black and white: then to now Lines, Shadows, and Shapes

This 'street' photo is a study in 'lines and shadows'. Taken in the

industrial area of Los Angeles County, California. 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

Shadows are fascinating because they are constant companions, sometimes conspicuous and at other times invisible. They show us a parallel reality that exists along ours. The lines on the building serve as a perfect background contrasting nicely with the shadows formed by the sign and the man exiting the door.

Henri Cartier-Bresson often played with shadows, as if they were 'real' or 'tangible'.

 

I recall one photo of his showing children playing in a vacant lot with a (I think) shadow diagonally bisecting a portion of the photos, and the children playing on the shadow's edge.

 

It was a long time before I ever understood that photo -- maybe since I've been posting here on Photo.net for some time, but now I appreciate it.

 

But an appreciation of 'shadow' photos is something that may be 'acquired' as opposed to 'inherent'.

 

Even photo viewers (as I until not long ago) would dismiss photos of shadows as though they were not inherently 'real' -- a 'reflection' if you will -- of our lifelong ignorance of shadows as somethign akin to chimeras and therefore to be ignored.

 

But maybe a cop who has seen a shadow of a bad guy from around the corner of a building, when the bad guy is not visible, would have a different appreciation for the 'reality' of shadow figures. To that cop, a shadow can mean the difference between life and death.

 

This is a photo about lines and shadows (as the title says); it may be hard (as raters are telling me) for others to appreciate it, or maybe just the photo fails. In effect, it's a piece of abstraction using 'real' objects together with their shadow(s), and it takes a certain individual to appreciate transforming a 'shadow' into 'reality' in a visual sense.

 

Thanks for your comment; I happen to like this one very much from the standpoint of having created something of an abstraction.

 

John (Crosley)

 

Copyright: This image is copyright 2007, all rights reserved, John Crosley.

I have changed the caption from 'Lines and Shadows' to 'Lines, Shadows, and Shapes'.

 

That is because, although I think often I understand my own photos, and saw the repetition of the sign atop the pole and the pole itself, and I saw the man holding the newspaper and its shadow, I overlooked that the dark shadow of the newspaper helped complete a triangle that begins with the rectangle of the real sign, right foreground, to its parallelogram equivalent shadow on the building, and then to the white newspaper and its black rectangular shadow.

 

This adds a further complexity to a seemingly rather simple photo.

 

Not only are there repeating lines from the corrugated metal building front, and also repetition of lines parallel to those from the street sign and its shadow, there also is a series of repetitions (3) of the shape of a black rectangle, and if one adds the newspaper, then four rectangles total.

 

All in all, a rather complex design, all from a street capture.

 

How many raters (or potential commenters) understood that?

 

I didn't.

 

Did you (or did you even care, or do you still care)?

 

;~)

 

John (Crosley)

 

(There is further repetition of 'rectangles' from the door shape and the sign over the door -- even more complexity and repetition)

 

JC

Don't forget the rectangle framing the face of the guy or the rectangular pattern of his shirt. Do I care? How can I take your work lightly John? Every picture contains a lesson. Otherwise I wouldn't come back to it, right? ;)

He's holding a newspaper, rectangular; the newspaper has a rectangular photo/advertisement/reclamen in the center, which is mostly dark, and then you go and show that his head is framed by a rectangle.

 

Frankly, those are things I never saw before I posted this -- I hadn't even seen the repetition of rectangles beyond the shadow of the sign -- when in fact it went through to the shadow of the newspaper; all of which formed a triangle -- in effect making the outline of two triangles in this photo -- and as I have often written, a diagonal which forms triangle outlines creates two triangles -- the most simple dynamic shape.

 

In other words, not only is this guy obviously moving, but the lines of the photo also are dynamic.

 

This actually is a most complex photo from a compositional standpoint.

 

There now is little doubt in my mind why I rushed to post this the same day I downloaded it; my first posting from recent work, even though I didn't think it would be well received.

 

Adan W. -- whether you can take great photos or not or ever will be able to is a little beside the point. The point is you are excelling at critiquing -- regardless of high (or low) rates -- you have a good eye and can pick apart a photo into its compositional components, and you're getting sharper at it, I think.

 

That's what good criticism is all about, and it's one reason I continue to post on Photo.net -- good criticism is a great boon to me as a photographer.

 

Despite low(er) ratings, (even by you), maybe correctly even assessing the photographic 'worth' of this picture, nevertheless this photo has a complexity that defies initial analysis, even by me.

 

What I do know is this: Even if I can't articulate it, I know what I like.

