The Mean Streets (LA's Vermont Street)

Los Angeles's Vermont Street is emblematic throughout most of its

length of the urban slum with storefront churches, alternating with

businesses garishly painted and heavily fortified. This man steps

past an overturned shopping cart, filled with junk - the sign in the

back advertises a club 'The Wet Spot'. Your ratings and critiques

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

critically, please submit a helpful and constructive commentary;

please share your superior photographic knowledge to help improve my

photography. Thanks! Enjoy (or at least appreciate the composition

and colors). John

great street image. i think it was a smart decision to do it in collors. thanks for the explanation, it's an useful complement of the image.

I desaturated, but it just didn't have the 'strength' that this color version has.

 

Some photos are 'color' photos and others are not. This one naturally has the colors -- they just fit -- especially the black, which fits the theme, and the repeating yellow (caution), as well as 'red' -- 'stop' or 'emergency.

 

And 'red' is the most powerful of all colors, research has shown, which is why the 'stop' light is a 'red' light.

 

Thanks for sharing your observation.

 

(This particular photo stuck out greatly on the photos taken yesterday -- it was just obvious it had to be posted.)

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

I pay great attention to the 'stride' in my photography, trying to catch people walking in the act of showing that they are walking.

 

Here I think I nailed this pedestrian as well as possible, with all four limbs splayed -- feet split -- one foot down as he walks off a curb -- and two arms outstretched in counterbalance in a symmetrical and radiating pattern.

 

I couldn't have asked for better, as it shows the relative speed at which this pedestrian was traveling and his 'intent' to travel rather than just 'hang out'.

 

John (Crosley)

After 9 rates, two of them voluntary rates and seven of them 'rate recent' (anonymous), I note a great disparity, with the 'rate recent' or 'queue' ratings for this subject/photo being extremely low, with a 3+ for aesthetics and 4 - for originality, yet those who voluntarily have rated it have rated it 6/6 and 6/5.

 

Why the discrepancy?

 

I think it's not because of the quality of the photo -- it's really quite a good, well-composed photo with the man caught in excellent posture with a very good background with colors that are pretty darn good.

 

I think that people are ratings the overturned, garbage filled shopping cart on the sidewalk, instead of the repeating yellows, reds and blacks.

 

I think they are ratings the poverty of the scene rather than any poverty in the photography.

 

I think they are reflecting their repugnancy at having to confront such a scene in bountiful America (with a black man featured no less, which doubtless reinforces stereotypes about color/poverty) and they're rating to express their distaste of the scene, not the artistry (or lack thereof) in capturing the essence of the scene in a photographically meaningful way.

 

I am open to discussion on this matter and invite anyone with an opinion (similar or dissimilar) to express themselves here on this issue regardless of whether they rated anonymously, nonanonymously or didn't rate at all.

 

In other words, let me know if my thesis appears correct or not about ratings and the nature of the scene, please.

 

John (Crosley)

John, I believe you are right about the poor ratings. It never surprises me when my photos recieve 3/3's because I lack experience and still have much to learn. But I'm always amazed when I see really good photos such as this recieve inappropriately low ratings. Your street scenes usually open the door to so much thought, questions and feelings. If even a moment is actually spent trying to understand the image, it becomes obvious that there is considerable thought you have given to the scene before it's shot. And being a street scene, such considerations have to be done extremely quick, right?

 

I'm not gutsy enough to be a street photographer. I witnessed a scene in my small city about a week ago. Two rather large and filthy looking women were trying to sell what they likely considred prize possessions from a card table (yard sale style) at the edge of their run-down trailer park. One woman was sheilding herself from the blazing Arizona sun with a broken and bent blue umbrella. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera to capture and share the moment. I probably wouldn't have had the nerve to fire the picture anyway. My first reaction was to be moved by the moment. My next thought was a question: How would John Crosley capture this scene?

By the way, my take on the image was quite different before I read your comentary. I first thought "The Wet Spot" was a car wash (open 8a - 6p). With that understanding, this looked like a scene where "poverty" was deposited at the car wash.

