with very little use, so if I wanted to get closer, as I wanted, I couldn't.

 

The foreground is simply trampled sand -- we West Coasters know that appearance, and it goes away as the wind blows and smoothes it up -- no, no sludge.

 

I am uncertain how I could have framed it better by moving to the left, if I read you correctly, although I am always open to suggestion.

 

(and I always consider it a very bright day when you critique a photo of mine as I consider you one of Photo.net's leading -- and guiding -- stars -- a man who can make 'art' out of anything -- a luminary of Photo.net)

 

Yes, I definitely considered the direction of the plume of 'smoke' (actually steam, although at one time formerly it definitely was smoke) coming from the stack.

 

And of course, the toilet paper was a definite find, a sort of counterpoint or 'accent' or 'focal point' of the whole exercise.

 

And, for the record, I didn't set foot any closer to this than were I took the photo; it's entirely an 'untended' image with the outhouse door swinging in the breeze -- sometimes open, sometimes closed and often in between. It took carefull timing. Can you image the sort of person I am who went to this pretty spot to take photos of sea otters just offshore (in the slough) and sea birds and ended up with this? (I got some sea otter photos too, to be fair,)

 

I consider this a little treasure of a photo, though the subject is pretty offal (cq?). Well, not exactly, as that's the butchered entrails of animals, but it's 'waste' in the general sense.

 

Thanks for stopping by Carl; you're always welcome here. Sometimes maybe I can surprise you.

 

John (Crosley)

I meant turning the camera to the left to make the space between the john to the left edge and the can to the right edge equidistant. Also cuts down on the dead space upper right . . but maybe there are distractions on the left side, in which case I would have gotten closer for a tighter composition.

 

Feel free to pay me a surprise visit any time. I'm always interested in knowing what image gets someone's attention, for what ever reason (hopefully positive)

 

And thank you for your compliments. Maybe I should send a copy to Brian.

There was a distraction, left. It was a double John (if you'll excuse the expression), and I cropped in the camera.

 

I could also have used a slightly different angle and gotten closer, but my 12~24 mm has sticky blades and was unusable so this is the best I could have done. Yes, there was a distraction (other John)

 

Your accolades are well deserved; your prose sometimes can be a little trenchent, but when you write you write well and your points almost always are well taken -- take to Brian what you want. I stand by what I write.

 

John (Crosley)

 

(Brian probably doesn't give a fig, however, about any one member, if I read him right.)

 

JSC

Careful composition, fine tonal separation, and social message -- this one has it all. Wonderful image. I especially like the interplay between the various triangles in the composition, starting with the can-toilet-factory.

If you can believe it, I just do this somewhat unconsciously.

 

Sure, I'm aware of a theme, -- shoreline and waste, but I stand there and move around so everything 'looks right and balanced' in my viewfinder and then release the shutter, and then if I'm not satisfied, I do it again, until I am. (And the restroom door was swinging in the wind, and I would not block it open but had to time my releases for an open door . . . . ;-))

 

That's really the way I work with a landscape or still life -- very inchoately.

 

I am convinced I got that way playing pool and billiards as a youth (I lived near a large university with a student union with some really good billiards/pool players, even Minnesota Fats showed up once or twice to try to skin the local hotshots, and the idea was to 'size up' the table without carefully examining every shot and taking forever.

 

I really think that ability to 'size up the table' stuck with me and became an attribute when I began taking photographs, if you can believe it; something from a dissolute youth of 10 to 12 years old became an attribute in another area entirely from age 21 through my present age -- how's that for a twist?

 

Yes, they rented their tables to us 10 and 12 year olds . . . if you can believe that, and we played like the devil on them, but all good clean fun. When I finally went to University at Columbia they had nothing like that there, and I found myself traveling nationwide with, for instance, luminaries like Arthur Burns (former and future Chairman of the Federal Reserve). Lionel Trilling, (literary and cultural luminary, Jacques Barzun, (cultural luminary) and numerous other economists, former ambassadors, state department officials, etc. After all, Dwight Eisenhower once was president of that August institution.

 

So, as a student, I never went to a football game or played a game of billiards . . . I had got it out of my system back home in Oregon at a state university as a youth ten or so years prior, and I had got out of my system my need to participate inn fraternity/sorority 'pranks' like tar and feathering guys who 'pinned' their 'girls' -- yes it actually happened . . . . it seems like it was another world, but it happened when I was growing up, and it was carried out with great ceremony, like in some of those old stinker movies about rah rah rah college life that now seem so dated and fuddy duddy.

 

My god, maybe I'm the one who's so dated and fuddy duddy. . . .

 

(But then go to the top of my portfolio and gaze on my close, personal -- but Platonic -- friend Dasha . . . .)

 

John (Crosley)

This photo has been moved from a 'minor' folder to the 'Early B&W, etc.', which contains some of my lifetime best work.

 

I didn't do that because of high rates or clicks -- the rates were quite low and the clicks were mediocre for a photo in that folder.

