'Goes Good Together' Says the Sign

Alcohol is the universal anesthetic in Ukraine. Here two citizens

have overimbibed and are sleeping it off on a hot summer afternoon in

front of a local train station. Your ratings and critiques are

invited and most welcome. Please rate this photo on its photographic

merits, and please do not make this a plebiscite on whether or not

you like photos of bums or those who take photos of bums (I take

relatively few such photos) but judge this photo, please, on its

photographic merits e.g. tonal gradations, composition, mirroring,

interesting content, relation of the subjects to the background (e.g.

sign which says 'goes good together') etc. If you rate harshly or

very critically, please submit a helpful and constructive comment;

please share your superior photographic knowledge to help improve my

photographic technique. Thanks! Enjoy or at least be enlightened!

John (might also be submitted under 'documentary' category)

photo molto curata ottimo scatto mi piace ciao...alex from italy......

If Babelfish is any guide, I am very glad this photo appealed to you.

 

Did you consider that this might have been a war scene as well, except for the imbibing bystanders?

 

Just bodies scattered about.

 

In a way, alcoholism that sends grown men into the street is like a war that Ukraine (and neighboring Russia and other former Soviet republics) must fight to win, or lose to declining populations from early death of male populations -- one reason their women emigrate to the west (and many talented and beautiful women too).

 

It seems summer is the preferred time for being falling down drunk, with the latest heat wave providing me at least three examples in three days of men prone or recumbent in the streets, with people almost reduced to stepping over their bodies. I am told the militia (police) gather them up, but it takes some time, and they can be pretty disheartening to passersby.

 

Ukraine is a co-host with Poland of the FIFA (football-soccer championships in 2012, and Dnepropetrovsk, where this was taken at its main train station, is going to be a venue . . . . pity the sponsors trying to cleanse the streets, but just on a short term basis, instead of attacking the underlying problem -- too little opportunity and too much ingrained drinking -- beer of all kinds flows everywhere (not the vodka of Russia, though store shelves are also lined with vodka) -- it's the beer that so many drink, to great excess.

 

I am not on any campaign; I only chronicle what I see, and I do not belabor the destitute or the bums; if I wanted to do that, I would just spend my time photographing in San Francisco which has far more than its share of bums . . . but they travel from all over the United States to be a celebrated bum in San Francisco . . . . while such scenes are common throughout Ukraine . . . I have seen and am told by my friends here.

 

(See my portfolio for a bum being rounded up by police in San Francisco before a visit from President Nixon in 1969 . . . . -- no nation is immune, and a recent auto tour through the Tenderloin and South of Market area (SOMA area) revealed that San Francisco has a surfeit of alcoholics and drug addicts on its streets that would rival Ukraine. . . . but there they come from all over to gather there, in Ukraine that just drink 'in place' and fall 'in place' it seems to this casual observer.)

 

John (Crosley)

 

This photo is copyright 2007, John Crosley, all rights reserved.

Hello John,

An excellent photograph. At first glance I thought this was a crime scene photo (victims of a "drive-by"),then I read your comment; they're not dead - just dead drunk. The people sitting in the window seem oblivious to the fact that two people are lying unconscious right in front of them, and no one offers to help. A remarkable image but a sad statement on humanity. Best regards, Russell

In one week, San Francisco, California and Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine -- one can see the same scenes, but in San Francisco the drunks have a sense of embarrassment, and in Ukraine they're just . . . well . . . drunk . . . and that's the way it is.

 

In San Francisco, they are also druggies and some are aggressive and many are psychotic (maybe the same in Ukraine, who knows?), but in Ukraine, drugs are not so prevalent as they can be expensive, and the Drug Lords would rather make their money where it's affluent, like the U.S. and Western Europe and perhaps parts of S.E. Asia where there's newfound affluence.

 

Here, alcohol is the main culprit, and sleeping it off can be something accomplished in the middle of an open sidewalk. I've never seen the cops scoop them up, but they do disappear, so I am sure the cops do, but probably with some discretion.

 

In San Francisco, they camp out on the streets with bedrolls and cardboard.

 

Who is more advanced?

 

Thanks for letting me know your impressions, Russell.

 

John (Crosley)

How do we know?

 

The human body, even if drunk, tries to cool itself, if hot.

 

Look at the man, left and center foreground.

 

His legs are spread, as are his arms.

 

He's trying to radiate away his body heat.

 

Too bad he was so intoxicated he could not have slept in the shade, instead of the open sunlight. (and it was VERY hot out that particular day)

 

However, this was early evening, so the sunlight was less strong.

