black and white: then to now Angularity and Stasis

I've called this photo 'Angularity and Stasis', but you can attack

your own caption to it, and it can mean whatever you decide it means;

why not let me know your own personal meaning. 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

good moment!

Some moments are blah and some are standouts.

 

For me, this was the latter.

 

There were other, prior, failed shots of this guy as I walked past him before.

 

This was the 'parting shot'.

 

He didn't object.

 

John (Crosley)

 

Copyright 2007, John Crosley, All rights Reserved

'Catch of the Day' (market price)

 

John (Crosley)

 

;-)

 

 

About 2 seconds.

 

I'm of the 'shoot and run' category of photographers.

 

'Street' shooters often have to be.

 

You never know when someone's going to yell at you in a foreign tongue something which may be threatening or just curious -- usually 'why did you take my photo, what newspaper do you work for, or how much does that camera cost' but there are other things said, some of which I'd rather not know about.

 

That's the cost of taking 'street' photos and being a little bold.

 

But this guy seemed pleased to have had a break in his activities -- to have been, maybe for once, the center of attention, even if it was only for 2 seconds (maximum).

 

John (Crosley)

nothing special from the aesthetic or content point of view . Maybe as part of the series "streets of Dnepropetrovsk in a hot summer". But would like to see it within the series.

 

Still like your photographing technique ("the way it was made" vs "the result").

 

Luca

I like it. Though, I'd title it something like "hot pavement" 'cause that was what my eye was drawn to, the foreground. I baked it a little in Photoshop to show you what this slightly different orientation might possibly look like. Good job as is, of course ... the dog really makes it.

I actually, like this one very much -- a man with little 'titskies' (Russian/Ukrainian 'slang')

sitting 'topless' on a chair in the middle of nowhere, in front of a wall with not only no 'reason' for the wall being apparent, but with features on the wall with no demonstrable reason for being there.

 

And, he's sitting in front of bare pavement, while wearing shorts and house shoes (like sandals in Russian/Ukraine culture) just like it's his living room and he's reading the morning paper sitting on the toilet or something or waiting for his wife to bring him a cup of morning coffee, (except it's the middle afternoon).

 

So, maybe it doesn't say much to you, but it speaks volumes to me. Where in the world are you gonna get a photo of a guy like this in the real world this year and not looking back 50 or 60 years through a Cartier-Bresson or other book of old photos.

 

And the dogs are just 'whupped out' from the heat, just like he is. Who is he, and where did he come from, and for such a public place (with all that cement, it's obviously public), and where did he get the gall to go out there dressed like this -- this is not church or business, but it's also not a swimming pool in the backyard or a Municipal swimming pool or at the beach where such attire might be better tolerated?

 

In short, this photo is a social oddity in this day and age, and for that alone it earns my own plaudits, and the vanishing point, left, is 'reversed' in the far edge with the buildings (see it cross over) and that adds to the complexity of the photo. (did you see it or am I explaining it correctly?)

 

I know I can't make you like this photo, but I like it very much, and I wonder if you got all its marvelous social complexity as well as the artistic complexity in creating and using the vanishing point (and tilting the camera--did you notice the tilt to the rightward, so he appears to be leaning more leftward (upright) which counteracts (for him) the effects of being photographed at the edge of the field of view for a 12 mm lens (18 mm film equivalent) thus partly negating, for the foreground at least, the distortion built into using such a lens with a subject on the extreme side so close to the camera (bet you didn't notice that one . . . . I did it naturally, and it took about 1/4 second to think it through or maybe 1/2 at most -- just a little 'twist' to 'get it all in' and make him appear more 'natural' and not reclining or 'leaning rightward' unnaturally.

 

And did you also notice that although this is a diagonal, it does not lead from the right corner, where one usually starts, but instead the right 'corner' is 'weighted' or a 'weighted average' of the various things in the right corner -- the shadow (lower left), his shoe, leg and body, middle lower left) and the delineation of the pavement and wall, upper lower left.

 

None of these things fits into the left corner for the beginning of a 'true' diagonal and none should -- but the 'eye' completes a diagonal (without being hit over the head that the photographer set out to create a diagonal by bisecting the frame, like sometimes happens).