 

I did it because (1) I'm proud of this work; it actually represents some of my best B&W work ever, (2) it represents completely another genre of the work that I do; versatility is important for me to demonstrate once again; and (3) I've learned that others respect this photo from watching the behavior of a few trusted and respected souls who have let me watch while they browsed my portfolio.

 

Actually, the first two were givens, and it was the third that was the deciding factor. Several trusted persons have browsed my portfolio in front of me; people who stopped at some of my best photos ever, without seeing rates, scores or views, and picked at the compositional details and mechanisms almost perfectly -- as good as any photo/composition professor were some of these highly-respected people.

 

So, when they browsed my portfolio, as I silently watched, without giving directions or asking questions, I noticed that almost to a one they paused over this and told me without being bid, it was a very good or 'great' photograph and began explaining 'why' to me. (They needn't have, interestingly enough, and they might have known that, but they felt compelled, it seems.) It was a revelation of sorts.

 

The rating is mostly done for this photo; it's done as it goes through the 'rate recent' queue generally, unless it gets put on everyone's most highly viewed list.

 

What makes it 'unclickworthy' is that it's viewable in its entirety in thumbnail without the necessity of clicking on it to view it 'large' -- people 'get it' without clicking on it, so they don't 'click' for that extra 'view', and with the subject matter -- it's not something one wants to call one's friends over to 'admire' or 'share' -- something that many people do instinctively do in my popular photo of the broken car window with the words 'I (heart shape hole signifying 'Love') U?' which is one of my highest-scored and highest-rated photos, though the high scores for aesthetics for that photo are a mystery to me; though for 'originality I suppose that photo earned them for my 'finding' the subject and posting it, if nothing else.

 

Here, the 'find' was there for all to see, probably for a decade or two, but I doubt if anyone would ever have seen or photographed it, and in an aesthetic way.

 

It also is a good illustration of the use of 'threes' in my photography -- in this case 'unequal' threes, but each with some sort of semi-equal significance in terms of subject matter -- each represents waste/effluent of some sort, with the sizes of each being equalized by setting the camera at a propitious distance in which each takes on a size that equates to its importance in the photograph -- with the toilet and waving toilet door (open here) and toilet paper flapping in the strong coastal breeze, being of greatest compositoinal significance, 'mirroring' (there's that word) the steam (yes, it's now steam -- instead of smoke -- ecology marches on) from the 'smokestacks' in the distance.

 

[The power generation plant now burns natural gas, and generally when hydrogen from natural gas hydrocarbons combines with oxygen, it creates H2O = water and if it's hot it's steam. You can't 'see' steam as it's transparent, but you can see the condensing water from steam, and as a convention, we like to 'say' we can 'see' steam, though we actually can't -- only the condensate around or from it -- here all of the 'steam' condenses in the atmosphere above the smokestacks (and provides a very reliable indicator of ground wind direction and speed -- the speed being indicated by how low to the ground the 'steam' (e.g. condensate) hangs as the wind blows it along, because it would tend to rise uniformly in given temperature conditions.

 

Residents of Central Coastal California -- northern coastal Monterey County long have used this power plant as an indicator of wind direction, and the more aware ones have used it as an indicator of wind speed too - especially those living nearby.

 

(that's Moss Landing harbor in the right, where the salmon fleet - what's left of it - is suffering a disastrous year, the Pacific Coast salmon fishery effectively -- not quite completely -- has been closed. It's a site of many of my photos from early in my portfolio to present day and a good place to stop for a photo (and a meal of fresh fish).

 

John (Crosley)

Anybody wondering about the disconnect between ratings, quality and commentaries should have a look at the ratings on this photo and the portfolios of the subscribers who commented on this photo (with approval it seems) and the quality of their work and their experience.

 

Then you may see a reason why some experienced members/subscribers prefer to say 'commentaries' are more worthy than 'rates' in many circumstances, though rates have their place and a worthy place too, as a popularity indicator, and not one to be dismissed.

 

But as an indicator of 'quality' and 'art' or 'kunst' (German word for art in case you were asleep during German class) the commentators here seem 'right on' and if they'd also said something negative, it would have been taken seriously, for the commentars of this particular photo include some of the most venerable and respected members/subscribers of Photo.net.

 

That's why some people say that they prefer 'commentaries' over 'rates' -- and why sometimes I agree.

 

But it's 'rates' that get the 'views' and this photo does not have a basketful of 'views' -- but if it were highly rated, it would have, but then again, I never expected, with its subject matter, for it to be highly popular.

 

John (Crosley) (musingly)

I was in this outhouse today, doing my business -- and it was a windy day.

 

Suddenly the door, which I had latched, blew wide open and there I was exposed to the world (like here) and no way to get up and close the door.

 

Luckily there was no one around to view me; the wind had driven the tourists away, and summer has nearly gone; school is in session.

 

Otherwise, I would have more than just a little story to tell.

 

John (Crosley)