It indeed may be a car wash, or a Sadism and Bondage place, or a wet t-shirt club or a sex club, although the hours do argue for a car wash, don't they?

 

I didn't go exploring, as I was not reading the sign when I took this photograph and if any reader wants to drive by (carefully) and identify what this refers to, they're welcome (I Googled it and came up with some very diverse findings, as shown above . . . . )

 

I guess this photo really is open to 'interpretation'.

 

Maybe it's open from 8 p.m to 6 a.m.?

 

It doesn't say for sure and the phone number is partly obscured. Maybe a trip through the L.A. area phone directory will clear this one up -- any takers?

 

Thanks for commenting and being so observant.

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

Your pic. is telling me a story, make me think, tehnicaly is O.K. That explains my rating, I belive

You don't have to expain a near-perfect rating, but I'm glad you did.

 

I have found out long ago, it's hard to get good ratings from garbage or effluent, no matter how good the photo is (at least on rate recent ratings).

 

Others, who are more skilled at rating, see past all that and get to the heart of a photo -- in this case, this guy just lives in a garbage-strewn area and nothing is being done it fix it that one can see, and on a very wide boulevard-like street. It may be Watts neighborhood, as I am unfamiliar with L.A. In any case, there were no supermarkets or anything else serving the black community in that area -- but lots of storefront evaneglists, churches, check cashing places, makeshift restaurants, auto repair shops/tire shops with garish signs (obviously no enforced zoming/sign ordinance there).

 

The area was calm and peaceful and I interacted OK with the people on the street, though I drove most of the time.

 

But the potential for 'disturbance' may be something that is endemic; one man from Belize, who said he was 'Indian' who ran a large, poorly-used parts store, said the blacks are always fighting with the whites (or the other way around -- he didn't say who 'started it'.).

 

This photo captures the embodiment of much of what I felt as I entered Vermont Street and drove almost its entire length, and this part is in the South part of L.A. -- south of the city center and even from the more 'urban area' as this was somewhat suburban in nature -- spread out single family dwellings, etc.

 

Thank you so much for explaining your rating.

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

Members of Izvestia and Pravda -- Soviet news service and Soviet official newspaper from times of the Soviets often came to the headquarters of Associated Press when I worked there.

 

Soviets always claimed they were winning in the 'class struggle'.

 

Now these 'press members' were actually members of the KGB (secret Soviet police) and they had an ideological axe to grind -- to promote the spread of communism.

 

So, if they came across a photo like this, and as members of Associated Press, they had a right to have photos transmitted to their home news service as 'specials' using our equipment, they would often bring in certain photos.

 

The photos always ultimately were about poverty in the USA, class difficulties, the downtrodden (or those who slipped between the cracks, etc. and even police scuffles with those of another color -- cops then uniformly were white.

 

So these 'newsmen' -- KGB agents we knew for sure, and they just used 'newsman' as 'cover' -- would visit us and have their 'specials' sent back to Izvestia (the then Soviet news service or Pravda *the truth* daily Soviet newspaper to feed the Soviets (not just Russia, but Ukraine, Kazakhstan and half a hundred other autonomous republics, their filthy view of what America really looked like(as they represented it -- completely unbalanced)

 

This poverty and neglect and inborn racism still exists in the USA today, but it is less and the crime rate has gone down considerably (due to an aging population? or due to locking up so many troublemakers?)

 

In any case, NYC, once the scourge of safety, now is the nation's safest large city -- it's more of a Paris for safety than Paris is, as Paris is aswarm with thieves in the summer--mostly pickpockets, but also they've had 'racial' problems with their black African and north African populations -- to whom they give much money but no jobs and then wonder why these people are upset - unassimilated, compared to nearby Germany which employs huge numbers of Turks to make their Mercedes and Volkswagens (even Porsches).

 

Poverty and unassimilated populations are a scourge; I learned in law school that Jim Crow laws constituted a 'badge and incident' of slavery -- and were around when I was a younger man and only more recently have evaporated generally, but there is endemic racism among some. And the 'thug culture' of hip hop where a prison term 'helps' a career rather than hinders, certainly works against the goal of assimilation -- but then black rap music (on the decline now) is heard throughout the world, including in Russia, where they have their own white, Russian gangsta rappers imitating America's famous black rappers, complete with baggy pants around their butt cracks and baseball hats on backwards . . . .