 

Then, there's the small crossover of the vanishing point lines, at the end of the diagonal with the building . . .

 

There's more here than initially meets the eye . . . and I'm getting more practiced at seeing it thanks to my many able critics, each one of whom often adds only one or two things, but altogether, they've made me very sharp-eyed, not only in critiquing, but also in taking such photos.

 

I'll bet if you and lots of other photographers passed this scene, they'd take a photo and it would come out 'craps' because they wouldn't tilt the camera rightward (rotate) or get the crossover at the end of the vanishing point, if they got it all in, or even think to include the long expanse of wall (and of course both dogs and the empty Jerry can that once held fuel . . . if it's what I think it is).

 

There, that's my analysis, and if you still don't get it, that's OK by me; you are an able viewer, and you have already weighed in, but all that took place in less than 2 seconds, on my second pass -- having already once walked past this (started to say 'gentleman') man, having walked by him previously on my way 'out'.

 

Let me know if you think this (1) correctly states things and (2) adds or detracts from your understanding of this photograph (and maybe finally, if it helps you enjoy it more, or at all).

 

Thanks for the laudit on my explanatory skills. I take great pride in sharing on this site.

 

Without readers (and critics) like you, it all would be for naught.

 

John (Crosley)

I have been wondering how best to re-work this photo -- this is a desaturate job in Photoshop CS3 -- my first, using their six or so NEF (raw)color sliders, and it's a far different task using their desaturation channel mixer than it is for jpegs in version CS2, and I have to get used to it; it gives you more control and also more room to make a mess of things as well.

 

I like your 'more contrasty' version a lot, but it's missing something and I think that is perhaps 'bringing out the man more' -- maybe slightly selecting or masking him and just lightening him more and keeping him more contrasty -- though he really is pretty contrasty, just dark, and the trick was to keep his flesh showing that he was Caucasian -- not some other melanin-filled 'color'.

 

I like it when people like you weigh in with great suggestions as it keeps my synapses firing and keeps my interest up.

 

You know the phrase, 'is there a sound if you fire a gun in a forest and no one is there to hear it?' or some such.

 

And before the 'wave theory of sound', that made a certain sense. Was the sound in the 'making' or in the 'hearing'?

 

In a certain sense, that also applies with my photography: Would I be interested in making and exposing so many interesting (I hope) photos to the public if it weren't for (1) a large audience from PN and elsewhere and (2) the able critiques I get on this site from guys like you who really are my mentors and keep attention up.

 

For I know when I post a photo, for certain photographers of discernment there must be an accounting -- and I don't mean just getting 3/3s but getting critiqued and being able to act on the critiques - and -- in the proper case accepting a just critique.

 

Yours is just, and I'd add a little to it.

 

If you ever see this printed or in a book, it will look a little more like your version, with an extra touch of mine thrown in, I think.

 

Thanks for your help.

 

John (Crosley)

it is not that I missed the context. What I wanted to say is that the picture is not enough. More clearly:

 

a) your eye and the brain behind it are excellent, the photo shows it. True that most of us would not have counterrotated the camera and missed to align it to the wall's fleeing perspective;

 

b) you are fast in capturing moments and putting them into a different perspective (literally!) This is no common ability and you teach me a lot in this respect. Also provided that you had to decide the focal length of your zoom

 

c) the picture hints at all you write. (By the way, the floor is of metal. Is it the roof of something?). But it is difficult for the viewer to imagine it, unless he/she has experienced a similar context (and heat). The latter is very explicit: the photo is also an icon of heat.

 

I confirm that it would be an excellent chapter of the story of Dnepropetrovsk and its people in a hot summer. This story could tell about the comprehensive experience you are having.

 

Thanks for appreciating my viewing capacity. I am applying it to your work to improve my skills.

 

Best,

 

Luca

 

 

Luca,

 

Your comment above is quite on point -- the photo is an icon of heat.

 

In fact, the man, being mostly unclothed (and in the shade yet), is mirrored in his own way by two (count them, two) dogs in the distance, stretched out, also in the shade, because dogs know where the coolest spots are.

 

Now about the flooring; it might be metal and it might not.

