Fresh Fish For Sale! (The Fish Truck Arrives)

(Best viewed 'large' for detail)

Fishermen in Ukraine steadily harvest a crop of mighty carp-like fish

from the hundreds of miles long and extremely wide Dnipr River which

flows to the Black Sea (Chernoye More). Here a tanker truck of fresh

water, with live fish swimming inside, has arrived at a market in

Kiev, Ukraine, where fish mongers transfer the fish from the truck to

tubs, to sell to market goers. Here a buyer is completing a

transaction with the monger. 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

Very interesting street shot John with more of a story than you are sharing. The mans butt sticking out of the tank is classic, and the 'fish eye' view makes 2. Now where is 3? The disinterest of the ladies? Why are are there only ladies faces exposed?

The woman on the left looks like she is gently touching the hand of a 'man', and it looks light 'he' is making no effort to meet half way. Is she giving him three coins? Her left hand appears to be holding paper money. Give us the scoop here!

I'm glad you 'love it' -- I saw this situation and just couldn't get enough of it, taking lots of frames. Notice the beer bottle atop the corrugated roof to the left of the tank truck -- it's for the guy who has his butt sticking in the air as he tries to 'fish out' another live and flopping huge carp-like fish from the giant tank. One landed flopping at my feet!

I've seen such trucks on the highway, and never guessed they were hauling fresh fish in fresh water, so they could be sold fresh. Beats the issue of dead fish and refrigeration. Just buy or lease a very old, Sovet-style tank truck, fill if with your friends' fish (kept in water on a so-called stringer after they're caught -- a stringer is a hook which goes through the mouth and gills and keeps a fish captive but alive), then go to market. No refrigeration unit required at all.

As to the issue of Women's Lib, I agree, and I was attorney for a plaintiff in one of the first equal pay for non-equal but 'similar' jobs, before that concept was struck down in California (we got a very good settlement based on the strenght of my arguments, but alas, that concept is now dead, at least in California last I heard.)

And the women, like women in Ukraine and Russia, do what they must to survive, and most accept male domination and even seem to anticipate it and enjoy it. (there are significant exceptions, but not as widespread as one might expect.)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

(and your evaluation.)

John (Crosley)

Copyright notice: This image is copyright 2007, All Rights Reserved, John Crosley

B.McManus,

The story here is the fish truck, mongers and the male with his butt in the air (see comment above) and his beer for rest breaks, which is atop the corrugated roof, next to the truck. (I have a photo of him atop the truck, beer hoisted, with a similar scene, after the fish were unloaded.)

I have used a 'technique' here which I've used maybe twice before -- the off-camera hand proferring money for the fish just bought. That is hrivna (pronounced grivna) in her hand and she is giving him kopek pieces in change for his purchase.

I've used this technique twice before, once in a photo of a hunchbacked woman beggar receiving money from a person off camera barely untruding into the scene, and another time in a photo of one girl (off camera), pulling with one finger, on a purse strap of her girlfriend as her 'girlfriend' stares intently back at the angry stares of her boyfriend. (You might look for those).

It's an interesting technique, which I stumbled on and don't necessarily use so consciously -- the frame just wasn't big enough for all that action, and I had to make choices.

I hope I made the right one; I certainly feel I did.

Thanks for weighing in; your comments are always appreciated as well as your continued willingness to look at and evaluate my work.

John (Crosley)

Look beneath the woman seller's hands, and there is a package.

In it is the fish being purchased, doubled nearly over, with the sack tied to hold it in a doubled-up position.

That's the 'unexplained part' of this photo, and completes the story (I didn't see that initially.)

I hope that clarifies.

John (Crosley)

Thank you so much.

I took a variety of shots because of this fabulous scene unfolding in front of me, and they were fully aware of my presence.

But business went on as usual, and they told me their future schedule as well.

I may return (Douglas McArthur did).

Thanks for the encouragement. It's not so much fun taking photos if no one appreciates them; I'm glad you did enjoy this one. I certainly did, and this one is a little Photoshopped, with various selections, enhancing certain more 'gray' figures -- areas and selectively blurring the corrugation of the building, left. This is not what I do usually, but I needed to do it to make this photo even viewable, since it was such a fabulous scene.

Thanks again.

John (Crosley)

A lot of perspective distortion in this one.

It makes the people look a bit flat and cartoon like.

In spite of this, I think it is a nice and informative documentary shot.

Fish in a tank car. Fresh yes :-)

Yes there is perspective distortion in this one - the only way to be 'up close' so I didn't get crowded out, yet to take in 'all' the scene.

Some times such distortion can be fatal, others it can be overlooked when one looks at the final result.

I made the decision to include the BEST shot, (or at least to that time), in order to 'tell a story' effectively, and I'm pleased with the results.

In color, one could just post this as is, but with B&W it required a lot of post-processing, mainly with levels, contast and even some Gaussian blur -- in all a pretty tricky shot, for me at least, to prepare for viewing since I keep post-processing to a minimum and frequently nothing is post-procssed except the contrast and brightness

I'm pleased this one resonates with you.

Johh (Crosley)