Welcome to Buenos Aires (We Need Your Money)**+

Buenos Aires is beautiful and cultured, but still struggles under

2001's currency devaluation and greatly values its tourists, as this

airport greeter exemplifies. Your comments and critiques are

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

critically, please submit a helpful and constructive comment.

Please share your superior knowledge to help improve my

photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John (Anybody notice any similarity

to what usually is the third frame of a Doonesbury cartoon and care

to comment?)

This man had no idea his photo was being taken.

 

Airport security people are generally so skittish about photography in, near, or around airport security, customs, immigration, etc., that I seldom photograph in those areas, and only abroad when I do, and only if such an opportunity as this presents itself.

 

John (Crosley)

As an editorial, your thoughts are fine. But as an image on the critique forum there are several issues. The image looks like clipart until I get really close adn notice his shirt, then I wonder why his hairline is out of focus,then I get to the framing and the non-vertical sign behind him that is so bright. A flash could have worked but that may not have the look you were going for. I am sorry, this does not work for my eyes.

A 'flash' is suggested by you. Perish the thought. This is a silhouette, and a flash would have ruined the effect.

 

This is a photo that depends on 'negative' space. And, all 'square' or 'perpendicular' shapes don't have to be square to the lens, and in fact in many cases they shouldn't, and this is one of those -- the effect is to create a 'vanishing point' off the frame to the left as the unseen lines of the letters and their underlines or separating lines diminish into some distant (vanishing) point, which gives this photo 'depth'.

 

I'm afraid you and I are in different places on this: I am thinking 'out of the box' in the way the artist who draws the Doonesbury cartoon draws his third strip, almost always in silhouette, as this, and you are thinking of a fully-illuminated subject. You are thinking 'in the box' of a 'snapshot' and this is far from any 'snapshot' you'll ever see. We couldn't be in more different places.

 

As to clip-art? Find me a clip-art of this subject and attach it to a new comment. I bet you can't -- I don't think such a photo exists anywhere and that this is entirely original.

 

I am happy to receive critiques and comments and am sure yours was in good faith and well meant, but I reject it (though not your good intentions), as you are free to 'dislike' it or not have it 'work for' you, but I think you are looking at it from a 'wrong' viewpoint.

 

But I'm happy that you commented -- maybe others feel the same way, and I'm all wet.

 

Who knows?

 

John (Crosley)

Very original work, John! Best regards, Ruud.

It may have occurred to you and other viewers, that I just take anything 'interesting' that appears to me, and that I do a lot of looking (and subsequent pointing of my camera and shutter releases if anything looks at all like it might make a suitable capture.

 

And in that regard I am constrained by no rules except that it 'might be interesting' and without regard to how it might score.

 

I note that the first rate was a 5/6 and the second a 3/3 with a comment (which I rejected summarily, as you may note, but also I hope with enough good humor, as all comments truly are welcome here and all viewpoints are presumed honest - everyone has a different way of looking at things -- as do you Ruud with your beautiful pair of colored shoes lined up to the left of the frame in a recent posting.

 

A comment and high rate from you is highly valued, as I believe you have great talent coupled with a wonderful eye. (this is not sycophancy, either -- it's just the truth)

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

I am happy to engage in this dialog as I feel all discussions lead to more understanding. I don't feel that I should accept your challenge to find a clipart silhouette of man and then composite him in front of a welcome sign. The comments I made were on the technical merits of the image you presented. I also mentioned that the flash may not have given the visual effect you were after so I recognized your creative decisions with regards to that choice. The back story of this image and your shooting style is not apparent in this single frame and my comments were on the single frame you presented, if this were a series or component of a larger body of work fine, I would enjoy seeing those and perhaps establishing some context to this shot and its effectiveness.

 

I feel my comments on the technical merits of the image were accurate and if you took offense I will be happy to withdraw them and allow you to seek other opinions that are more aligned with your expectations.

These pages and the places for comments under them are rather open places. Oftentimes the commentators add new and interesting observations, and often I agree with them, and sometimes they add to my observations of my own photos elements I did not see myself.

 

Occasionally (very rarely), there is a critic, who simply dislikes an image, as you did, but I understand it's entirely in good faith, and for that it also has my respect (see above), and that's also valuable to me, for the ratings and comments are not a personal 'issue' or place for vendetta or anything else from me, but a place to learn about how people 'take' my images. I was a little surprised about your 'take' on this, and still am, especially in light of other rates, but I understand it comes from a personal place and that you are a person or artistic integrity: one man's pill is another's poison.

 

I found that in posting 'blur' shots, some who post them will rate them very highly; others who are nature photographers will rate them very low. That's why they make chocolate and vanilla.

 

So far from removing your post, please keep it up. I'm proud that you made it; it has opened my eyes, and prompted me to ask if there were others who felt the same way. Ruud Albers felt differently and rated a 6/6, but others were more indifferent.

 

Maybe this is a kind of photo one can rate only high or low and I also need to find that out. For that your comment is highly valuable to me.

 

That's what this forum is all about; please take nothing personal from my remarks. I accept and/or reject criticism as I wont, but I have no ill feeling for anyone who gives honest personal feelings and goes to effort to give it and explain why so. And never any payback (I seldom rate and then only to get photos on my highest-rated list).

 

I entirely respect your viewpoint, defend your right to express it, and still disagree with its conclusions without in anyway impugning you or your skills and/or integrity and thank you for stopping by -- please stop again. ;-))

 

With friendly respect.

 

John (Crosley)

Doonesbury? Or Hitchcock with hair? (Vaguely remember a similar silhouette profile of Abe Lincoln as well, but you'd lose too much of that great sign if you added in a stovepipe hat :-)

 

PErfect composition... very much like how that color on the right snuck in. Great negative space over there as well (and balanced on the left). Any cropping? Either that or you are truly the bionic man when it comes to composing (would be cool if you made those little beeping sonar noises like that the bionic woman made with her ear... or maybe the noise Lee Majors would make when he jumped. Now that's a super hero. Able to compose odd scenes in the flash of an eye et.c..)_

Its a different kind of photo, to me its interesting, i like it!

At fist i didnt thought it was a real man, but later i saw he was :)

Still wished my english was better.

Have a nice day, Ellen.

And, so, he's presented as a silhouette. We have a cartoon (called a 'funny' to older people) in the newspapers in the United States, and the cartoonist, a famous man, named Gary Trudeau (yes, he's French descent), cartoons in four panes (windows) and the third window usually presents the characters in silhouette for variety.

 

I like that you have stopped by and commented; your English is fine enough.

 

My Dutch is awful or worse.

 

John (Crosley)