Hamburger Gramma

Nobody held the pickle, lettuce or anything else on this huge

hamburger, being eaten by a birthday girl -- this elderly

grandmother out celebrating with friends for lunch at a burger joint

in Las Vegas, Nevada. 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

knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

What a great photo, and a wonderful moment! Cheers. I can't believe that no one has commented on this one!! probably 800 views, 20 ratings... no comments!! So it goes. A jarring image, i love it.

This gramma was having a birthday party with friends and actually was wearing some sort of tierra made of costume jewelry and paper or something like that, which initially attracted me. I asked if she minded if I took her photo, then told her to just 'carry on' and I'd be halfway across the restaurant, and she did 'carry on'. I showed her and her friends this photo and others from a 'C' drive sequence and they were overjoyed. It was a big hit.

 

I wouldn't have posted this, except for her teeth showing like they are -- she is a real carnivore here; and the juxtaposition of her bejeweled, beringed hands, obviously aged, and the GUSTO with which she is attacking this particular burger were 'arresting' to me.

 

Thanks for the comment.

 

However, since it's midnight posting, only four ratings as I write this. I post a lot of my stuff in the still hours of the post-midnight morning.

 

John (Crosley)

superb photo! there is a new movie about the plastic food generation...this could be used by BK or MAc..

regards!

I have no release.

 

It's impossible really to get releases in the middle of a birthday party for a three-second 'C' burst of a camera, then walking on after showing the photo.

 

If I had ability to produce prints, I could trade a print for a release.

 

So the result: No photos of granny here with her burger in commercials at least.

 

For editorial, it's available and freely printable if the publisher is willing to do so without a release. The law doesn't require one if it's used for reasonable and proper purposes (not to promote grandmother kinky sex article, for instance).

 

;~))

 

I'm glad you enjoyed it.

 

John (Crosley)

What a magnificent story in here!Very clever composition on a great photographic opportunity , splendid the intense expression in her face.

:)Excellent!Right momment!Regards

Not sure what to say, except I really love this humorous photo. Looks like she's about to lose her pickel.

Perfect photo! Love the capture! Texture of the skin and lighting is great. :)

Great...love that wall paper.

Real funny John, does not look exactly from "hungerland" , but gives the impression of... well seized the moment and cropped.

This photo, taken with full awareness and permission (of very few I take), was only cropped at the left and was taken at full extension of my 70~200 mm lens on a digital camera for a 300 mm film equivalent, so you can imagine how far away I was standing exactly.

 

And the crop was only to trim away an uninteresting left side, not to 'center' the photograph; as you probably realize I seldom 'center' my subjects at all, preferring them 'off center' but 'hamburger gramma' here was way too far off center even for my tastes (so to speak).

 

And as pointed out, what caused me to post this was her 'bucky beavers' -- her incisors on top, false or not, chomping into that burger, for a most incongruous look.

 

It's just not what you expect of 'grammas' -- grandmothers, babushkij or however one calls the plural of grandmother in whatever land or culture.

 

So, in effect, this entire photo is one big visual 'joke'; a punch line on our expectations of what 'gramma ought to look like'.

 

And just what is 'hungerland'? Is it a particular word I should recognize or something you have just used because it 'sounded good'?

 

I love it when you comment; they're always 'on point'.

 

John (Crosley)

Pardon me for overlooking your nice comment.

 

Yes, she has an intense expression -- maybe we all do when we're chomping down on our hamburgers and they're ready to spill their ingredients . . . have you really looked at yourself at that vital moment?

 

;~))

 

John (Crosley)

Yes, this is a great moment -- but how many of them do we actually overlook in our haste to capture something of more significance?

 

I switched to 'C' drive because I almost 'knew' I could catch this birthday partying lady in a 'moment' of one sort or another and at 5 frames per second I saw potential. This was just a fleeting instant in her bite, and the camera caught it -- something probably no one actually really 'observed' -- just a moment -- less than a second -- caught and revealed by a modern marvel, the 'C' drive on my Nikon D2Xs.

