Alone

Alone needs no explanation. 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

Alone, alone she sits. Here shoes do not fit correctly as they look to big. The hair almost looks like a wig or it is just recently fixed and does not match her at all. The clothes are also ill fitting and then I am just totally perplexed by the two cups. The two cups that do not match. Both look empty as I scrolled in really close to look in and try and see what they might hold. Maybe something strong. Maybe something needed to be strong in them. The light that that is cast around her is just perfect. It is outlining her.

 

You must be standing on a staircase. This looks like a stairwell of some kind.

 

I love the glow of this room as it gives us a feeling king of angelic. I feel like she put her arm up so that you couldn't "capture" the moment of taking her photograph.

 

The contrast between the really dark jumpsuit and the light floor and walls and her hair and the lining of the jumpsuit make a great abstract feel to this picture.

 

It almost makes you feel at first when you look at it that she is in a insane asylum. It was not until I saw the cups that I realized she was not "put away" as they say.

 

This is a great capture! Yeah! ~ micki

John, this shot is quiet moving.....Reminds me of my aunt who won't come out of her house, who drinks all day, and who is really, really sad....and yes she is very much alone, by choice. Don't know where that came from...look what you did....very emotional shot.

J

 

 

Like my photo of the girl sitting alone on the steps at Paris's famous La Defense business complex, this photo just happened.

 

This is a small boy who went into this space at Paris Photo 2006 Exhibition, overwhelmed by the crowds and tiredness, and I caught the moment -- framed it just right and caught the moment when he least wanted to be disturbed.

 

You know the time when children are overwhelmed. Micki got it wrong, thinking it was a girl, because of the long hair and all, but it's a boy, probably with artist parents who believe in 'free expression' or with hippy origins or who are adherents of the hippy philosophy in one way or another.

 

But the photo is iconic.

 

It stands on its own.

 

And your own personal associations, so strong, are ample evidence of that.

 

It's a keeper, I think -- a timeless little photo, with nearly universal appeal -- the kind a 'stock photo agency' probably can sell again and again (if a release had been available,, but alas, it is not.)

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

John (Crosley)

There comes a time in every baby's life, almost daily when as a product of over stimulation, it may cry itself to sleep, bawling loudly so it can collapse of exhaustion.

 

This young boy, yes, a boy, with his flopsy hair, (yes, that's real hair, not a wig), has been touring the Photo Paris 2006 exhibition in Paris in November/December with probably his parents, found a constructed area to himself and collapsed, and shut out all stimulus.

 

His cans are vestiges of being a child; it matters not what practical purpose they serve; they are 'toys' and he is a child. He needs toys; he's been expected to do, behave and act as a surrogate adult and he's reverted to being a child. Just in time, and without the tears.

 

A well brought up child, I might add for I judge parents by the behavior of their children generally (there are exceptions, as some children of wonderful parents can simply through inherited traits be uncontrollable, while other children of the same parents can be ideal citizens). Let's say it's one for three or one for five, generally in favor of environment versus genetics in my experience.

 

This boy is a good little soldier, who's tuckered out, and he's reverted to being a child in the only way he can. I'm not even sure he's aware of me as a photographer; he's simply overstimulated and maybe his parents are placing demands on him, accounting for the forearm across the brow.

 

You can't get them all perfectly, but you're batting 95%, and your writing (except the spelling) is just about perfect.

 

Keep it up and you'll be famous on Photo.net.

 

John (Crosley)

I understand the shoes. It didn't make sense why the were so big. It is a little boy. The hair makes so much more sense now why it is so long and pretty as it is a little "french" boy. You did capture it in such a way that it is perfect just as it is! Now it tugs at me in a different way. It tugs at me like nurturer and I wish I could go sit and make him feel better. I to have been overwhelmed and had to find my own corner somewhere. This just hits home I think to everyone. ~ Alone ~ micki

I think I analyzed his feelings correctly . . . do you agree?

 

I have watched children all my life, often with a sense of exasperation and without understanding.

 

I wistfully watched as those 'mothers' and other caregivers who had what I called 'The Gift' tended to them. I would say 'it's time for a bath, girls' while a beloved babysitter would say 'who wants to go play mermaid?'

 

That's the difference in two sentences.

 

She got inside the minds of little children, and I couldn't imagine it.

 

Now for once, again, I can.

 

I can now see both sides, from the inside out as a child and from the analytical standpoint, both as a parent and as a student of animals and humans, knowing their wants and needs.

 

The little boy needed some alone time . . . he was overwhelmed . . . he was beyond his overextended capabilities . . . pushed into an adult world in which he didn't really belong (at least for long) and he gave it his all.

 

There he is, with his two 'toys' -- whatever he could find to remind himself he was a child -- with his arm over his eyes -- reminding himself that he was once again a child and could find retreat in a small place, and the only 'small place' was at the intersection of these two walls and a floor.

 

My camera and I were only there briefly enough to take this picture and perhaps another two (as quickly as possible) and then to leave him to be childlike. I don't even think he noticed me.

 

God Bless the children of this world and their need to be childlike and God help those of us (like me in former times) who have lost the ability to remember what it was like to be a child and to be so 'in touch' with one's needs.

 

John (Crosley)