 

Who actually knows what 'assimilation' is anyway?

 

By the way, I detested those KGB agents as did all my fellow workers, but I didn't try to stop them; they had every contractual right as AP members to do what they were doing, however nefarious.

 

Thanks Vladimir for your comment.

 

John (Crosley)

I completely missed the first of your two comments above.

 

I am greatly flattered that when you came on such a scene, you first were moved and then asked yourself 'how John Crosley would have captured it'

 

There probably is no higher praise than that, no rating high enough to score higher than that.

 

Pardon me for missing that first comment; my reply above must have appeared to have come from outer space in view of the first comment. I assure you I was not in 'outer space', I was just looking for one comment, and the other comment was up above the screen where I didn't scroll until today.

 

The first thing that John Crosley would have done is have his cameras (both of them) around his neck. That's the essence of 'street'. Elliott Erwitt of Magnum who at about 78 just published one of the largest and heavies books I've ever seen, full of great 'street' photography for the most part, had famous advice when asked how to capture a scene 'f8 and be there'. Short and sweet.

 

That's the essence of 'street'.

 

You gotta be there and have a camera.

 

Although you might look at my work as a reference, there are lots of great 'street' photographers, but many of them no longer post on this service because, I have heard, of poor ratings for 'street' photos compared to oversaturated sunsets, pretty flowers, and pretty women. Now pretty women are hard to capture well, especially nude, I can attest (I really mean as a photographic capture, too, and not some other way.)

 

The essence of all my photography is keep all the action within the four sides of the frame -- keep all the interesting stuff in and keep all the uninteresting stuff out. Some photographers create 'art' by only including part of a scene with the frame, creating artistic tension, as the viewer must intuit what is happening beyond the frame . . . and that is also a legitimate photographic technique, but outside the bounds (if you will) of what it is I do.

 

If something works to help the 'subject' of a photo, I keep it in, preferably when you aim your camera, not when you crop later on. but if you must, don't hesitate to crop, if it will make a strong photograph.

 

If something of some part on the side of a photograph leads one's eye out of the subject of frame, usually try to exclude that (there can be exceptions), and keep the subject clear. Photos shouldn't have 'mixed messages' about what is being said, or at least should not be a pastiche of a photo of this and a photo of some other, unrelated thing.

 

That doesn't necessarily mean you have to get close and crop tight as I often do, either. Some of Henri Cartier-Bresson's most marvelous work was where he used an entire scene, from foreground to background to make a pleasing composition as well as reveal something about the human condition -- from a smile, a frown, a hateful look, just a pair of black shrouded women walking (beneath a frieze of two nudes) and so on.

 

You do have to understand what it is you're capturing and you might want to make more than one shot if you're not sure.

 

In your circumstance, maybe you just wanted to focus on the women making the purported 'yard sale' or 'garage sale'. In a different way, maybe you wanted to include them in their surrounding -- all of them -- everything from the scene you could get in, including bystanders (especially if they are very much like the two women --or entirely the opposites).

 

Or you might have mad a choice for a middle shot -- the women juxtaposed against something in their background (like above) but that 'tells a story'.

 

John Crosley doesn't have just one way of capturing a scene and recognizes there are many valid 'street' ways of capturing, and they are at the discretion and in the mind's eye of the photographer, which is why 'street' is so personal.

 

And of course, it can be fast, but what if you chatted with those two women, said you wanted to take a few photos to try out your camera (no lying, however, it's really true) and just sat back and waited, having made friends with them.

 

Maybe you even take their portraits to show how good they look with a compressed telephoto shot and good saturation. Then they'll let you hang around an take photos to your heart's content (maybe). It's not always about sticking a camera and lens in someone's face and then running away -- though infrequently it can be just that if the capture is worth the energy.