 

Like the late U.S. Supreme Court Judge Potter Stewart attempting to define pornography and coming up empty simply (and figurtively) threw up his hands and said 'I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.)

 

I could 'see' that this photo was 'interesting' and more so than its apparent simplicity suggested.

 

That's my way about many of my older photos -- I couldn't exactly break them down into their components, but for many of them I knew when they were 'good'.

 

Later, in preparing my presentation: 'Photographers: Watch Your Background' (or similar words), I was presented with the task of evaluating each of my posted photos in three of four paragraphs at most, which represented a 'background' theme, and those paragraphs analyzed each photo -- aided greatly by the fact most all had previously been critiqued -- some extensively.

 

As such, I was able to begin to break down those photos into component elements.

 

As a result of being able to articulate the elements that went into those photos, I also was able to understand what it was I was 'seeing' -- however inchoately, and thereby actually able to set out to replicate that vision in a more organized pattern. In the process of creating that presentation, I actually was able to teach other photographers about the fact subjects don't appear always in a vacuum, and often the background is essential to a photo's success or failure.

 

I was finally able to show how, when in taking a photograph, to incorporate a particular background, and even decide by selecting aperture, focal length, etc., decide how much of the background to show (or in some cases, how NOT to show your background, such as by choice of a lens length, a large or small aperture, showing the subject and background together sharply or causing the background intentionally to be blurred the background (as with panning a moving subject with slow shutter speed, choosing a long lens, wider aperture) etc.

 

This process is all about making better photos, and I am deeply indebted to those (including you) who have provided excellent criticism.

 

Just as you think I am a good photographer, I tip my hat to you for helping me learn to articulate the elements that go into the composition, etc., of my photos recently.

 

In that way, I am continuing to learn to take (I hope) better and more clearly thought-out photos, in greater abundance, and with substantial regularity instead of 'hit-and-miss'.

 

And so you, Adan W., through the results of your critiques are incorporated into this photo; and that's no b*llsh*t. The same goes for my numerous other critics, whom I also acknowledge.

 

You, and each other helpful critics, are my co-teachers.

 

I help teach myself (I'm completely self-taught), but each of you is like a special, associate instructor (or professor in some cases), and to that extent your ideas are incorporated into very much of what I do with a camera -- something tht can't be taken away.

 

It's a great gift.

 

Ever time I get a good critique that helps me 'see' something in my photography that otherwise I couldn't 'see' or at least 'articulate' I grow as a photographer.

 

Give yourself a pat on the back (I would but I'm not a touchy-feely sort of person -- with guys at least ;~) ), and of course, I presently am some distance from you, my cyber-friend.

 

Thanks.

 

Awfully much.

 

John (Crosley)

The theme in this photo of repeating parallel lines was inevitable in my choice of photographing a building with a corrugated metallic front.

 

So, this is partly a photo about parallel lines, but what about any other compositional elements?

 

There (at least) is one more such element: horizontal lines.

 

It starts with the lower frame of the photo (an implied line), the curb line which is roughly parallel, the top and bottom lines of each rectangle, and also the lines where (1) the building frame touches the sidewalk, (2) where the foundation of concrete comes into contact with the corrugated siding, (3) the two lines where the corrugated panels come into conjunction with each other -- forming another parallel line each time, and the utility lines above which are roughly parallel.

 

In a way, there are only two things which are NOT symmetrical: (1) the newspaper (a canted rectangle) and its shadow, and (2) the man himself who has his body turned as he transitions from having closed the door to beginning to walk across the street (which he did next).

 

I think that's it; too bad this wasn't someone famous or who had a great face and/or body or even more interesting garb -- but those rectangles on his plaid shirt are helpful -- thanks Adan W. for pointing that out as well.

 

Anyone else?

 

Micki?

 

John (Crosley)

The door knob and the repeating circles in the address above.

 

John (Crosley)

I'm glad that my simple comments were helpful to you. Talk about boosting one's confidence - John, I am grateful for that. I just articulate what I see, that's all. By the way, I also noticed the circles but refrained from commenting on them because I felt that there were not enough elements in it. I saw the door knob and the 0's on the sign but when I looked at the handle protruding from the knob I thought that this was not quite a circle. Thanks for sharing and giving us something to talk about.

I've been in talks with my own expert -- a man with credentials beyond imagination, and he challenges my ability to 'see' all the elements of such a photo 'before' I take it, even though it may be possible to 'pick it apart' and 'see' such things 'afterward'.

 

He encourages me just to be 'naive' to use my characterization, and not try to articulate what it is that I do, but just essentially go with the flow -- to 'visualize and take the photo' (again to try to distill what he says), while trusting my native instinct.

