Sneaking Around (Rather Obtrusively)

This young man thought he was being unobtrusive as he tried to spy

down the street in Paris recently, but it appears he was wrong. 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 knowledge to help improve my

photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

What did you do with the image? The man is strangely taken out by adding the lines.. The blur looks very strange with the harsh lines...

This is an example of my bad post-processing.

 

The guy's image needed sharpening as he was more than a little blurry.

 

I may break a rule and take this one down to reprocess it.

 

Others were similar, but somehow because of slow shutter speed (it was very overcasst) and because of the long focal length and difficulty of focusing on the guy, he is a little blurry (or more), but if I can rescue this capture, I will.

 

It may take some work, or it just may decorate my hard drive as one of those 'could have been' shots that I kick myself for not getting perfect.

 

Thanks for the helpful comment; your opinion does mean something substantial to me (you're probably the tip of the iceberg).

 

John (Crosley)

>decorate my hard drive as one of those 'could have been' shots

 

You put a smile on my face :-) We all have that decoration, and some of them I'm really sad that I missed to do right. Yesterday I ordered a 500GB disc for all that stuff - - -

 

Regards Axel

 

I have eight terabyte hard drives and two or more 1.5 terabyte hard drives, and it's important to have so many, since one never knows what I might be tempted to discard either will be a winner, or someday, if I want to show the evolution of a particular shot, I have just about everything, warts and all. Or it might just become 'stock photo.' I sold stock when I was much younger, not much but it got good prices.

 

Some of my eight terabytes are in Ukraine where they exist far from the reach of anybody or any event that might deprive me of my recent life's work; others are with me; and a third set is in storage.

 

Finally, I have a series of 500 gig (1/2 terabyte) hard drives, that are split in two segments; one is with me -- four of them at present, and another three are with a photo printer of note who is 'curating' my work -- going through it to determine what might be really worthy of exhibition.

 

I've heard stories of photographers who had girlfriends tear up their work, or discard it outright; a photographer (David Malcomson, who has a photo with 1 million views here) who lost his life's work when movers moved his household when he wasn't present (thanks Dave for telling me that story), a photographer acquaintance whose girlfriend dumped his negatives in the trash and his prints on the front lawn in the wet, and so many other stories, I decided long ago, (after I lost my Viet Nam work and all my early color work as well as all my negatives from early work), that such things would never happen to me.

 

So, I have a total of about 11 terabyte or 1.5 terabyte hard drives and seven 1/2 terabyte hard drives, spread out, plus some other, earlier drives from before they made the large ones affordable -- and my total photos take about 1.5 terabytes, plus other docs, etc., and a bunch of TIFFS from rescuing frozen or jammed chips -- about 20 of them -- which eat up a great amount of space, being TIFFs and all (rescue software created TIFFs from everything, and they are HUGE files).

 

So, if I need to take a copy of my work to somebody to have them review it, as is happening now, I can just make copies of my work, and drop it off -- and there it all is -- warts and all -- and original files (downloads from my cameras, all arranged in a neat file system, numbered and indexed).

 

Plus I paid my Moscow assistant a substantial sum to begin the process of making DVDs for much of it, and she got half way through or so before she decided her Moscow boyfriend was more important than working for me.

 

In other things, I may not be so careful, but I don't want an auto accident when I'm travelling to cause the destruction of my life's work -- or a fire, or an unhappy relationship.

 

I might be hamstrung for a month of two if things in one place were destroyed, but I think I could rescue nearly everything (there are issues of organization stemming from when I was starting out.)

 

I early on read that the most important problem facing photographers with substantial output was keeping track of it all, and they are right.

 

My printer/curator, is choosing 40 of my photos to make a book (several copies) which will be my master catalog. (He's internationally famous for his skills, and he has taken me under his wing -- thanks to introductions through member Dennis Aubrey and a friend and former co-worker of Dennis Aubrey who is a world renowned printer in his own right who referered me to the third person, the printer who is curating.)

 

(I doubt there are so many good photosgraphs, but I'll wait until he gives me the 'sad news' and changes his plans.)

 

In any event, I was out shooting today, for two and a half hours and got four or five keepers -- one's I can post on the Internet.

 

I was in an LA Chinese restaurant on Pico, and a guy with a yarmulke asked me in the men's room if I was paparazzo, to which I announced they were 'scum' -- which is true.

 

I showed him some of my captures -- today's was from South Central LA and involves people and wall art -- giant murals.

 

He said 'are you intereested in doing album covers?' -- all there in the men's room. That's not where I make most of my acquaintances, but I never turn down an opportunity -- obviously he was in the record business.

 

I share with everybody, and never know when opportunity may come knocking.

 

Maybe because my 'style' such as it is, is inimitable -- I don't do digital alterations, landscapes or portraits (such that you'd see at least on the Internet) and somehow, as member Matt Vardy noted long ago, my very diverse stuff seems to 'hold together' in an indescribable way. (for whatever that might mean).