 

It can be very friendly and professional. "Hi, I'd like to make a photo of you guys selling stuff, I hope you don't mind if I try my camera out -- I'd like to use this particular lens here (demonstrating) and it will require some fiddling and a little time, just just ignore me -- make it as if I didn't exist because in you're life I'm really nothing -- but you'll do me a great favor and help me a lot if you'll 'just turn a little to your left'" (for a posed shot) then retire to the background review your images, hang out for a while and wait for a customer, or a person passing by who gives a disgusted look.

 

Scope out and frame the photo in your mind's eye, and then place camera to eye and try again, sweeping the scene, not poking a lens ever moment at the two women, but also the decrepit trailer in the background with a long zoom, just to allay their fears of being so much a subject and 'why do you want to take a photo of us;. Answer: "I'm just a hobbyist and I like to capture people doing 'real things -- please bear with me, as I can be slow and clumsy and I like to pick a good moment. perhaps I can even make a good photo of a yard sale."

 

That's how I might have handled it.

 

If things happened quickly, then I might have had to point and shoot, but if things were slow, I might have ended up with 40 or 50 photos (or until I ran out of ideas -- especially as new customers came along (or passersby registered disapproval). I would have assessed the scene not only of the two ladies but of which direction will get the appropriate background, but that will become part of the shot (and the message).

 

With their complete trust, they might have allowed me to get within inches of one or the other's face to take an extreme wide angle (first let them peer through the viewfinder to see how 'far' they look away though you're inches away from their nose. Determine which one should get primary focus or if you want them both in each frame, or either one singly.

 

Experiment unless they're hostile, and if they're hostile, seek to disarm their hostility. People are often flattered to be photographed and there's no reason if they are not objecting not to flatter them a little.

 

Let them know it's no major importance and likely, like 100s of such shots, it will end up on your hard drive as a learning experience (again, no lie).

 

You see, it's not just how you get a camera there on your body and stand there and just baldly take a photo. If you're not using a zoom telephoto, work your way into the scene, and keep shooting until they shoo you away, or until you have that capture. You'll probably only get one good one even if you shoot 50. You might get it the first time or the last frame -- who knows (or cares).

 

Photos aren't numbered 'first attempt' or 'hail Mary last ditch attempt' Just get a good one, thank the ladies and move along (don't promise them an e-mail, I don't. I just say, I can take thousands a week and when i get 5 secretary/assistants just to handle the e-mail requests, then I'll start sending them out.

 

Things are not always so easy. I recently photographed a Latino graduation ceremony at a local university and photographed for two hours, then was told I didn't belong (I'm not Latino, but it was a public graduation) and I was told to leave. I tried to reason but if fell on deaf ears. The student official were rude to me in the end so I just walked past them and no longer acknowledged them; they abridged my rights, but I had 8 gig cards full of priceless photos -- and frankly the party was ending.

 

(I may make a civil rights claim to the University, as Latinos cannot have their private graduation on a public campus and exclude Anglos for being Anglo.)

 

The guests were uniformly nice to me, and I never lied about my status (as I had a right to be there, absolutely.)

 

Sometimes there's a skill in 'street' -- just knowing when to move on.

 

So those are some hints on how John Crosley would have captured it. In other words, it's not a photo but a situation. If forced to make a fast photo, then it is just a photo and nothing more, but if it's interesting, why not dicker for a chance to hang around, using your friendly skills of persuasion, a smile and some good humor - it often works.

 

Interesting and flattering comment and observation.

 

You probably have the skills for 'street' but need practice approaching people from all walks of life (rich and poor, stable and unstable) and get them to want their photo to be taken or better, to simply ignore you as you go bout your business (and they theirs).

 

It takes a while to learn this, and maybe nobody will ever tell you but me, but there it is.

 

Why not try it?

 

Best luck as you do.

 

John (Crosley)

John, thanks for taking so much time to give me great advice. You are one of only a small handful of photographers on this site that share their ideas, knowledge and expertise so freely. Thank You! You really gave me a lot of great information. I never thought street photography could consist of on-the-spot relationships that could last through so many photos. I always thought street photography was more of a hit-and-run approach.

 

I'll never get another shot at the scene with the two women and their street sale, but I'll be better armed and a lot less intimidated the next time I come accross a scene that I find interesting. It doesn't seem like my small city has many interesting scenes. But I would probably find a lot more if I spent more time being there.

