'Leaving Las Vegas' -- Three Viewpoints

These three groupings of people all are 'leaving Las Vegas' and are

waiting for what appears to be a long time outside the airport's

boarding area at the city's McCarran International Airport. 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

Hey John as I have found it is almost imposible to get someone who rates low to coment at all, I think they use the rate recent section as their "reason" to rate low and not say anything. I sorta thought it was the point of this site to have the help of other knowledgable and creative people. The numbers give such little information. SO I have made a choice something to combat this I promiss I wont do that. That being said I really have nothing helpful to say about this photo because it tells a wonderful story. and it is very aesthetic. I am always afraid people will be mad if they find out I am taking pictures of them haha. Well its fantastic well renderd very clear and well wonderful. Keep up the great shots.

I often take the time to write a critique on the 'worst' photos on Photo.net critique pages -- sometimes very long ones with philosophical and technical help and references to other work, in the assumption that the posters really felt that they wanted help and were seeking it from someone who really could help them.

 

It's really the 'worst' or maybe the most amateurish photos -- often ones that 'miss the point' that can quickly be remedied, and my e-mail often bears witness to the wonderful results such critiques bring. I always say 'I don't rate, just critique' as that is true, and my critiques are always to the point and bend over backward to say they're meant to 'help' the person, not derogate their photo or denigrate their skills as a photographer. (They usually know their skills are lacking and that's why they seek critique, but they want something reasoned).

 

I don't do this too often, as it is a large job, and as you can see, I am pretty busy taking photographs and am even a year behind in processing my own photographs -- I still find good ones from a year ago . . . fine photographs I overlooked in my haste to get to the one I 'had in mind' as the 'best' photograph or the 'one I wanted to post' and then shut the rest away on my hard drive. But I've organized my hundreds of thousands of shots now, and am working away at them, looking for 'gems' among the trash of my work, and often with a new found appreciation of what makes a good or rate worthy photo (they're not always the same, of course, which we both well know).

 

I do appreciate your nice comment and your taking the time to make it -- this is a photo that I feel really I can't do any better on. I took a number of photos before finally stopping at this one (and another one in a sequence with essentially the same composition.)

 

I started out taking a photo of smooching couple, added the guy to their right, moved around and added the guy slouched in the foreground.

 

Just studying my 20 or 30 shots, taken in rapid fire sequence, lest they move, would be an interesting lesson in composition. Also, when there is 'action' as in the kissers, above, one looks for the best 'action' and this was it.

 

One wants to find the kissers delineated in their 'kissing' clearly, and not just in a smooching 'lump' where one cannot distinguish what it is they're doing. So multiple shots often are in order just for that reason, even after one has settled on a composition.

 

One fine photographer once made a statement to another in comments (not in mine) that I wrote too much or was way to discursive. The reason behind these huge comments is that any neophyte photographer essentially gets a lesson in how to approach a subject, single out the subject from multiple possible photographs (as explained above) and finally settle on 'winning' composition, as here.

 

That in itself is a form of tutorial and the prime reason I write so discursively about the 'process' of photography. Also, it probably is no secret by now, that I have publishing aspirations, and Photo.net and other places are a 'proving ground' for expounding my ideas, as well as for finding the popularity of certain photos.

 

I have benefited greatly by the Internet exposition of my photography -- it's probably the reason I've re-discovered photography and become so prolific; it provides the audience I've sought for my work.

 

This discursiveness for the neophyte is my way of 'paying back' those who sponsor a site such as this, to encourage the neophytes to join. After all, less than three years ago, I had barely taken a photo in 30 years (although one time I had been a photo editor for a major news organization and had been hired by that organization as a photographer -- a job I ever really performed because they made me in to a writer, editor and I performed other high-level tasks for them.

 

I have publishing aspirations, and the more feedback the better. PN is the world's largest photo proving ground. Members in comments and e-mails often ask me to write about my experiences and photography in relation to my photos, and I'm working on that now.

 

I hope to develop something that's pleasing (and highly salable) from feedback such as yours.

 

Thanks.

 

John (Crosley)

Fantastic... as always... it's always a pleasure to come back to your photographs.

 

Best regards.