 

The Communists used a lot of concrete (the limestone variety) as well as asphaltic concrete (we call is asphalt), and one thing a builder often must do if further building on top is contemplated (One as it might have been here) is to pour concrete (limestone variety) into forms.

 

Those 'forms' might be made of wood (often in the United States, where wood is common, or any old thing, and sometimes even metal.)

 

Thus, the pattern you see underneath his feet, though likely metal as you say, also could be the imprint of 'forms' placed on top of poured concrete on which further building on top was planned -- possibly here a Metro station judging by its length, and its alignment with a certain street under which lies a Metro (which I've never been on and I am not certain even runs . . . I've never heard of one running, but there is a station down the street into which I've never seen anyone go, but they may indeed go).

 

In any case, the Metro is not a big deal in this particular large city, although Brezhnev himself, (I recall, but maybe it was Khrushchev) personally saw to it that money was allocated for a Metro in Dnipropetrovsk, just as in Kiev (Kyiv) to the north and west somewhat also alongside the very, very long Dnipr River (also Dnipro R.).

 

Brezhnev was a native of Dnepropetrovsk, but often to party officials derided the Ukrainians as though he were not one, in an effort to make himself look more 'Russian' and therefore more acceptable as he rose to power. (Like a self-hating 'Jew', 'Black', or homosexual as that term - self-hating - has been used, or just as a device -- one wonders?)

 

So, though it may look like metal, and indeed it may be, it also may be the 'imprint' of a metallic form on top of poured concrete (some day I'll go back and have a look, but not soon; I'm not able now, and the Central European weather has broken and in Moscow tomorrow, I see from mail.ru web site the temperatures won't break 72 degrees Fahrenheit (if I read it correctly).

 

And in Kiev (Kyiv) 70 was barely obtainable, I understand, today but without yesterday's thundershowers in the more southerly portions --- probably arctic air has moved in after scorching heat.

 

Remember Cartier-Bresson's photo of a nearly naked man (just tight briefs) stretched out against a wall in St. Petersburg, for an inscrutable photo -- if not, please study it when and if you find it -- it's priceless, especially considering it was made under Communist domination, when a young woman friend has told me derisively 'young babies were found under cabbage leaves' for their studied 'State' prudery -- at least in Communist movies, which are a treat sometimes, as they tend to mirror life in Hollywood movies, right down to the sets of outlandish houses and apartments (in which no one of simple means ever lived in Communist times, when whole families were pushed into a single cramped room of a one-time house -- and families sometimes slept 'in turns', five to a room, often stacked like cordwood and sleeping on the floor and that's before the guests from afar arrived with their 2000 km sausages which they ate on the long trains, together with the ever present huge urn of boiling water for tea on every coach (the only way to assure travelers didn't get sick from tainted water, and stay warm in a very cold part of the world much of the year.)

 

But, as you have noted, and the photo shows, summers at times can get beastly hot -- up to the 40s, C. and 100 F. in record territory; hotter as one gets farther south.

 

Not what one expects from the great frozen Central and Eastern Europe, hunh?

 

I always invite your observations and critiques, Luca.

 

John (Crosley)

This ordinary looking fellow's outlandish getup in the middle of public, on a heavily traveled public sidewalk near a bus station (leading up to a main bus terminal that's three stories high -- with buses on all levels), is to me simply inexplicable and surreal at the same time.

 

I am somewhat tired of the land of strip malls, franchise 'opportunities' -- 'Big Gulp' drinks where everything's marketed to death.

 

That's the land of my birth, and damn I miss those 'Big Gulp drinks' when at McDonald's they act as if I just asked them for their birthright when I ask for some extra ice and have to GET A MANAGER's APPROVAL just to give it to me oftentimes, but OK for an American, most of the time, unless the manager's a 'new hire'.

 

But coming across scenes like this, as inexplicable as they are, is living life a little bit on the rough edge, as are many of the working class people one encounters, especially the nearer one gets to the terminals for trains and buses, where the farm and village people move back and forth into the 'big city', and the alcoholics also gather, as they do in any Western City in America, for instance.