 

And I hope it's interesting.

 

The ultimate sin is to be 'boring'.

 

I hope I have not committed that sin.

 

Almost every photo here is different.

 

Who wants to look at a folder of a theme, where every shot is of a certain model, just each in a slightly different pose, or shots which are all high key and 'look alike'?

 

I think I get so many viewers because I 'mix it up'.

 

And I'm always seeing new and different things, from abstracts, to portraits, to street, to landscapes -- often from one frame to the next.

 

I just take it all.

 

And it fills up those terabyte and more hard drives.

 

Hundreds of thousands of photos.

 

If you can believe it.

 

Probably it means I've got more photos that can never be shown than anyone else you ever met. . . . . ;~)

 

As pilots call their old planes they never fly because they have too many problems -- 'hangar queens' -- meaning they never fly and sit in hangars.

 

Well, I've got terabytes of 'hangar queens' I guess.

 

;~)

 

John (Crosley)

 

(I have hopes and plans, obviously, that extend beyond PN)

 

JC

John, you are completely right to save your work with more thoughts then just copy to disk. I'm in the Software business, and can tell you that Murphy is always out there to let the things happen. An other thing I may add is that you should also save the operating system and the hardware, as you can be sure that in 20 year, your drives will not be recognized by the new systems/drivers, and/or the tiff/jpg viewers are gone and something new is state of the art etc pp - - - (you may convert all the stuff in time - involving a lot of friends to put their hands on for a) doing the save job and b) doing the prove).

 

You are right about boring and not boring folders, yous are definitely not. I like the way you drop the POW quality and also the 'just seen' things together/side by side.

 

I'm not too happy with pnet in the last time as there is too much just 'nice photo' comments. I came here to learn, and could really lean something, and hope I could share to the members also. But the critique is gone and all is nice. Also the images are a lot, but for my taste too much digiwork. I had a look to other sites, and only the Leica Forums could be found on an interesting level (for me).

 

If you have a link which is worth to follow, let me know.

 

Looking forward to your next images - Regards Axel

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many artists left Photo.net to go to Photocrtitiq.com, but critiques there are not usual. However the photography generally is good to excellent. Not a great learning site, however, and if you work it right, this site will give lots of critiques -- I have thousands, and they have egged me on to being a better photographer.

 

I don't troll the other sites -- just too much to do and I think one offers strangers the right to print your work -- just order a print, and I protect my copyrights jealousy.

 

But I am writing from second-hand information, so I cannot be sure.

 

Good luck in your search.

 

For my purposes -- getting seen and showing my work to the most people who will give feedback, this site presently is the best I have found.

 

If you learn differently, please shoot me an e-mail (address on bio page)

 

Thanks and best wishes.

 

John (Crosley)

it looks like it has been clipped and pasted. YEP

 

I think you should do as you said. Take it down and try it again as it is a great shot.

 

Also no trolling. You are where you should be, right here. I might go to smugmug for my personal stuff or to sell some of my works but here is where I stay to get my critiques and learn. I have looked at the other places and here is where I make friends and it is the easiest place to work from. The flow is wonderful and the pictures so nice to see.

 

Besides, you are here. :) ~ Sorry had to flirt a little.

 

Looks like you are posting some nice pics right now. Hurt my arm so I'm going to try to type but won't be much. Pretend I am flowing with words today. :) ~ micki

 

 

Thank you John, your link is not available at least, or should it be www.photocritique.net.

Ok I will drop you a message when I found what I'm looking for.

I still will stay at pnet, but eating every day the same is not my way and it's not healthy either. So I need some new view & taste.

 

Cheers Axel

You misspelled.

 

It's ' . . . critiq.com', not ' . . . critique.com'.

 

Add photo to the front and you've got it.

 

I posted about 24 photos there so far, including some stuff not on this service, and have been comparing.

 

It's definitely for 'better' stuff only -- not a place for neophytes; it caters to the 'serious' photographer.

 

This site caters to all comers; there's a big difference in the 'ordinary photo' but not the top photos (or maybe this site has better 'top' photos).

 

Who knows? I like 'em both and they're both different.

 

I hope the correction helps guide you. Best to you.

 

John (Crosley)

Not a cut and paste, but bad selecting and sharpening job.

 

I have this in color also, and will be working on it when I get Photoshop reinstalled.

 

And the site is to go down, then back up, so we'll probably have to wait, but your opinion certainly (as always) is correct.

 

And to me, it's an extremely funny shot. I was laughing as I stalked this guy, seeing his cigarette sticking out and waiting for his face, then he ducked and the second time I nailed him, (but the focus could have been better, and I'll work on it).

 

Best to you -- sorry about your arm; hope you didn't 'seize' and fall . . .

 

John (Crosley)

Thank you John, Primary I did a copy & paste of your link - may be the side was really off at that time. I now checked it and - fine - I'm there and will have a look later.

Thanks again - Regards Axel