Thanks for the endorsement. I've written more to you elsewhere today, and I am sure you'll find it.

 

I'm always delighted to have you as a viewer.

 

I think my viewers must wonder where in the world I am next and what the he** I am doing that results in such a huge number of photographs from such diversity.

 

I hope to have an answer for them in the future, maybe with publishing.

 

I hope others feel the same way you do. Comments like yours warm my heart - its often how I get my 'warm and fuzzies' after a day of shoving cameras in people's faces. It's the ultimate justification for lugging around a D2Xs with a 70~200 mm Nikkor and maybe another D2X or a D200 or more, and not even knowing how to use a lens cap (you might miss the photo while removing the lens cap.)

 

Keep stopping by, will you? You're very much appreciated.

 

John (Crosley)

Sure I will :-)

 

Just seeking a little advice on a technical front: do you think you appear a little aggressive shoving your cameras on people's faces? :-) Sometimes I just don't feel like taking a picture which is worth it simply for fear of intruding on spaces. Of course one cannot give unless one steals first, and perhaps nowhere this philosophy is more appropriate than in street photography.

 

Best regards.

I used to feel, and hence 'gave up' photography for a long time, because of the fear that people would feel 'used' by my 'appropriating their likeness' without their permission, and indeed some people feel that way.

 

Nowadays, there is a different attitude, and anyone who objects, I just point to the seven or 11 store cameras that already are recording their every movement on video tape or computer hard drive, and say at least I'll do so in a coherent manner and do NOT suspect them of any wrongdoing and am not doing so in a semi-accusatory manner, as one might suppose those cameras do.

 

So, there is a slightly different attitude toward 'rights' except maybe in Europe and among American young women who think they're God's gift to the world, and have the right to their image and control over who photographs them and what is done with it and any one who violates their wishes is a 'pervert' -- a commonly thrown about term which many street photographers of increasing age have distressed about (one reason I often head for 'warmer' and more receptive climes in Eastern Europe, where women are happy to be photographed)

 

In generally, now, with more professional and much larger equipment, people refuse to think I'm not from some powerful, as yet unknown press presence, and sometimes I catch the women preening when they see me coming . . . and others will simply ask me outright to 'take my (our) photo'. (which I often obligingly do, but my way, instead of 'their' way.)

 

Yes, one can feel like a 'thief' as a street photographer, but longer lenses help, or a very wide angle, super fast focusing and exposure also help as taking a photo (even a telling one) can only take an instance.

 

I also have a long list of feints, and people often are left wondering, 'did he take my photo or not' if they even know that I have been by with my camera.

One such 'feint' is to survey a scene with my camera, knowing I'll take a certain, photo but to point it first elsewhere as though I'm scanning a scene, then scan the part I'm going to photograph, snap the shutter there, then continue on scanning, making sure that when the screen lights up with the image I press the shutter release halfway quickly so the screen image goes away almost instantly.

 

Sometimes I'll ask, sometimes I'll talk with the people -- even schmooze with them -- and there are a hundred or more variations. It just all depends. Part of the skill of street photography is knowing which skill to use to approach the subject and when not to approach, and even sometimes knowing when not to raise the cameras for fear of personal safety.

 

One can drive by, as I often do, and hide cameras below window level, then briefly raise them, take the photo and speed away. I've done that many times, and so many more ways to take photographs. And of course, if I get a really good one of a subject, I'll often call the subject over and show them their photograph, which often amazes them, and very often brings smiles and the frequent request (which I cannot fulfill) to 'e-mail me that' since it would take a staff of 5 secretaries to handle all the e-mail requests I get.

 

A wide angle lens can be so wide, the subjects at the corner have no idea they're being photographed, and so on.

 

Keep on watching and maybe you'll get over your jitters. I'll reveal lots of the 'tricks' that I use, as they are not really a secret.

 

Best to you.

 

John (Crosley)

This photo was at a high iso, about 800, and had an unusual lens setting. I had the aperture set at f8 and the results were acceptable and so I did not notice the f8 setting, even though I was shooting about about 1/1.3 of a second.

 

Thank God for vibration reduction.

 

The f8 setting accounts for the unusual depth of field in this photo; the tripod look. It's not a setting I normally would have chosen.

