The Serious Conversation**

Sometimes, for me, the conventions are secondary to the capture,

when 'street shooting', as in this capture here. Whether you rate

this low for betraying conventions against level horizons or not, be

sure to have a close look at this after sunset photo. 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

This photo defies all sorts of conventions.

 

I posted it because I like it.

 

The hand, breaking the frame, just 'does it' for me.

 

What do you think?

 

I've got a thick skin -- at least regarding ratings/critiques.

 

John (Crosley)

Better than most sunset photos, in my opinion, slanted horizon and all. So much going on here, very interesting. Great capture! :)

I live near the beach, but I don't shoot (or post) sunsets, saturated or otherwise.

 

It took a lot of not caring about rates to post this one -- and I guess I just don't; I liked it and that was that. I wanted to share it, and was rewarded with a bunch of 5s and even a 6 or two and then about 5 3/3s jumped in at the end (I haven't taken a new look) at 9 ratings.

 

Yes, there is very much going on in this photo, and the guy's shooting darts at the girl with his eyes, and although I seldom 'break the frame' and usually preach against it, I did just that here, with the anonymous 'arm' pulling the girl's purse away with a curled finger, ever so firmly (see the tendons in the puller's wrist?)

 

I'm glad you liked it; it's usually a kneejerk 3/3 to post a photo like this but I have faith in some raters and commentators -- some actually 'look' at the photos they rate and comment on with a fresh eye, and I try not to disappoint them.

 

And I've been posting long enough now, that if I post one in which the horizon's not exactly level, there are some who recognize that it may fulfill a purpose . . . I think (or hope).

 

At least those are my thoughts.

 

Thanks for weighing in on a hard photo to critique intelligently without the expected 'why isn't it level?'

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

After 13 ratings -- the spread between the 3/3 ratings = 6 and the 5/5 and 6/6 ratings and mixed 5/6 and 6/5 ratings makes them equal.

 

This is one of the most unusual rate distribution I've ever encountered on a posted photo of mine.

 

I won't even suggest that one set or the other is 'right' -- some agree with me that it should have been posted and is a 'winner' and others disagree and believe that it was 'not'.

 

I am glad I posted it; and proud to have taken it.

 

John (Crosley)

If the signs were not in cyrillic this could be in the US, the proliferation of American 'culture' is staggering - I wonder if we'll all be speaking chinese and wearing Mao jackets in 20 years?

Did I see ``rules'' somewhere above? Yam sory buh donno dat hoat meens... :) Ohh my goodness! Did I break ``rules'' here:

 

http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=627160

 

????

 

I had a nice time reading through your analysis of the ratings, it's always a source of amusement on this site. Sometimes I'll tell my colleagues that if they feel really down on a particular day, then they should browse through some of the pictures on this site and their corresponding ratings :))

 

Coming back to the picture, this is a very interesting crowd you've caught here... there is a plethora of expressions (and not just facial), nicely arranged in the frame; almost everywhere on the street I look there is something interesting going on. And above all, the bag, the tension, the connection, the conversation and the serious expressions... all at a very opportune moment... I see all ingredients for a delightful feast. My only bit of nit is about the large fraction of space above... I could go with a little less, and a little more foreground; however this is only a personal view.

 

The partial hand?... I remember a picture ``Stay!'' by Andreas Heumann (if you want me to put a link through to this picture, please let me know;) where a partial hand was the key to the shot. This is similar, but in a different context. Love it.

 

Best regards.

I would love in a separate post to see a link to that photo with a hand. I'm stressed for time and can only post for a second, but love your critique.

 

John (Crosley)

 

I'll probably reply in greater detail later (and the same for Yann Romagnoli in another photo where he posted a great critique also, at a later time when I have some time, but it may be some time.

 

I have some wonderful commentators; how come I am so blessed?

 

John (Crosley)

Hi John, i havent read all the above, its late here in Holland :)

Interesting photo; what i liked immediately is the not-straight horizon.

It gives more attention to the couple and also to the handbag....

I hope my english is understandable. A very nice photo, i wonder how the color-version is. A greeting from Holland, Ellen.