 

I was surprised I got it the first try -- first bite I photographed.

 

Sometimes the photo gods just smile.

 

;~))

 

John (Crosley)

Yes, she's about to lose her pickle (sp), but the hamburger (and ingredients) are going to lose the war.

 

I eat my hamburgers 'plain' or as they're called in some parts of the country, 'dry' so I am spared the ignominy of looking like this with a burger, but why should I feel proud. I eat pizza, sometimes with giant strings of cheese and other ingredients hanging down my cheek or jowl and dripping juices running down also.

 

Ain't life grand -- one of life's finer things is having enough to eat and not having to fight for a sack of potatoes to eat for the winter (like some people have to do where I am staying right now).

 

We have it pretty good in America, and I am not above lampooning that 'goodness' and don't feel guilty about it at all.

 

I was raised being told about having to 'eat everything served because of all the starving kids in China' but that didn't make for good health or good nutrition and only brought on lifelong issues with food and health that could have been avoided. What's wrong with eating half a serving when the appetite is not there? Or having five meals a day, or simply skipping a meal when not hungry? In my youth, that was tantamount to a cardinal sin.

 

All those starving children in China, you know.

 

As if it would have helped them . . .

 

Or if my parents actually would care about them or tried to do anything about those supposed children . . . . some of whom I am sure were starving.

 

Nevertheless, one of the joys of America is chomping into a simple hamburger, whether you have it 'deluxe' like here, or 'dry' like me.

 

I hope somehow this photo becomes 'iconic' and wish I had a release.

 

Thanks for the nice comment.

 

John (Crosley)

Yes, the exposure here is wonderful.

 

It's my wonderful standby -- sidelighting (only here, both from the side and from the back). This is at the In-N-Out Burger at Sahara Blvd., in Las Vegas across the freeway from the 'Strip', and it's surrounded on three sides by plate glass windows for this daytime capture, so the place was bathed partially in sun, but sidelit sun, making for some pretty awesome light.

 

I photographed nude models all day in sidelight under an icy, cloudbound sky, using the light pouring softly in through new falling snow through two hip to ceiling windows -- very wonderful light.

 

I just love sidelight as it has a modeling effect.

 

Did you ever fly over hills or mountains in the middle of the day and hardly see them, then fly over the same features in late day, toward sundown, and see how the setting sun modeled them?

 

That's one thing that sidelighting does as well as casting a pretty even, but steadily diminishing light across a subject, most often within the range of EVs (Exposure Values) of your sensing material (here a digital sensor, but film acts the same way).

 

Thanks for giving me a jumping off spot for writing about my love of sidelighting and the wonderful results that so often happen with it.

 

John (Crosley)

You damn me with faint praise -- telling me it's a great photo them praising the wallpaper.

 

How cruel!

 

I am sure you are jesting, though, just as this photo in its entirety is a visual jest.

 

Best to you.

 

John (Crosley)

John,"hungerland" is a word we use here to depict metaphorically someone that eats the food as if caming from a land of hunger, which is not of course the case here.Thanks fotr liking my comment, what do you think of reciprocality? ;-))

I am not really 'sure' where 'here' is for you.

 

Did I read an old bio and it was missing, or should I look elsewhere? Can you set me straight? (My browsing ability now is limited, or I'd go looking this minute.)

 

In any case, the word is reciprocity, and since I've rated only a few hundred photos, you can be assured that no one has ever accused me of that.

 

I DO like my Photo.net friends, and so often they've rated my photos recently, so I can't rate them due to software bars that were placed there by good people for good reasons to avoid mate-rating.

 

If you meant something else, and I think you did, it just escaped me in my late night stupor.

 

I greatly enjoy your commentary and your periodic missives; they enrich my life. I hope that I add something to yours from time to time.

 

John (Crosley)