 

Moments before this photo, I had a brief conversation at the United Airlines ticket counter with Academy Award actress Hillary Swank, giving her directions to catch an overdue flight, and maybe she was skittish about my cameras, but she needn't have been; I don't 'shoot' celebrities. I 'make celebrities' out of ordinary people, as here.

 

John (Crosley)

Thanks for the input; much appreciated. I'll keep this in mind :-)

 

Best regards.

airports, train stations..sp many stories always to tell...and you did one here and that's the point of street photography!

excellent!

regards!

Excellent!

It was two years before I knew what the initials SP meant if you can imagine that (that was AFTER I started posting on Photo.net and a good several decades after I initiated doing just that, if you can imagine that.)

 

I was doing that within minutes of buying my first camera, with the results of my first roll showing three ferry boat patrons on the Staten Island Ferry, bound for Staten Island, fresh from my new Nikon brand camera, a 35 mm camera with meter built in and a 50, 52 or 55 mm 'normal lens, not 'fast' at all, and the ferry boat shaking like all creation, yet I managed to get a keeper back there in 196__ -- I'll let you guess the year -- off that first roll. I'd post it today regardless of its history.

 

And soon there were many others just like it, and all my early color work lost, as well as my Viet Nam work, regrettably.

 

And I gave this thing called SP up for decades, except a week at a time, separated sometimes by 10 years just to please a friend or to accept a dare about my abilities, then put my cameras down until nearly three years ago, this week, when I started posting on PN with some stuff I took one morning three years ago today (or so).

 

The rest is history.

 

I hope some day to publish and to exhibit; when and if I ever turn 'pro' however, is left to the photo Gods.

 

However, I'm enjoying the 'heck' (put your own word in there) out of this time around, and it seems for the most part my subjects are also. Perhaps its the confidence I have, as well as the experience in dealing with people in the intervening decades, as I am not easily 'cowed', and although I'm a 'cow'ard, I put up a good front, and so far I've been lucky -- few close calls and no real scrapes. People seem to leave me alone even when I'm in circumstances most would tend to avoid. Maybe I just look like I 'belong' with my equipment and anyone my age burdened by equipment 'must look like he knows what he's doing'.

 

Little do they know.

 

But little by little, the bluffing is stopping, I'm taking fewer and fewer throwaway photos (still take lots of those but my percentage is getting better), and I'm developing into a jack of all trades (you've never seen my 'females' which I've never posted and probably never will, except maybe the 'portrait' portions, or interesting 'faces'. I don't want to rely for 'views' on 'nudes' or beautiful women. I have gotten tens of millions of 'views' based on SP basically, and I'd like to keep it that way. (Remember, I got about 10,000 'views' the first month with some pretty good stuff posted, but never a critique requested, and just one of those posted photos now has just short of 100,000 views. It takes time to build up an audience with taste for one's work, especially for work like mine, which ranges all over the place.

 

Who really knows what John will post next?

 

I certainly don't.

 

I want to keep it that way.

 

It's more fun.

 

Thanks for commenting.

 

I hope you're having as much fun as I am.

 

John (Crosley)

Thanks.

 

I love this shot!

 

I suppose I'm not supposed to say that, but I just do.

 

I tried it in black and white and it's not nearly as powerful with the 'warm' hazy light from the parking lot and street lamps outlining the couple embracing, and contrasting with the 'blue' carpet and their 'blue' jeans.

 

It's just one of those photos where it took almost or more than 30 shots to 'get it right' but I did. Luckily, no one was going anywhere, and the couple was oblivious to my presence, some distance away with my 200mm lens (effectively a film lens of 300 mm with my digital camera).

 

I'm glad you like it too; it makes posting these things so much more fun to get such feedback when I actually hit one on the mark (as you know, I take chances and quite often miss).

 

John (Crosley)

Thanks for your e-mail.

 

I send you a response and some photos as attachments.

 

On dial-up at 42 kbps, it took 38 minutes to upload the attachments, so it probably will take as long to download if you're on a dialup connection, so be patient.

 

Or e-mail me again if that's a problem, and I'll explain what I did.

 

John (Crosley)