 

I've stopped by your portfolio frequently. I've only left a comment on one other picture of yours, but I do visit often. I find a lot of inspiration in your shots and in your commentary to others. I also just enjoy looking at your photos. Thanks again, John. See Ya...

The comment was for you personally, and it directly addressed your predicament.

 

But I'm a writer, and I think I will write about the subject of 'street photography' and so comments like what I wrote to you are part of my 'practice' (not planned when I wrote my comment to you, but 'practice' nonetheless) for my eventually writing about 'street' photography and how to accomplish it without getting hit on the head with a shovel (which can possibly happen no matter how adept you are -- Henri Cartier-Bresson, the master, was threatened one day with that after photographing a farmer, and similar things have been threatened to me . . . but if someone raises a fist or something or threatens, I just hit my motor drive which makes a terrible racket, and they also know they're being photographed and that it'll make good evidence for police about 'who started it all', and anyone but an idiot backs down in civilized or quasi-civilized society.

 

There are people to stay away from, especially hard-boiled, tattooed Americans who look like they're from the 'mean streets' who you may not even be photographing but warn you they are NOT to be photographed, and if a camera comes their way, they get real angry -- beware, for they may be criminals on the run, parolees violating their parole, or probationers also violating their probation . . . one has to be careful. Also, people who are psychotic may look and act 'normal' unless they say or do something entirely 'strange' as one guy in a laundromat asked me (as I wrote once before), did anybody ever threaten to kill you to take your cameras?' at which point I grabbed my wet clothes, threw them into my car and took off, because this guy looked and acted 'normal' until he started talking about Jesus, morality and then the ultimate question to me.

 

He'd also talked about 'deaths' of people he met (who didn't seem to meet his own particular 'moral' code, without being asked). You cannot just 'not listen' when people speak -- the street photographer may be visible (or not depending on equipment, personal characteristics, location, etc.,) but one has to be wary, and NEVER drink or take drugs when photographing . . . . for that makes you a target.

 

Be ready on the street, even without expensive cameras, to step off sidewalks into traffic, to double back, to literally stop to one side as you walk if you think you're being followed, to double back on y0our path, even if it takes you places that are not on your itinerary (you can fix that later), and even to cross a street, then double back, or duck into a crowd or a store. These are basic safety-related things for anyone, let alone an older guy who's larger and carries a couple of very expensive cameras. Yet I'm hardly ever hassled where I go, and I experience the most trouble in the USA where everybody has a heightened sense of their 'personal rights' and the claim they have the right to control their image and can get feisty about it -- residents of other countries tend, for the most part, to be more tolerant, which is partly why I reside abroad.

 

So, though the comment was entirely for you and without any ulterior motive, I'll be saving it (and copyrighting it) for possible inclusion (maybe rewriting it) for any book I might write, whether illustrated or not.

 

If you think it's valuable, so must others.

 

It's free to viewers of Photo.net so long as I keep my comments intact, but if you want the entire 'instruction kit' you'll have to click the thousands of comments I've made -- there are people who are doing that right now, photo by photo, comment by comment, and they know very much about me, my thinking, and by osmosis, they also should have an encyclopedic knowledge of how to behave photographing 'on the street'.

 

To you it's a gift, but some day I may charge for it.

 

What would you think about photo tours of this or that city with me (and perhaps another 'street photographer' giving guidance -- examining captures each evening and passing out tips and hints? Think they'd be any taker?

 

I'm about ready to begin offering such tours, I think, if it appears enough would be interested. They would have to be pretty small in size, as 'street'[ is a pretty 'personal' 'art' or undertaking.

 

Whaddya think?

 

Would there be any takers?

 

Anybody else interested? Let me know.

 

E-mail: johncrosley (at sign) Photo.net.

 

John (Crosley)

I recently came across the download from which this photo was processed and viewed the preceding frames.

 

Indeed this is a car wash.

 

The Wet Spot.

 

(I'll leave any obvious jokes about the name to other contributors.)

 

John (Crosley)