 

He also challenged, however, whether this was a photo about triangles and lines, etc., and I vigorously defended this photo, saying that, for this photo, at least, that's precisely what this photo is about: A main diagonal (from the extension of a line drawn through the three (or four) rectangles of the parking sign, the shadow of the sign, the newspaper and the shadow of the newspaper) which essentially bisects this photo, making it into two triangles -- and we know triangles are dynamic figures -- at once being the most stable geometric shape in structures and maybe the most dynamic for viewing of all shapes because it has no 'center' and the eye just goes 'from one point to another'.

 

So, I countered, this photo (this one in particular) is about geometry, as it has little other reason for being, as it has no social message and is largely otherwise abstract.

 

Contrary to what I expected, he liked my defense of this photo; pleased of my certainty. Unbeknownst to me, apparently there is a school of design/art that believes all or most good composition is made of geometric shapes, and I had triggered his antithesis to that school.

 

My counter to that was that I take many photos of people in which geometry has little bearing at all, and it's all (or mostly) emotion or the 'moment' or the 'expression' which has little or nothing to do with geometry at all.

 

We seemed to have reached agreement.

 

And the agreement also that however much I can pick apart a photo like this and decide that it's all about lines and rectangles and diagonals, that it's something more inchoate when I see it in the viewfinder.

 

I haven't told him, but for me, it was partly aboutthe diagonal, which I did see, not about the repeating rectangles, which I didn't recognize as such, and also about the precise spatial alignment of all the figures plus the man who was exiting and he happened to be holding another thing -- a newspaper which became a rectangle at the angle I shot at.

 

I guess the point (which he made well) is that while I 'see' I can hardly have been engaged in any sort of advanced analysis and that what I see is largely 'native' or maybe even 'naiive' and intuitive -- however much I have tried to school myself in it.

 

I am not certain I can adopt his view that I should never try to 'school' myself in learning how to articulate how I see and thereby formulate ways of 'seeing', but I am willing to listen to him and hear him out. (If you knew from whence he speaks, you would listen to him very carefully. I am sorry I cannot identify him or his credentials at this time, or maybe for a long time, but I give him the strongest credence of anybody I ever have met in the photographic world. . . . (not that I've met that many, but I've never met anybody who had anything to say that I respected before this man, for whom my respect is growing day by day and presently is inestimable.)

 

Just to put things (and our mutual exercises) in perspective, Adan.

 

I guess the point is, you can learn by looking at images, as I have done for a lifetime, and you can absorb each image, much as each author, playwright or screenwriter absorbs all that he/she sees before, but in the end, you must find your own way, and trying to learn from me is only going to yield results if yuo look at it not as I'm going to try to be as good as (or better than) John, but synthesizing your own viewpoint and your own 'take on things' from your own life experiences.

 

I now have a tutor and mentor who is examining my work, and instead of going over photos, he gave me a book of philosophy about art by Andre Malraux and another, smaller text which examines elements in various art forms and tries to

find common elements or a common way of speaking about them (I fail in my description because I have not yet read it/them).

 

Think of it as 'master class' and simultaneous seminar exclusively for John.

 

I'm a rare, lucky individual.

 

Probably one of a kind.

 

(Thank you Dennis; it may indeed change my life, not only financially)

 

John (Crosley)

... thanks for the thanks, but this is your work. Keep it up, keep shooting. I'm sure your master told you not to over-intellectualize, because the instinct that allows you to capture the shots so quickly when you only have that split second, that is an instinct developed over your lifetime and focussed down to a small viewfinder. Just get better as an artist.

It's getting very comfortable with the 'master'; I kind of feel like a Jedi Knight in the presence of Yoda, except my 'master' doesn't talk so funny -- he talks with a serious French accent, but to an American it sounds quite good.

 

And I am realizing, however much that such photos can be 'intellectualized' 'after the fact'; they're the result of split-second framing and thought.

 

Who knows where exactly I got that.

 

The master and I looked at a photo from my first role of film (posted here in this folder), and it still is a good photo. Where did I get that? I think I know, and have written about that, but the 'master' suggests it is a great gift.

 

I am humbled by his praise, and our relationship is becoming warm and comfortable; he is happy finally to 'get it going' and have it producing something -0- although there's so many tens of thousands of images, they never all will get considered.

 

And his taste (his aesthetic) differers markedly from what I post that I know is my best 'street' work; but he is more an 'artist' with an 'artist's' aesthetic than I.

 

He knows where the gallery owners and sales are; I know nothing, so I let him lead me.

 

If I were looking to get published (as I formerly wished), I would be trying more to 'lead'.