 

But Ukraine has a large number of stumblebums just walking the streets, a little drunk out of their gourds, zig-zagging, and people just take that as part of life. In America, we consign those people to special 'zones' of our cities, generally and name that 'skid road' or 'skid row' but in Ukraine, such people move about pretty freely and generally are tolerated as one of the bad aspects of life in Ukraine.

 

The Soviets (which formerly were comprised of Russia, Ukraine and numerous other 'Republics' once had a plan to raise the price of alcohol to limit its intake.

 

There almost was a second Revolution.

 

Alcohol is the 'opiate of the masses', not religion, as Marx once famously wrote.

 

Religion may also be, for other reasons.

 

But the highly religious seldom go about stumbling from over imbibing.

 

The vast majority of Ukrainians look down on such behavior, but it is considered rude to refuse a drink when offered by would-be 'friends', and movies shown on television show someone being offered, then turning down a drink or a 'strengthener' to their beer, and later the scene may show two very drunk men sitting on the street, or stumbling about arm in arm, singing -- for at least in former times, there was a lot of singing in Russia and the Soviet Republics, as I recall. Not so much more today under Capitalism.

 

Jobs then were guaranteed and if you watched your friends on the job, they watched out for you; one woman I knew had her son in a special 'music school' for gifted and talented young musicians (her boy was a piano prodigy, confirmed by the head of the music department at the University of Washington, Seattle, who offered to tutor him), and said that for one of the boy's classes, the teacher showed up just twice in the year, on the first day, to show her attendance and sign necessary papers, and on the last day to 'sign out'.

 

She collected a (meager) salary all the year, for doing no work.

 

That's the way things were done six or seven years ago in Moscow (Moskva) and although things are changing rapidly there today and probably such things are more under control in Moscow, i suspect the rate of change is slower in the farther reaches of Russia.

 

I do not know about Ukraine, but one must be very careful when buying a train or bus ticket, not to get cheated, (even sold two tickets, with the cashier pocketing the second ticket's take or 'sharing' it with someone), and God help anyone who thinks they can get back to the Hungarian border to resume a Eurailpass journey by buying a ticket to the border (maybe $20 maximum) without spending $100 to $120 with people gathering around to 'help' translate (in cahoots with the cashier to see how much they can 'take' the stranger for).

 

That is one reason there was an 'Orange Revolution' which largely has not done much good and is somewhat reviled by many because of its inept leadership, but they at least have had a good heart (though many have said an 'open pocketbook' but that's not for me to say, as I do not know)

 

I had a hard time persuading a Russian companion that some nationalist flag wavers (flags are big here to demonstrate support for a political party), that some patriotic flag wavers were NOT paid to hold flags, and they did it out of loyalty and patriotism (others for other parties did so for a meagre paycheck . . . she was right about the former soviet psyche).

 

But you could see and sense the difference between the paid flag wavers who were mostly lackadaisical and the real loyal democratic supporters, in the enthusiasm of the latter -- nothing says anything more strongly than doing unpaid work.

 

Politics are awaiting elections later this year and no matter what, I am a winner, because I'm not betting on anybody for anything. I don't support anybody and don't get involved in internal Ukrainian politics . . . that's for the Ukrainians and Russians to resolve, as I do not understand them well enough to form opinions.

 

All that from this simple photo.

 

Whew!

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

 

Thank you, John. You're too gracious (me? ... a mentor? Ha!) :) Those are wonderful replies, I enjoyed all of them ... and agree with everything that you've said. You're especially right on with the "gun in the forest" analogy. Though, I have way more fun looking at the photos of others; mostly because it shows me what's possible.

Thanks for the nice response; I also look at photos whenever I can, but not so much at the Photo.net photos, as they tend to lump together -- and are somewhat predictable after a while, with the exception of certain wonderful artists and a few who come and go but who are bound for stardom.

 

I always like a trip to my local Borders or Barnes & Noble, each of which has a huge periodical section for photo magazines from the US and beyond, as well as the hardbound and paperbound (trade) books, from which there are (when not wrapped on plastic or cellophane), many wonderful photo books, many of which I have bought.