I don't use 'layers' preferring to edit from beginning to end on a 'master' photo, but in this case I looked at the 'master' in Photoshop Elements 4 and it was B&W and I haven't had the courage to look at my master file to see if it was B&W also, although I think I have full-size files (maximum size for the format) in color. Somehow, I had made a copy of the original, as I always do by habit when I begin working, but it did not get saved as the 'original' and instead a 'copy' got saved or somehow a desaturated version got saved -- totally against everything I've done in posting over 700 photos.

 

Yes, somehow the tilted horizon 'works' for me, though it took some courage to post this photo, and maybe my 'reputation' as posting photos with some thought carried me through to just under one-half of the raters giving this serious consideration (the other half gave me flat 3/3s, without having looked at your rating, it it's visible.

 

I particularly like the hooked finger, pulling on the purse -- I can hold up a 60-pound child with my hooked little finger -- it's surprising how much strength there is in a hooked finger, and I think most people instinctively know it, but there is an element of 'Please let's go' in the way the other person is pulling on the purse instead of grasping it with a full hand.

 

 

In other words, the amount of power to grab that purse can be very forceful despite only one finger, but it's a matter of 'oblige' (kindness or deference) that the 'friend' pulling on it defers and uses only one finger -- something we also can sense and gives this photo greater power. Think how much less of a photo this would have been if it were a full hand grasp on the purse handle.

 

(I had two shot of this, but one was in even poorer focus, as I shot this without bringing camera to eye as well as the other one. I can do that if I try and have had some successes, but many, many more failures (my Nixon shot and wife Pat was shot 'blind' from overhead and was a 'very successful' shot -- see Early B&W folder.)

 

And I'd like to make this even more a B&W photo with deeper blacks, but the histogram for this early evening photo was all clumped together and I have to 'draw it out' and need to learn the technique for doing that and still get acceptable sharpness with I sharpen it using 'smart sharpen' in Photoshop.

 

As to color, it's interesting, but the McDonald's Red and Gold overwhelms the photo a little bit and takes attention away from the action.

 

I just noticed that at the junction of the two intersection lines (edge of the building and the floor above McDonald's leads to the man/woman as does the purse and hand combination for an interesting composition as viewed from a linear point of view. (I post what 'looks right' and 'feel right' intuitively and sometimes the compositionsal elements are not so easily analyzed, especially in an unusual photo such as this.

 

So, if I had my 'druthers, I'd make this more contrasty/deeper blacks and a greater dynamic range and might work on it/maybe with a Photoshop expert, so anybody out there who wants to work it up, please feel free to have a whack at it, but do tell me what you do, so I can replicate it, as I must do the final work for posting (not you).

 

(by the way, the posting of this photo illustrates that I do view PN as a big proving ground . . . half the rates were 5/x and above and half were about 3/3s or just a little more than half. I'm surprised that there were so many high rates and was consigned to all 3/3s. Raters sometimes surprise me in a nice way, which is why you don't see me ranting against the raters all the time.

 

Thanks, Ellen, for the comment.

 

John (Crosley)

Great photo, John. This one is just as inspiring as many of your other photos here. The hand tugging on the purse adds that extra drama to the scene and the tilted horizon works better in this photo than in many others I've encountered.

 

I wouldn't worry about the ratings at all--and I'm sure that you don't--as one simple formula of obtaining high ratings here apparently seems to require preoccupying yourself with posting naked females (no offense to those who do).

 

I just want to say that I really appreciate your long and thoughtful explanations and replies to comments. I hope you keep it up for the community.

 

Best wishes,

S马

I very much appreciate your words of encouragement.

 

As a matter of fact, I was looking at this photo earlier today and showing it to a friend/co-worker as an example of one of my 'under-appreciated' photos, and said it probably was largely so because of the image quality and the fact the horizon was tilted -- something I almost never do.

 

But, I said to my friend, this is an absolutely engaging photo, with the two shooting darts at each other from their eyes, to the long hand with a single index finger tugging hard (but hardly sincerely) at the purse, knowing such a 'tug' would not succeed, but still sending a 'message' to the purse holder with her beer bottle and her personal encounter in progress.