 

But in the gallery world, his trained eye is my guideline. I think he is 'blown away' (he suggests it strongly) that there is so much. Tonight we just went over print images; I have only printed a very small percent of my images and stopped doing that a long time ago -0- about two years, basically.

 

But he is uncomfortable with computers and digital images - a major roadblock for him.

 

So, when I go to Ukraine, soon, I will make an effort to print more -- it's $1.00 for a 20 cm x 30 cm print there, and maybe I'll print 500 'interesting' prints. That can be done in a couple of days -- they have the finest Noritsu processing machines there, and if I deliver them a Photoshopped disk, they're going to make wonderful prints -- at least for 'sorting' purposes and placing in temporary archives.

 

It's a huge job, since he now has 1.5 terabytes of digital images, plus there is some film/negative work plus additionally some print work for which negatives have been destroyed.

 

What a huge undertaking; it never will be done perfectly -0- an end will come only because we will it to end; just the last three and a half years would cost of his time tens of thousands of dollars, and he has a full-time job.

 

One thing: He is impressed because I listen to him and act on what he says. I don't think he expected that.

 

I have decided that this ship cannot have two captains -- at least for gallery representation, and I gladly cede to an expert with decades of experience and whose taste has been proved to me.

 

He already has found a few (not many, but a few) gems in my folders that are truly outstanding -- just by looking in a folder here or there, and in cases where I either did not think much of an image of thought it too 'esoteric' to show to the PN audience.

 

And I think that's the point.

 

He thinks at a level way above the PN audience; and I have been shooting at that higher level along with my other stuff, but much of it I figured wasn't worth posting because this service was not the right place for exhibiting it, and I only had the PN aesthetic to judge things from.

 

He will choose works that I completely passed over as being 'unworthy' but judged only from a 'post it on PN viewpoint'.

 

When he explains 'why' he makes his choices, he almost always makes great sense, sometimes extraordinarily so. Sometimes I don't feel too 'hot' about a certain chosen image -- we don't see 'eye to eye' always, but in those cases I defer to his practiced eye; that's why he's doing what he's doing and why I long dreamed of someone of his caliber doing just that.

 

This really is my fondest dream come true -- photographyically, and there isn't a lot else in my life right now.

 

We'll see if he is right about gallery taste and presentation; but lacking any other 'voice' on the affair, I clearly will go with his.

 

Also, he can explain to me why I should NOT Photoshop certain images, which just reinforces my natural tendency NOT to Photoshop much or at all, except levels, curves, contrast/brightness adjustments. What a wonder to have the certainty of so much experience and knowledge.

 

He makes this point: So many times photographers will make 'adjustments' 'because they can' not because they're right.

 

Sage words, which you will see me repeat, I am sure.

 

We are making progress at a rapid rate, and our friendship is developing just as fast.

 

My best wishes to you, my catalyst in life.

 

John (Crosley)

John, you have referred to this as one of your finest. You have so many very good photos that I'm unable to make any league table of your "finest" shots. They all, it seems to me, contain a vision of your world that is immensely human and highly artistic. 

This one I agree, there are many dimensions that makes it something special. The four repeating squares and the fine diagonal line between the tall sign and the smaller shadow of the man, invites to awe. Simple marvelously shot and very very well seen.

In order not to feel totally inferior to this mastery, I might, with all possible and sincerely felt modesty, mention the possibility of cutting half of the "empty" space beyond the sign pole to the right, which, it seems to me, does not add to the dynamics of the graphics of the frame. Such a cut might even bring the upper right corner in line with the mentioned diagonal line.

Great shot, John.

Thanks for the tribute to this unsung photo.

 

Your comment is wonderfully made, but I'll pass on it only for two reasons that are idiosyncratic without rejecting it because it is will made.

 

I prefer not to crop when I can, and this is a full frame and uncropped shot.

 

I would like to keep it that way.

 

I prefer the spacing between the man's newspaper shadow, the man, the left sign shadow, the right sign and more space to the right of the sign on the right.  It's a matter of 'spacing' and to me that's idiosyncratic.

 

I see that your suggestion is simply great, and if the moon, stars and planets had aligned and the door had been a little more right, I might have been able to work that diagonal in also maybe without cropping.

 

In this case, I'll stick with my 'no crop except when absolutely necessary rather than crop to get the well seen diagonal' for this particular shot since it works so well as is.

 

If it didn't work at all or barely worked, and your suggestion 'made it work well', then I would crop with no hesitancy, since your crop suggestion is right on.

 

Thanks for the help and an able eye for a second look at an old and cherished photo.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)