Repetition of Shape**+

This 'street artist' displays her wares, and her face shape repeats

or mirrors the shape of the painted plates she displays for sale

along a tramway and sidwalk in an eastern country. Your ratings and

comments 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

You nailed it John, [My superior photographic knowledge]

Seems a bit tenous to me this one John - I can see where you're going with it, but it's not one of your stronger photos. Of course this is just my opinion, I may be missing some subtlety.

We have a difference of opinion. You say I 'nailed it'. The next commentator suggests that somehow I missed the mark.

 

No matter what, it was the repetition of shapes, round plates to round face, that I was aiming at, not high rates particularly -- rates just happen and often there is some division about them, as here, though seldom in comments, so I welcome direct feedback like this.

 

Thanks for the comment.

 

John (Crosley)

Maybe I shouldn't have given my hand away, and just posted this as a portrait, rather than giving away the photographic technique I was using (mirroring), so people could 'discover' it, or not, as was their wont, then the reaction might have been different.

 

No, this is not my strongest photo, but I consider it workmanlike and worthy.

 

I have another photo of her, you also may not like, but I like very much.

 

You can look for it; sharpen your critique pencil.

 

;-))

 

John (Crosley)

I seem to recall seing it already... I'll go trawling.

 

[EDIT] But I guess I'm mistaken - I'll look forward to another photo.

Let me know.

 

jc

See above.

 

PS, I'm still overhwelmed when I have a look over your entire portfolio!

I'm prolific if nothing else, and that for a no-talent guy who doesn't Photoshop worth a good gol-darn. I'm still learning how to work with 'layers'; haven't even used them yet, if you can believe that (it's the truth). I just start with my manipulations, such as they are, on a 'copy' of my work, and work forward, thus no need to 'merge' or 'flatten' or 'save layers', although I now am learning what those terms are. After all, it's only been 2-1/2 years since I've been posting.

 

Now I've got 25 hard drives, many of the notebook (laptop) variety, and a large quantity contain file folder duplicates in case of failures, -- and I've taken hundreds of thousands of photos since I restarted taking photos. Film was bankrupting me when I re-started photography, but the learning curve for digital is exceptionlly fast.

 

But of the thousand of so downloads I've made (gigabyte to four gigs each), I've only gone over them once, and there may be many 'hidden treasures' that I'm not attuned to. And I take film also, but don't develop the film as we know a prominent 'street photographer' once did, preferring to 'age' the captures. Some day, I'll have the wherewithal and organization to develop all that film, and in the meantime I keep my Leicas going in addition with their wonderful sharpness.

 

So, I've not only taken what I've posted, in addition, I've only posted one of each sort of photo out of numerous 'takes' in a series -- say lovers on the banks of the Dnieper River in Ukraine, one fisherman in a boat out of several rolls of fishermen -- all almost equally good, or one nude photo of a nude model despie taking 500 photos of that model, so you can imagine how many photos I've really taken, in addition to the undeveloped ones.

 

In addition, I've still to review two months' to eight months' worth of digital captures -- I've only skimmed the surface, and keep coming up with new ones taken since last December, and I've barely lighted enough since then to even burn them to disk, preferring to transfer them from one hard drive to another for safety . . . though I'm making progress.

 

Printmaking is out of the questoin . . . that's something that I turn over to commercial printers in Ukraine, where printing is first class and very inexpensive compared to, say, a 'big box' store where one gets economy in the U.S. and with the highest quality equipment. But no custom developing -- all printing done from Photoshopped digital files, printed 'straight'.

 

I'll be spending much time in the near future developing a 'portfolio' of my best, and I'd welcome your input into what you regard as my 'best' for inclusion in a portfolio -- also for a personal web site. (I know you have good taste and a good ability to explain your choices).

 

Finally, I have a 'folder' full of wonderful photos that appeal to me, some of which I may feel good enough about to post in the future, but which are for my personal amusement, but I feel they may not rate well and may not show well on an Internet forum.

 

I love photography!

 

Before, I didn't love photography; I had a love-hate affair with it; it was hot, sweaty work for me, causing me to sweat and smell it was so difficult for me to 'get it right', and I was such a perfectionist, but that's over now, and taking photographs is not only wonderful, but wonderfully easy and very, very absorbing.

 

And, I often show my captures to the more friendly subjects and make new friends from them; they're often very flattered to be the subject of an 'important-appearing' photo, such as this particular woman (above) who greets me like an old acquaintance each time she spies me, and I reassure her that someday she'll appear on the Internet . . . and now someday has arrived and I doubt she even will ever know as I doubt she has a computer (and doesn't know my name, which if Googled will lead to my portfolio quite easily).

 

I really can't imagine how varied my portfolio is, and it isn't because I try so much to be varied, but instead I concentrate on taking photographs -- individual photographs of each subject, so that photograph receives its individual treatment and those treatments are incredibly various.

 

Therefore, I may seem to lack a 'style' as, say, Karsh of Ottowa, with his familiar 'dark' portraits, full of dramatic lighting and smokey ambiance.

 

Or any other 'style'.

 

I just take photos, and hope they're interesting -- that's what drives me -- to take 'interesting photos'.

 

John (Crosley)

You might look at it in thumbnail.

 

It actually got a large number of rates for a low-rated photo, suggesting popularity of a sort.

 

John (Crosley)

John, firstly, let me offer thanks for your kind words regarding my taste - however misguided I may think you are (you should note that I'm being deliberately self deprecating here - it's what us Brits do!). I'd be delighted to let you know which images I like the most, but I think you'd perhaps need to provide a brief remit regarding numbers, style, subject matter etc. And as a word of warning I'd hasten to remind you that I'm still a relative newcomer to this - so don't get your hopes up (I flatter myelf)!

 

Now I've got that out of the way, I think I should inform you that you have a very defined style, and it's one of gritty reality - but I think, no, am certain, that you know this. As such I don't think you need worry about the variety in your portfolio because your style brands that spectra quite nicely - so in my humble opinion variety is a good thing.

 

Now, returning to this photo, I see the geometrical intention VERY clearly, but for me I don't find it captivating enough to make me warm to this photo. It's as simple as that: it's not technically flawed, it just doesn't convey a message to me. Now that doesn't mean that it won't convey something to other people - and judgeing by the volume of rates, as you noted, it must have an element of popularity. It is however inimitably 'you'.

 

I came very close to being verbose here.