 

New images help keep my sight 'fresh' if that is possible, and they help me direct my efforts when I'm out in the street -- I simply absorb some small percentage of what I've seen, then go out and assimilate it into my own myriad shooting styles (which are coalescing now more into the 'street' genre, but you'd be surprised what I can do with a landscape, given the proper circumstances, and maybe a ND grad filter (which I currently don't have in my camera bag, because I like to shoot 'naturally' -- without filters or heavy Photoshopping.)

 

So, I'm always a sucker for a new way of looking at things from a new artist. I recognize that because of the eclectic nature of what and how I shoot, I can be difficult to categorize, especially when not shooting 'street' (my first love) but I enjoy lots of different categories of shooting and am bound by few strictures.

 

I like to pick up B&W Magazine and other so-called artsy-fartsy magazines, not only for the content, but to see what's happening in the 'real' world of photographic arts, which seem to be taking off right now (will the Wall Street selloff lately affect that greatly?).

 

And I'm a sucker whenever there's a new or a redo work of Cartier-Bresson's numerous works, or lately 'Personal Best' by Elliott Erwitt, who could have been a whole school of photography, just by himself, or perhaps two. Same with Cartier-Bresson, who had his own 'school' though I don't suppose he thought of it as such, but it really was 'attic Cartier-Bresson' in a sense, though he took in no understudies, except through 'his' Magnum agency, and one wonders just how much mentoring he did (one doesn't read about any and one hears stories about how rudely he greeted new work by aspiring photographers -- speaking heart-breaking, crushing words of their best work. I'd probably have received that reception too; after all, he staked out the territory.

 

But I do have my strengths, which I am learning to play to, and my output is pretty good (just over 3 years and 900 photos posted) with numerous good ones held in abeyance, perhaps together (and that's just on this site . . . . look around and you might find a few more which you've never seen, but you'll have to look hard.

 

PN is a great proving ground for finding the clickability of photographs, but the 'view' counter, having been reworked, soon will rob my portfolio of some of its visibility I fear, and people will say 'John who? when they are pointed to my work, for it will appear on no one's highest rated list . . . just me getting a hundred 'views' here and 300 'views' there, as the 'views' no longer measure 'exposure' to one's photographs, but actual 'clicks' -- a complete reversal of the way photo 'views' once were counted.

 

In image, posted after the new regime's ratings rules went into effect, I did get nearly 7,000 'clicks' (not just views . . . but 'clicks') and feel that image might have gotten 100,000 'views' under the old method of counting (part of the image was a frame from a porno film, and viewers will click on anything that suggests explicitness, but few will actually 'rate' such images, for fear of being shown to be a porno rater on any profile compiled by 'Google.com.

 

And for that matter, except for subject matter, it might have made a good Photo of the Week, but I know that never will come my way -- I gave it my best shot with my first posting and it got run over -- completely ignored and it's my all-time best ever.

 

Still is.

 

It's first in my portfolio.

 

Douglas, without guys like you giving me encouragement and feedback, I'd probably have given up photography, or put them back into mothballs after using them for a brief while when I 'rediscovered' photography.

 

Instead, it's opened up a whole new world . . . ; you can't take individual credit, but you are part of the collective credit.

 

Thanks (for your part).

 

John (Crosley)