 

John (Crosley)

An alternate title might be 'The Breathalyzer Twins'. ;~)

 

John (Crosley)

Super shot. The perspective on the man is highly original. I also like how the light on the pavement is tending to blow out the highlights, conveying an added tension to the scene.

There's almost no explaining 'how' I take some shots, except that I strive to get everything into the frame -- at least all the 'interesting stuff'.

 

So, when I came on this scene, the challenge was not only to get both men in the scene, with angles that were pleasing and showed their 'disarray' but also to get the people seated on the window sill in the photo, and they were not all lined up.

 

So, that's how I came upon this angle.

 

My exceedingly simple rule is just to make up your idea of what comprises the photo, then include all the parts and nothing extraneous.

 

It's actually so very simple, but some people don't know what a photo they are taking has as a subject. Would it be one drunk lying about, two drunks or the two drunks (a pair) and the kibitzers or onlookers (plus the sign that says 'goes good together' which ambiguously could be said to relate to this pair or this pair and the onlookers)?

 

That's one reason I take such 'different' photos; I have an idea of what to include in a composition, but few fixed rules on how to get it all in; and am guided by the situation and my camera and lens limitations more than anything -- causing me to adopt (adapt to) unusual angles, and hence create more 'original' photos.

 

Again, as in others, I like your analysis. You are welcome to return to my portfolio and leave other thoughts; I hadn't thought of all of them (at least verbally).

 

Best,

 

John (Crosley)

These two passed out drunks easily could have been murdered where they lay, even though in a public place.

 

During routine reading in Wikipedia on this city, Dnipropetrovsk, I saw a reference to the Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs, two men who were serial killers with a third conspirator, who, in this city and surrounding areas, in June and July when this was taken used hammers and other blunt instruments to kill 21 confirmed and mostly unsuspecting and innocent citizens of Dnepropetrovsk.

 

It was not in the press, although if I had spoken enough Ukraine or Russian and been 'connected' I might well have found out about it from neighbors, as I now learn word had spread.

 

It seems the two youths videotaped their murders, almost always using a blunt instrument with great disfiguring force, and often on helpless people, but not always so helpless as these two men (aided in their safety by being in a central area in front of Dnipropetrovsk's Central Train Station.

 

Little did I know, but at the time, the area was being combed by what Wikipedia article says were about 2,000 investigators, as they searched for the perpetrators of the murders which apparently were NOT in the press.

 

Now, you have to admit that two youths (and a third friend who did not kill, but conspired, according to the judgments) is a lot of murders in two months for even a very aggressive serial killer or killers, and I was in the middle of it, blissfully unaware.

 

Wikipedia, which has an extensive bibliography, details the killings, including evidence from a videotape of one killing shown in court, taken alternately by the two youthful serial killers. They also went to their victims' funerals and 'gave the finger', according to testimony, which they also videotaped, it appears.

 

Whew!

 

No warning.

 

Just me wandering around this city with expensive cameras and a pair of serial killers striking people on the head and face so severely with hammers and other blunt instruments that victims often were unrecognizable.

 

But often victims were in dark places it appears, or alone, or sometimes impaired somewhat, (though that is not entirely established. I seldom drink, NEVER when I'm photographing, and no one has ever seen me inebriated -- not ever.

 

I also know how to run at the slightest hint of trouble, how to walk far from people who seem about to 'approach' me as I walk streets that seem a little too deserted, even to cross the street in the middle (even into traffic, which I actually prefer) and also how to 'double back' even yelling out at the top of my lungs to attract attention so hard I sometimes cannot use my voice for days after.

 

I'm fearless about turning tail to avoid getting into a situations like those young men created, and who knows?

 

They may have targeted me and my expensive cameras, but somehow decided against it, because when I sense problems (and I have a good 'streetwise sense') I often know how to react. I may have actually done something, unknowingly that saved my life. This is NOT self-aggrandizement. If you knew my visibility in the center of this city and among its residents with my cameras, and the proliferation of murders, you would probably come to the conclusion I might easily have been a target.

 

I am sure my 'streetwise sense' comes from living in New York City in the '60s, where almost everybody carried at least his keys between his knuckles in case he/she were attacked. Violence then was common in the City. When I first saw the movie 'Bladerunner', I did not realize it was supposed to be set in a future Los Angeles and assumed somehow it was an extension of then present-day NYC.

 

A friend of mine was stabbed on the NYC subway; I was shot on the Penn Central (on a train from NYC to Washington, D.C., I remember seeing the glint of a knife on an elevated train platform - but across the tracks. I walked my Jewish girlfriend, Shirley home in early a.m. in Brownsville section of Brooklyn only to see a pencil thin beam of light inside a store we walked past -- it was being burglarized.

