Men and Woman

This is a winter scene from Kyiv, Ukraine's vast underground shopping

complexes near its downtown Metro. (Background text is Cryllic and

advertises an 'advertising agency'). 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

Fantastic silhouette work. Perhaps this illustrates the way that men tend to socialize compared to how women do. Is it safe to say that men look for a more common approach based on group interests while women do it on a more personal way based on a more individualistic approach? This makes for a great social comment about sexes.

Men do tend to congregate in groups, just as male deer, dogs, etc., tend to gather in groups -- packs, etc., and whereas one dominant one has control over a female, it often is a group of females.

 

Think of one bison (buffalo) and how he can be surrounded by a group of bison cows or the same with bulls and cows.

 

The successful male in those groups tends to surround himself with the females he services. I've seen it with elk; one gigantic bugling elk will fight another for possession of all the 'cows' and young elk and it is up to him when he wins to protect his 'possessions' -- the cows and young ones.

 

Male humans tend to pair singly with females now, but in Biblical times they often had multiple wives . . . yes, if you're a strict Constructionist with the Bible, you should have several or more wives if you can afford to take care of them, mostly an economic restriction than a 'moral' one.

 

Men tend to gather in groups, and one and maybe each one individually, will push themselves onto a lone female, and see if they can break through her 'defenses'.

 

Ultimately, she often makes the choice . . . in almost all cases . . . perhaps . . . whether wisely or not.

 

In fact, most males would be wise to remember, that male humans make themselves available, but it is females humans who do the final choosing.

 

And sometimes they choose for incomprehsnsible reasons. I cannot often figure out why some of the wonderful females I have known in my life have been attracted to me, but they have been.

 

Even now, I find the process somewhat amazing and puzzling.

 

But who am I to protest?

 

A different point is the grouping in this photo; and luckily the woman is a Ukrainian woman, and she is shown, complete with bulky overcoat but it is clear she has a very attractive figure.

 

Ukrainian woman are excellent at such things; it may be in fact why so many young women stay so thin (they work at it). They know much of the year they will want to appear desirable to males, even while dressed bulkily, as here.

 

Whereas, I like this photo very much, I was concerned the Cryllic would suppress its scores, and I am pleasantly surprised at the average rates so far.

 

This was at night, underground, which shows you the worth of carrying large aperature lenses on the camera at all times.

 

This was a long lens, but the back lighting from the lighted sign with auto exposure caused the camera to choose a faster shutter speed than one might have expected.

 

My best to you.

 

John (Crosley)

 

This image copyright 2007, John Crosley, All rights reserved.

Fine study of human nature. Very good photography in low light conditions. Your Russian is very good. Reclama Agentsia. Like you said. Regarding fine study of human nature and with your knowledge of cameras you would make probably a fine spy :-) Everybody would presume that in former Russia you take more of a interests in their fine women :-) You have young spirit, lots of personality, knowledge and confidence comes out in oodles in your effusive and enjoyable writing. I just take delight to follow your photographic journeys and all the historic detail you graciously ad. I mean no disrespect in my comment. I studied Russian for 10 years, unwillingly. I hated the idea as the language of the oppressor. But that's the faith of small nations. We were left to Stalin. I still like the classic Russian art, music, literature, women ... I like the Cyrillic script here places and gives flavour to the story. I want to renew my wish for you to have safe journeys and to keep firing away. All the best from Mario

 

 

Tomorrow, god willing (no capitalization), I step on a plane that with one stop places me directly in the cold of eastern europe. I'be been Los Angelified for the last three or so weeks, as I work with master printer Michel Karman, who is helping 'curate' my photos from the raw storage (but well organized, download by download, raw capture after raw capture), and as I have spent time in Los Angeles, I wear short sleeves, no matter what the weather, because it never can get cold enough in the fall to force wearing a long sleeve shirt for a guy who easily gets 'hot' (and the Russian/Ukrainian woman don't stop that process . . . thankfully and GOD bless them) (capitalization)).

 

Master Printer Micehl Karman, who has printed for photographic greats, and was personal printer and friend of Helmut Newton, particularly likes this one and says it is unique to me and shows a singular side that others never could be expected to produce, as well as my more obvious captures.

 

He also is mining my captures (in his off time) for rare and little recognized (by me) gems, and he's finding a good number of them. We sometimes do it together and the hours just fly by, it seems, as we have finally (after some rougher starts) developed a protocol of reviewing image by image.

 

By the way, we use Adobe Bridge, for looking at each download; it keeps everything organized folder by folder, and makes each capture large or ultra-small for easy browsing.

 

It takes a while to load (in CS2 which is on the computer with me at present, but I have CS3 Photoshop on two others), and that takes getting used to -- the relatively long time it takes to upload the image data for larger views, but after that, it works pretty well.