Ok, I'll speak my mind a bit. My first inclination was to back off from your very nice compliment to me, and just say "thank you" or some other such PN politically correct muck. My photos are clearly inferior to yours, and it isn't because I think that I could never learn enough to improve my gallery, who knows these things in advance? ... but they are inferior at the moment, so I was pretty loath to try to make an intelligent stab at helping you in your quest to advance your art. But, what the hey ... take it or leave it. I realize that the particular photo above is an advance for you, from what my guess is of what the "real" artists are after these days. Seems to me that you've got to make the viewer doubt himself on some sort of profound level in order to make "real" art. You've got to make him aware of the game that is the socially constructed reality in which people inevitably live. It's socially constructed, but it isn't widely promoted as such, so the average guy who doesn't have the time to get into these things just thinks that his perception of reality is his own and is the only natural human perception. The best of all possible perceptions to throw in a fancy quote from an old French intellectual (boy, I should be more PC). Now, what this photo here does is it breaks with the normal tradition of seeing the space around the man; his environs. Somehow, magically, this image calls into question how other people might just view reality differently than oneself. Bingo. A success. Art. Not hugely so, which is why it still needs work, and maybe a fault might be that it takes a too stereotyped or overworked and thus socially "normal" advantage of the lens distortion of the wide-angle; not art as here defined. But, the texture at the foreground (which I dragged into keener focus with the sharpening tool in Photoshop) kind of does add something different, something a little new; a little vertigo in a way; to make the eye swirl around a bit. Now, you've got some art going here; but as I browsed through your gallery (and I couldn't find the image that you mentioned) I noticed that most of your other images were more tightly cropped. As if your vision is more about something other than these more "arty" perceptual things; like you get into your subjects as artful in their own right, and leave out the emphasis on the greater environs. Sure, some of this is due to the tough nature of taking street shots, and I learned about this from a good post right here at PN when I first started reading up on these things a couple years back. You can't get the kind of tight decorative perfection needed to yield big audiences here by taking street shots; especially in B&W. So, perhaps you need to slightly shift your interest in order to move to those next levels. Hell, your compositions are very sophisticated (which is what my beginner's eye latches onto, since I'm not hip to the game with the fancy technical stuff), so you've got what is most difficult in my view already wired; just compose, maybe ... and then pull back a foot or two to open up the surroundings. But, really, I don't know how the toaster works. You're an excellent wordsmith, too ... wow, what an output; and all interesting and well thought out. You're a shoe in for success. Thank you for taking my views so seriously. Maybe that's the best lesson that you've taught me here. I haven't been very good at finding potential in some of the people that I've met here. I'll have to try a bit harder. :)

I made a conscious decision a while ago to emulate more the style of the photographs that I was taking on early on in my career- when I was in my early '20s and had just bought a camera(s).

 

I started with a 50mm or 55mm lens, and so many of my photographs necessarily included some background and were taken from back a ways.

 

Others, however, were taken with telephoto lenses (balloon man, first in my portfolio, for instance) and they also reflect the style which I began with here when I had more sophisticated cameras and could 'zoom in' a little.

 

I notice lots of things, including the movements and facial expressions around me, and only wish I had Cartier-Bresson's ability to place subjects in their environment; for that's what he did throughout his career -- he made compositions from interesting subjects AND their environment as they moved through their environment.

 

After a while of taking an posting photos here, I discovered, partly through critiques and partly through self-direction (self-deception) that all it really took in some instances first was to 'see' the circumstance (the hardest part), and then just to pull back a few feet, just as you have intimated.

 

The problem is that not every photo lends itself to 'pulling back' a little bit, and tight cropping often is necessary for me to achieve 'my look' as opposed to a fake or 'disciple of Henri Cartier-Bresson' look. I am not he, and he would not have taken the fast majority of tightly-cropped photos I take.

 

But they are my 'art' too, and while I very much like this photo, and it is a product of making the 'subject' the individual AND his environment, few subjects lend themselves to this, for me, I'm afraid.

 

You might look at my B&W photo, 'Loneliness' of a solo woman on steps at Paris's La Defense office complex, for an example that is very similar to this in approach. This one, however, is more surreal -- because it 'begs lots of questions' whereas the other one was a straightforward 'truth' that instantly was recognizable and understandable by most every viewer.

 

While this has an analogue in mystery and surreality, the other had its analog in the familiar, if unhappy, place we all have been -- in a large place feeling empty (even amid a crowd), though that photo was NOT set in a crowd -- and the crowd deliberately was 'missing'.

 

Then came a similar photo, also on those steps, of the same woman, a guy seated on steps behind and to her left, and that photo was 'loneliness with hope' for another look at an individual (here two individuals) in their environment.

 

 

But this 'style' of pulling back is not 'new' to me; I've been doing it from the start, but didn't post much of it or take many such shots because of a wide variety of lenses that allowed me to move in on subjects (to avoid in many cases outside the frame distractions).