 

That was life in the 'big city' then.

 

When I walked to my Harlem tutoring assignment, I often was approached by youths intent on engaging in violence (if they could catch me, but they were too lazy to chase me, something I learned about bullies -- most won't follow you very far.)

 

Then I went that summer to Viet Nam (with a camera), only to be medivaced to the USA because of a gunshot wound.

 

Then once again I photographed more campus riots.

 

I lived amidst other people's violence.

 

I learned how to keep mostly safe in those circumstances.

 

After prowling around the world much of my adult life (when not married and living a suburban life for half of that adult time), I have learned to recognize 'situations' that can or may develop, in large part based on my experiences walking through Harlem in my late teens and early '20s to tutor my very young students (who often had never seen a real white person - and sometimes touched my skin to see if 'white felt different'.)

 

It didn't of course and it was not only academically good for them, (and me) but also culturally good for all.

 

Drug dealers hung on the corners in sight of the cops, who wouldn't touch them (black on black crime was 'ok'), but if a 'black man were seen walking down the street at night with a TV set the belief was automatic among cops that he was stealing it). Addicts stole the lead waste pipes from buildings, sold it to buy 'fixes, and when residents flushed toilets, there were no pipes and the smell was overpowering throughout those buildings. That was life in the worst parts of Harlem, then. I saw it; almost no other 'white people' ever saw it, save police and sanitation workers (when the cops were not sleeping in a park on duty with a lookout - as photographed and documented by the New York Times).

 

And street youths frequently harassed me as I walked across Harlem (no public transportation to get where i went from where I was coming from/going to).

 

Those lessons learned on the then violent streets of Harlem as a young white tutor going to visit his charges, may actually have saved my life, at the same time this photo was taken in Dnepropetrovsk Ukraine the months of June and July 2007.

I cannot prove it, but I sense it in my bones.

 

One motive of the twin serial killers, besides videotaping their 'thrill' killings also was robbery -- they stole stuff and later pawned it -- killing for so little as a mobile phone - and were actually caught when one tried to sell a mobile phone stolen from a dead victim as the killer asked a merchant for $20 in local currency for the phone.

 

The phone, when turned on, alerted the cops who swooped in and made the arrest.

 

Imagine me with giant Nikon cameras and giant lenses around my neck (two or three at all times), often alone, wandering around this city day and night (health permitting), probably seen numerous times by these youths, as my comings and goings were known or seen by a great number of residents of this large city - I undoubtedly was NOT incognito, and made no attempt thereat.

 

In fact,I was quite well known there, especially among youths. (and if there was trouble brewing in a crowd, for instance, a youth might 'bump me in the shoulder' and I would hear the words 'go' and 'trouble' spoken in English to me, as some drunken troublemaker voiced threats about me, and away I went to safety.

 

Good people watched over me, thankfully. I made good friends and may owe my life to some of them.

 

So today I have happily learned that I have possibly escaped being murdered by the most prolific and unpublicized serial killers one could ever fear being anywhere near, right at the time I took this and other photos in this city, because at that time, I think I was THE most prominent Westerner in this remote major Ukrainian city, and loaded with expensive cameras.

 

The killers were youths who thought nothing of killing by smashing in the face or head of a passerby with a hammer or other blunt object to get a mobile phone (and a thrill), and who almost surely had seen me or knew of my presence there, as I was VERY visible and often in the city center, where EVERYBODY passes through.

 

And if they had known of me, which I believe they had,, the only thing that probably had saved me was my sense of 'street smarts' and my 'bearing' on the street (the killers I read picked on what they viewed were the more helpless . . . . and no matter how tired or hurt I feel, if I sense there's danger about, I can appear robust and strong - until I can get out of danger's path and into a 'safe' crowd or somewhere . . . anywhere, 'safe').

 

Street photography is a 'joy' for me, but also it's sometimes a matter of survival -- something that this story reinforces.

 

It reminds me again 'be careful' on the street.

 

And how hard-won and precious my captures are.

 

(copyright 2009, John S. Crosley, all rights reserved)

 

(The two serial-killing youths were sentenced to life imprisonment and the non-murderer got nine years for robbery).

 

Imagine, 21 murders in two months in this city when I was there taking photos like the above, and not one word in the newspapers - or television (again though local residents certainly knew something horrible was going on, but didn't communicate much to me, besides their ususal 'be careful'.

 

John (Crosley)