'Some People Just Can't Resist'

People can behave in 'funny' ways when they don't know they're being

observed. Here, a Metro rider in Paris reaches out to the 'tushie'

of a stylized female model -- maybe acting out (or 'realizing') an

idea that is present in many men's hearts, even if they never act on

it. 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

I prefer thay touch the wall walking around! Very funny! CiaoElena

When I was first married, I took my bride on honeymoon to Europe, and Rome was one of our stops.

 

While I was busy vomiting in our hotel room because I drank the water on the train to there, she was exploring Rome on her own, and at the time, her bottom got pinched numerous times, she reported, and reliably so -- she was young and very pretty; Romans at that time felt 'carte blanche' to pinch a pretty young woman's bottom -- it was their way of 'voting' their approval of a pretty woman.

 

I don't know what it's like in Rome these days for pretty women; I've been not so long ago to Milan and Firenze (Florence) and other Italian areas, but not then with a pretty young woman (and in Ukraine where I sometimes am with such a person, no one pinches them at all. But the women do walk around in high heels and short skirts when weather permits and high heeled boots in other seasons -- high heels are de rigueur for a certain segment of young women, particularly those who are shorter or of normal height, but sometimes 180+ cm tall women also wear high heels (5'11"+).

 

What is the status of men touching or pinching pretty women now in your part of the world?

 

And how do you feel about it exactly?

 

I never touch unless it's absolutely clear that it's invited (whether spoken or not -- and usually want confirmation from the woman before I chance it.)

 

And I don't call women 'girls' or 'gals' as many men of my age did. They're 'women' to me unless they want to be called girls.

 

There's a universal truth in this photo, isn't there?

 

I'm glad it gave you a smile.

 

John (Crosley)

Well, you certainly gave me a good laugh looking at this. This can only come from your perpective eyes. Perfect timing! Did you guessed that he was going to do that by "studying" his behavior a couple of seconds earlier? or was it intuitive? Your previous comment about happenstance resonates through my head. It's interesting to note that he is fully dressed in black making a contrasting statement against the colorful people on the wall. Maybe he is a "black sheep" behaving badly.

I take chances. This was an attempt at juxtaposition, and I just happened to catch his hand where it was 'interesting' -- to put it mildly.

 

I take a lot of photos, and don't post the vast majority of them, but increasingly I am identifying likely circumstancs, by intuition, and shooting more of each scene, so with a circumstance like this, I likely took a couple of photos before, in an attempt at the juxtaposition, and during that he reached out to her 'tushie'.

 

Bingo!

 

Life works that way.

 

There are thousands or millions of shots I never got (including time when I never carried a camera, during the 34 years I had given up photography; now I am trying to make up for lost time in a way).

 

He not only is dressed in black, but 'her' dress is yellow and he has a yellow stripe on his black and white shoe . . . . such things just 'crop up. Maybe yellow is the color of the year or season . . . so that was likely.

 

Who knows?

 

I just keep pushing that shutter button.

 

One master started an attempt to 'reform' my shooting habits to single shots; he has mostly given up; the more he reviews my vast hard drivs and finds unlikely (and unposted) photos he feels are 'great' or 'stunning' he understands that I might have deleted such photos or been too inhibited to take those photos as they were not always entirely intentionally good, but just ended up that way, a result of my profligate shooting habits.

 

He now says 'don't change anything' after initially trying to lecture me on 'how to shoot single shots'. I know how to do that to 'catch the moment', but one scnene might have five or ten great moments and the idea is to 'catch them all' (reminds me of the story of the young bull and the old bull . . . . )

 

There is a certain discipline in single frame shooting, but it will never get a shot like this, and all my early portfolio is composed of single shots.

 

Now I bracket more, including bracketing 'likely circumstances' such as this.

 

That means I will take a photo entering a 'scene' when a scene is building, if I foresee something interesting, to nail down exposure, focus, zoom length, focus point, etc., then keep shooting as a scene 'develops' until it disintegrates.

 

That can either be a lot of shooting or it can end suddenly; this was the last frame I shot out of maybe three.

 

Thanks for the observation.

 

John (Crosley)