color -- then and now A Mother's Attention**+

Big things like national elections, background, occupy national

attention, but mothers, like this one, on a Sunday morning walk can

be preoccupied with just trying to keep the dirt off their tiny

children. Here a mother has a soda bottle in hand and a cloth,

soaking a stain off her boy's pants, while a politician (through his

portrait looks helplessly on. (what can a 'bigshot' do anyway about

such things?) Your ratings and critiques are invited and most

welcome. If you rate harshly or very critically, please submit a

helpful and constructive comment/Please share your superior

photographic knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks!

Enjoy! John

If I'm to believe the ratings, this is one of the poorest photos posted by me, ever.

 

I don't believe the ratings.

 

I think just the opposite.

 

I've captured an ordinary moment and it's just a little priceless.

 

I saw and commented on a canal/water/river sunset with nice saturation in a European City today and it had 5.67/5.67 and it was tilted dramatically -- so badly it should have been taken down, but it was 'pretty' and got high ratings.

 

I'll take a mother washing her son's sunday best pants before some important occasion with a bottle of soda water out on the street, an important politican watching helplessly, with his promised city of riches beside him on a billboard.

 

That photo (tilted and the photographer apparently didn't notice it) was 'pretty' due to the surrounding architecture and the setting sun -- two constants that never will go away -- they're available to tourists and anyone with a camera every day the sun's out.

 

This particular scene will never repeat in this way again -- you can only see it because I caught it one moment, one Sunday morning in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine -- though its corollary scenes are played out throughout the world minute by minute as the time zones pass, country by country for a sort of universality that defies architecture or place.

 

I'll take the low scores, rather than post tilted sunsets. (no offense to the photographer whose name I didn't note and surely who is entirely 'innocent' even of knowing his photo was 'tilted')

 

John (Crosley)

To risk sounding brash, f*ck the ratings. Anyone who rated this poorly obviously has no exposure to the human condition.

I agree wholeheartedly, as I noted above, but to avoid censors, you might insert a (*) for a vowel. May I have a vowel Alex? Or a (*) If you get that popular game show; I understand it's been syndicated around the world.

 

John (Crosley) (an outlier, according to Brian's measurements)

Done.

 

Regarding the gameshow, Countdown? Blockbusters? Both were brought to you by the finest minds of the British broadcasters. Of course it may be named differently there.

Invented by the corpulent (and very gay) lounge singer Merv Griffin, who was a daytime TV U.S. staple. He invented two game shows; one in which there's a spinning wheel in which the pretty woman spins it and contestants guess on which place it will land and then it fills out a letter which is used to complete a common phrase and the winner guesses the phrase, and another which involves words and their meanings. Both are pretty mind-numbing but the word game is more challenging. (Have I got it right -- it's been years and I didn't pay much attention?)

 

Both are syndicated with regional versions around the world, probably with their own names throughout. Griffin sold out for a half billion dollars or double that; the shows are cheap to produce and will last forever, as they break the monotony for the homebound and don't require constant attention like daytime dramas, which we call 'soap' operas, called that because of 'soap' company sponsorships (before detergents were invented).

 

John

Yep, I believe the name is correct, but it's not something we air over here. We have far more asinine TV to view, Coronation Street, Eastenders, etc, etc ad tedium.

Try posting an image of an empty swimming pool and watch what happens. :)

Your remark is a little lost on me; will it get very high rates? Or very low?

 

Is there some sort of inside joke or reference that I am missing?

 

I am sure it is; could you elucicate me. Must have been something that was commented on or remarked on that escaped my notice.

 

Let me know, would you?

 

John

John C,

 

I think he's referring to one of his latest critique requests - http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=4548354 come on, you're a bright bloke.

Gotcha.

 

'Nuff said.

 

John

I like it very much John but something goes wrong to me with the perspective of the backgroung.I believe also that you should point to the action with less DOF.Regards Michael.PS.If you visit my portfolio and

view my new shots you will see how right are you.But

masses prefer shining photos.

I saw your newly-posted photos and understood what you said.

 

As to 'less' depth of field, this photo would be nothing without substantial depth of field, as there would be no 'story' to tell; it all depends on the story, the juxtaposition and even the colors of the foreground to the background. After all it's more a color photo than a black and white photo, which is why it's posted in color. If color adds, I post in color, and if it doesn't, I convert to B&W (or simply ditch it and let it sit on a hard drive somewhere or a DVD).