 

And the figure doing the tugging is a faceless, nameless person, possibly a female, but we don't even know that for sure, except possibly for hand size, because that figure is entirely out of frame -- a device I have possibly used here for the first time - all making this an entirely 'unconventional' 'Crosley street photo' -- way out of the (somewhat abnormal and unpredictable anyway) norm.

 

And, in its own way, this photo defines its own horizon -- the horizon here is the horizon of the pulled purse strap, and everything should be measured against it, and for that, the buildings are tilting, and not otherwise with the scene being 'tilted'.

 

So, measured from its own index -- the purse strap horizon, this photo is entirely within its own universe -- the tangled universe of the personal argument, the crossed wires and the personal upset it portrays - perhaps missed promises, misunderstood (or clearly understood but undesirable/unwelcome) words/actions, and general overall tension.

 

In fact, the tilted horizon, the tugged purse strap (but with one finger only) suggest the underlying theme of this photo: Tension arising from an interpersonal disagreement -- and whether one of the second or lifelong from this moment on, is never to be known to us, and the antagonist who pulls away from our female protagonist, her/him self is never known, adding to our own tension on viewing this photograph.

 

I never had the opportunity to 'analyze' 'WHY' I posted this photo: I did it 'just because' I liked it, or better yet, 'just because' and that meant I had to.

 

But on analysis, there are clear and precise reasons why this photo achieves its purpose and why I posted it, though it is way out of my (already pretty zany) mainstream.

 

I thank you again for noticing what I have done regarding my posts to my portfolio -- both photographic and written posts, and probably I should have contributed more to others' as well, but I feel my first job is to take the photos, which I'm doing at a prodigious pace, and I'm hardly even able to download the huge 8 gig chips that I take on a regular basis to take the sometimes occasionally wonderful photo from them (mixed with lots of failed trys, but more often than not now, fewer 'just because' shots that were examples of me exercising my shutter finger and operating controls, than actual real attempts at achieving a very good photo that failed because of timing/exposure/shutter speed/bad lighting/equipment failure-problems, etc., and which therefore indicated that the underlying photo being sought was worthy, even if my attempt at achieving it fell short. This contrasts with earlier in my PN membership when some great part of what I shot was bound for the trash bin (but saved to remind me of how awful a shooter I actually have been -- to keep my head from getting swelled.)

 

I often see a potential photo, lift my camera, frame it, set the focus point, ensure or reassure myself of the ISO being capable and the aperture also being capable of the photo and doing all that within two seconds and often less than that when some of these variables are already known or fixed beforehand.

 

Speed photographer -- that's me.

 

See it, lift the camera, and while framing, shoot, and if failed, keep shooting.

 

Sometimes it's fear of pressing the shutter button that keeps photographers from achieving their goal; I try to remind myself of that by reviewing long series of attempts that resulted in a very good capture.

 

Sometimes, however, I get that capture straightaway and the rest are discards.

 

The lot of the 'street photographer' or any other is one filled with decisions about every sort of thing, and the street photographer suffers more than most from unconventional 'issues' (read problems) regarding the photographic process, such as whether even to take a photo, how to frame it, as well as numerous other factors that are given for the landscape, still life, nude, figure, studio or other photographer -- in particular, how to 'work the crowd' both in terms of taking a photo of a certain subject and also how to do the same in ensuring that the crowd does not turn hostile or otherwise interfere in the process -- a constant issue with the street photographer who is aggressive about that, as I am.

 

There is no one answer to all the questions that arise, but I try to address as many as possible, since when I took up photography, without any lessons or anything, there was no one and no way in which anybody at all guided me.

 

I felt that I had something to contribute, and perhaps I will attempt to turn these writings into book form after some substantial organization and integration with my 'Presentations'.

 

So, maybe this is just a proving ground for something in the future, but never to be denigrated and always to be respected.

 

Seil, thanks for causing me to think not only about this photo, but also about the process and about my place in the process of photography and 'street photography'.

 

Thank you for your kind words. I have no intention of doing anything different in the immediate future, but am always open to suggestions on how to reach a greater (or more remunerative) audience.

 

John (Crosley)