 

But see my B&W photo of a man and his wife in front of a square in Ukraine, the many glancing up at a billboard of a pretty woman, while his wife looks to the left - and the 'look' of her face could almost kill, she's so homely (and distorted by a wide angle lens. That photo is one in which the environment plays an important part, as part of it is the billboard on which is the pretty woman to which the man has cast his gaze, albeit only momentarily.

 

So, the 'style' you are advocating, is not new -- it's just not so well or often used by me. One commentator, said 'strangely' (he said) the color photos I posted from travels seemed more reminiscent of Henri Cartier-Bresson's style than my B&W photos, and I took umbrage, thinking the color photos weren't much, and maybe they weren't.

 

But they did include in many instances, the environment and were not always to closely cropped. One commentator, Peter Bilitch, said early on in my commentaries, that I had a tendency to crop too tightly, against which I defended myself, and I still do. I crop tightly sometimes, especially to avoid distractions which detract from the subject, but I also sometimes crop more loosely (but very carefully).

 

Look for a photo 'boatyard conversation' taken from some distance back, including the bow of a boat and three boatyard workers or two workers and an owner, in animated discussion, and see how I have blended the two styles together -- telephoto, a little, but also including much of the environment, for it was essential to portray the boats in the boatyard to make the viewers understand who these men were. I like that photo, but it got mediocre ratings (color photo).

 

The fact is you are right, black and white (or color) street photos will always have a limited audience here, but I'm not about to cast farther out and begin adding an environmental element to every photo just to try to fall in with the 'art' crowd. I'll take photos my way, always experimenting, trying on new styles and/or variations on new and old styles I've used and/or experimented with.

 

Today I was shooting nudes, but I just don't post them; not everything I shoot gets posted.

 

Later today, I'll be on the street (if the sun doesn't go down in the meantime - it's already 8:00 p.m. and starting to turn a little darker.)

 

I don't know about quoting French philosophers or others who write/speak bon mots, for getting an audience; I seem to do pretty well on my own. I am a writer, of sorts, though all I've ever written commercially was news and magazine articles that were newslike, but my skills have greatly developed in the 30+ years since, and I've also been an attorney with attorney's eye for detail (which I didn't have previously), and the attorney's need to spell out detail rather than paint in broad brush strokes with my prose (although I do that sometimes).

 

I thank you for 'sharpening' and darkening or adding contrast to the foreground; with that move and the posting above, you move into the cherished territory of very valuable critics -- people whose opinion amounts very much to me, regardless of their own photographic output.

 

You don't have to be a filmmaker or cinematographer to know if a movie is truly lousy, though it might help in some circumstances.

 

And I had an advantage when I came here to this site: I already KNEW what a photo was; something I assumed most people know, but decidedly some do not and they struggle to find a 'subject' and to master the elements of focus and exposure and to come to grips that photography is 'writing with light'.

 

I did have a job for a year with Associated Press as NYC photo editor and had over a hundred thousand photos pass before my eyes off the various 'wires' and had to make decisions on where those photos went and also had to write captions for many of them. I also interacted on rare occasions with some Pulitzer Prize winning photographers, as well as some very able journeymen staff photographers and the AP photo library was a phone call away and they'd bring me any image I asked for.

 

But it paid poorly and I quadrupled my hourly wage by making a simple move to a business magazine while I finished part of my schooling interrupted by student riots and the Viet Nam war (to which I went with camera in hand, working my way over).

 

I don't know if my work (as it is, not as you propose I change it), will be accepted by the 'art' world, and that concerns me, but I can only take the photos I know how to take, and that involves putting a camera in my hand and just trying to make (often in an instant) the most interesting photo and sometimes the most complex (if it adds to the interest), that I can in such a short time.

 

This photo is a little complicated in that the wall behind the guy, which would have appeared to 'lean back' because of wide angle distortion (as well as the guy), is caused (by my twisting the camera to eliminate that distorting effect on the guy) so that the wall actually appears (due to my tilting and wide angle distortion throughout) to become a twisting ribbon. I didn't plan for that exactly - I just didn't want the guy to appear tilted backward more than he was, as my wide angle would have made him appear, and in the process achieved a unique 'look' -- one of those happy circumstances when one takes lots of photos (and discards maybe 99% or more). I get to be my own photo editor, and I hope

to do a good job, but others might see hidden gold in my waste, and I wish I had an experienced photo editor to go through that to evaluate it. Gary Winogrand had John Szarkowski of the Museum of Modern Art in NYC directing evaluation of his old rolls of film, then a devoted ex-wife who was a curator of his work after he died, but I don't know of such persons.