 

I appreciate your point, however, about 'shiny' photos, so I guess I'm consigned to 'low' ratings, but I think I have some non-shiny photos in my camera today that will get very high ratings -- even with substantial depth of field and with stories to be told even like this one. If not, I'll still post them and NOT take them down because I LIKE THEM.

 

Thanks for visiting.

 

John

Several Ukrainians have visited my portfolio recently and had very negative things to say about the poster guy -- a guy named Lazarenko, I think, who they think (and I simply do not know so I cannot say one way or the other) has been involved in what they claim is all sorts of misfeasance, which they have named for me.

 

I'm not involved in Ukrainian politics, however. I view the poster figure as the figure of any politico, helpless to help a mother with her child's stained pants leg, there in the middle of a muddy street/traffic island with her bottle of soda water faithfully trying to get rid of the stain.

 

Isn't that what mothers do?

 

Try to make their sons (or daughters) better and more presentable.

 

And for that, politicians or any stripe are practically useless, and such stories are practically worthless to relate to the 'worth' of this photo.

 

I let the Ukrainians have their politics, commenting on their status from time to time, but without taking sides. After all, I am a guest in their country; and politics really is furthest from my mind/I'm after the perfect photo and the best juxtaposition -- in short the universal 'good' photo which has nothing at all to do with politics.

 

John (Crosley)

The politician in the photo is said to be Pavel Lazarenko, former Ukraine Prime Minister, a Ukrainian politician whom people in Ukraine believe was responsible for money laundering for oil/gas manipulations, but he was never prosecuted in Ukraine.

 

However, he was prosecuted in the United States with which he had financial dealings, for 'money laundering', or so my research has told me, and for that he was found 'guilty' of money laundering, ordered to repay $10 million in restitution and also sentenced to nine years in U.S. federal prison, where he is presently serving his time -- reportedly in San Francisco, but since San Francisco does not have a federal prison, that means somewhere in the Central Coast/Central California area.

 

It seems the U.S. and Ukraine are presently political 'friends' and what the Ukrainians could not prosecute the U.S. legally and technically could (and did) and this once powerful man has been 'put away' or 'put on ice' for a while.

 

That does not mean he is without power or even won't someday become the future leader of Ukraine. . . . .

 

Such men, of great wealth and aspirations, have a way of popping up as 'rehabilitated' on the political scene in future times . . . . and becoming future leaders . . . having learned all that much more in places like prison.

 

Nelson Mandela, for instance, spent a good portion of his life in a South African prison, (though certainly not for money laundering . . . and his situation was not analogous to this man's in any way). But clever people get only cleverer in prison, especially federal prison where many 'white collar' criminals end up behind bars -- the people who brought us Enron, Worldcom, and such other disasters did or are bound (some of them) to end up in federal prison.

 

What is unique about federal prison is that only 15% is allowed as 'time off' for good behavior, so sentences are almost fully-served there.

 

John (Crosley)

 

(I don't know this man or pass judgment on him in any way -- only what my research shows and what I am told.)

 

Reference is made to Google.com and one can find a U.S. attorney's press release by entering his name and 'money laundering', 'Ukraine' 'prison', 'extortion' and other similar words, for the official U.S. viewpoint on his imprisonment and reference to the verdict and the U.S. District Judge's ruling. This was the second time in history a foreign leader (past or present) was sent to jail for 'corruption) in his home country, but this man made 'investments' with allegedly 'corrupt' money in the United States and allegedly extorting a 50% share of a business a U.S. businessman wanted to make in Ukraine for the 'privilege of opening that business in Ukraine -- telling him, it is said by the U.S. attorney, that the businessman had to turn over a 50% share of his business to this politician for the 'privilege' of doing business in Ukraine, or so it is said that testimony in the trial 'proved'. I was not there and do not know the truth, but that is apparently the official record.

 

I do not have a horse in this race and have no personal knowledge of this man; only I have seen his photo around Dnepropetrovsk before he was convicted, allegedly running for office in the latest national election (before he was convicted in the U.S. of extortion, money laundering and maybe mail fraud).

 

It seems unlikely, though not impossible, his conviction will be overturned, according to my reading of the record.

 

I do not have a horse in this race, and do not take sides; this is only in explanation of this photo and 'interesting points' made by this photo.

 

J.C.