Me Too! *

These Boys Run and Chase on a sidwalk in Odessa, Ukraine (but it

could be most anywhere), while one is on a mobile (cell) phone,

perhaps all wanting to talk at the same time. 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

I'm glad photography is not as hard as trying to figure out how to pronounce your first name.

These boys were running through streets and a neighborhood of Odessa, Ukraine, and I did not have my fast-focus 70~200 S E.D. V.R. camera with me, so I took many out-of-focus frames.

This is just a crop from a larger frame, but it captures the moment, and I'm very happy for that.

These guys are full of life, abundant in a poor country and well off (as one can see by their 'dress' in the winter cold, plus one owns a 'mobile'.

Like boys of all kinds, their pushing and pulling on each other -- is kind of like watching 'Animal Planet' on television, in a way, as the naturalists explain how young wild creatures adapt their innate skills to their individual success and that of the 'pack', 'pride' 'school' or whatever unit of agglomeration there is for their particular species.

In our species, it's boys fighting and jostling as they run to listen on a cell (mobile) phone, as here.

I'm very happy with this one; it's been sitting since winter waiting for a felicitous moment.

;-)

John (Crosley)

These days, even in Ukraine, boys are more sophisticated about their dealings with girls, and vice versa, I think, than when I was a youth -- and I was not into the prank calling business (generally, though their were excepetions: Madame: Is your refrigerator running. It is? You better go catch it, I think I just saw it go by" . . . click)

These boys, I think, are captured elsewhere, in my early B&W folder, in front of a statue of fallen seamen, although I haven't done a face-to-face comparison, but their liveliness and their neighborhood leads me to believe it is they.

Nice kids. Good kids are good kids the world over.

Thanks for commenting.

John (Crosley)

Like so many of my 'stories' this one has no real beginning and no end . . . it's just a vignette, suggestive of something that I hope is 'greater' but maybe just is an ephemerel moment in what may or may not be a rather mundane existence.

The question is did I capture 'real life' as it is, or did I capture an extraordinary moment in life and the rest of life is just humdrum and best unrecorded or unable to be well recorded by a still camera so easily?

I'll let you tackle that one.

Thanks for your nice comment.

Now you have some food or thought and something to 'edify' me on.

John (Crosley)

When I have time, this photo will be added to my Presentation on 'Threes' in which three subjects or the number 'three' otherwise adds up to a major element of the composition of a posted photo.

You might look for that Presentation; it's interesting why the subject 'three' keeps appearing repeatedly in my photographs without my intending to, always, as here.

John (Crosley)

In this case the call isn't just for fun. They are entering the adult life and one of the first steps to take would be getting to know the other half of of human population (i.e. females!). The journey is intriguing and full of ups and downs indeed!

I do believe in photography as a powerful way of communication and your photo is a good example. It's definitely telling a story and that's what photography is all about.

Cheers, Hadi

Yes, so many of my photos tell stories, or at least, vignettes.

I like them for that, as I am a born story-teller, it seems, for reasons I can't explain.

It isn't that I always have a point to make, or even a point of view, and often the photos suggest their own point of view, which I try to represent as best as possible.

I like your comment.

Cheers,

John (Crosley)

You nailed it, Yann.

It applies not only in friendships, but also (maybe moreso) in successful marriages.

Regards,

John (Crosley)

This is the third photo in a sometimes series 'Let Me See' (or Let Me Do!), taken occasionally.

See photo of two boys, one with a mobile (cell) phone, the other craning his neck, and another of a girl and a boy (in a fast food restaurant, the boy (mature) leaning far over the attractive girl, apparently to look at the camera phone, but well, somehow one wonders whether he was really leaning to look at her 'camera phone', because he's leaning over her somewhat outrageously. . . .

So, this is the third of that series.

John (Crosley)