 

Winogrand, like Erwitt, apparently walked down a street taking exposure after exposure, and (unlike Erwitt who had an agency to report to -- Magnum), Winogrand liked to 'age' his rolls of film for years before examining them, so he died with thousands and thousands of unviewed and undeveloped rolls of film he 'would have looked at' if it had lived. Others did that task for him after his death. (I don't ever want to wait so long.)

 

I also do the same thing, even often shaking hands as Winogrand is said to have done, and am a familiar sight in many major cities, where people think I live nearby but only come out once in a while - instead of living very far away and just being very visible when I'm around.

 

I have a very close relationship with my critics; I learned as a writer that editors make you look better; the goal of a good critic is to do the same, and I value that. (I rankled as a beginning writer at being edited, feeling it revealed something manquee --missing-- in my writing, but one editor sat me down and just said to me (over a beer), 'son, we're trying to make you look better - stop fighting us and our editing' and that was that.

 

I also soon became an editor for others.

 

And a photo editor.

 

But you don't have to be a pro to do such things, and my specialty was 'news' a

No, thank you for your thoughtful comments. They've connected me a bit to the community like all of my "ignored" comments previously haven't. :) You've piqued my interest in your gallery, too. I'll take a closer look, especially at the photos that you've highlighted here. There is a learning experience for guys like me in just seeing and thinking right now, as opposed to our usual pointing-and-shooting. Maybe I'll even copy the style of one or two of your photos that stimulate me; for, it is my belief that no one person can sort of copyright a style or way-of-seeing ... like a Cartier-Bresson. All in good fun; or else one is lost. As for taking massive amounts of photos ... well, I haven't. In fact, until I very recently purchased a little Nikon D40, I had only shot about 1,000 images in my lifetime; and those all mostly taken during a 1986 trip to Europe when I was twenty-five. So, I'm excited to see what a little proliferation can do for me. Thank you again for the time; and the beautifully written comments, sir.

Nothing is a better teacher than instant review of one's photos, and digital photography provides just that.

 

Digital cameras offer instant review, and those who switched over from film are often surprised by how many exposures they take -- all the time adjusting for little things -- framing, exposure, focus and even changing the nature of the 'seen' photo that one expects to take upon reviewing first efforts.

 

I can take as many as 80 or 90 exposures if a subject is moving somewhat in order to get the exact exposure I desire, or, in this case, just one from this angle on this trip past this man.

 

It all depends, and there is no set rule.

 

Just shoot until you get a good one, and then save it (but don't delete your other exposures -- some may prove worthwhile), and keeping all will keep you humble if shooting 'street' as a great percentage will have no 'worth' at all -- that's the general rule.

 

But save the 'failed' efforts, nonetheless, and study them for why you took them and how you might improve them. Learn from your earlier efforts and call them 'mistakes' if you must, but they are the basis of learning.

 

Remember, making errors and mistakes is how one truly 'learns'. Think of all the kids of rich parents who have life handed to them on a patter and they grow up without character or knowing how to get things done, unlike their parents who didn't have those same opportunities.

 

That's what photography is all about -- kind of like golf, in which one is continually missing, but always aiming for that hole.

 

As you continue photographing, you will hit the mark more often and maybe set the 'tee' farther back, just as in golf the better players hit their 'tee' shots from farther back.

 

You may pass or screw up potential masterpieces, but that's part of the territory; it's OK. You'll also 'see' things that no one before you ever has and be able to record them.

 

That's what'll make your photos unique . . . the school of Douglas K.

 

Now that'll be something to be proud of.

 

Thanks for stopping by again.

 

And for commenting on photos in my portfolio.

 

I hope you make many trips here; your comments are 'right on' in my book.

 

(you don't need to be an 'expert' at taking photographs to recognize a good one, or critique one that falls short (for you).

 

Best.

 

John (Crosley)