 

Picassa, with some work, might be a contender, but Google.com bought it, and gave it away for free to capture viewers to their service who wanted a good free download that would 'grab' all their digital uploads (including some possibly embarrassing ones -- images show there that don't easily show anywhere else, and it's not good to hide a photo of girlies - or a girlfriend - from one's wife on a computer, if Picassa 2 is there, because it will search out all images with .jpg and .gif endings and sort them and display them -- even keeping a thumbnail file hidden from deletion).

 

Picassa 2 had the ability to be a dangerous program if one has images on one's computer one doesn't want the spouse to see, or a spying boss.

 

Adobe Bridge (formerly Photoshop's 'browser'), is a good program getting better with each iteration.

 

Formerly I bought Adobe Photoshop Elements simply for the download portion and for its display of folders by month but it's much harder to use and freezes up or behaves very slowly when there are lots and lots of images. One computer won't work it at all with Elements 5.0; it scanned 250,000 images, then Elements 5.0 just gave up the ghost and won't store any more thumbnails for display, although they're in there.

 

Maybe 6.0 will be an improvement. It just came out.

 

By the way, under 'advertisign agency' is the word 'Ykr-Media' a name I presume means Ukraine Media in partial abbreviation.

 

She hides the 'Y', so you probably couldn't be sure enough to write that.

 

Tell me your story, Mario, of you, Cryllic and Russia; I'm interested -- your experience is more than 'skin deep', or so I read in your comment(s).

 

John (Crosley)

Thank you John, really appreciated your time and gracious sharing of fine narrative and all the technical details, also. I used all the computer programs you mentioned, with various degrees of likes and dislike. Sounds like you need heavy duty computer power and great organizational skill to sort and find all the raw diamonds. For one year I did just black and white printing, for very fussy advertising agencies, but I took delight in smaller personal project like working for a war book, hand printing in my darkroom, from WW1- 6X9 cm negative and the results (with a lot of love and care) were stunning. I did a better job then the history museum and got that job. A good print is a work of love and you will truly appreciate and see the difference your good master printer can make. I did not use a traditional darkroom in the last 10 years. With the new brave world of computers, self taught, seems forever a steep curve to keep up with new technology, new printers and scanners and hand made computers and all sorts of wonderful machines and mega pixels and new programs. One of these days I will make time to take some pictures for myself :-) I am inspired by your work.

 

 

John, I will tell you a story or two from behind the Iron curtain. I will probably delete it as it does not have place here on a photo site, I think. I was 20. Romania. Winter 89. The dictator took off in his chopper to escape the surging crowds, he just executed general Milea for his insubordination not to order the Army to shoot the crowd. It would have been a real blood bath. As it was about 1000 young people only, bled on the foot path in the Capital. The snipers were firing from the roofs, some loyal officers from the Security forces and Army or Militia charged the crowds with TABs-troop transport vehicles. The pilot claimed a rocket locked onto the presidential helicopter so he put it down, leaving the dictator and his wife Elena stranded, like stupids in the road. One of their bodyguards at gun point stopped a private car so that's how the end was closing in for them, with a car jacking, not very gloriously, the journey that was to led them to summary execution . The ensuing days of the collapsing regime brought confusion and fear for most people. Reports of terrorists, loyal troops still fighting , indiscriminate killings prompted most population to lock themselves in their houses, in front of the TV waiting for the news and deliverance. The nights belonged to frightful madness. I cant blame them, orchestrated fear does funny things to people frightened for so long. What started genuinely as Revolution, people rushing in crowds as herds you said, was hijacked by clever and communists friends of the former dictator and fear was peddled.. and it worked. For another 15 years.

 

 

I could gather only a handful of reluctant friends. A large gypsy woman was screaming: Young man do you want to die? Go forward! the shots ringing between blocks of flats make hard to pinpoint the source, so its chancy walk. I was singing a prohibited song and some people from a balcony screamed: you frighten us more then the terrorists. Sic. Some Army blocked the roads with tanks and buses. We occupied the party headquarters. As the reports were coming fast and loud over the hand held radios, of imminent helicopter attack also possible terrorists in the forest near we placed a heavy machine gun on the roof and unloaded all the necessary ammunition from a military truck. The few civilians were herded and guarded in a underground bunker to be protected from the fire. I perceived the alarm to be suspicious, as I have a suspicious mind, and

I was right, as I went upstairs. In the plush conference room the head of the Security forces a Colonel Black and his entourage were parlaying with Army officers, good former drinking buddies to avoid shooting each other unnecessarily. I could not help a word of wit as he was wearing a patriotic arm band just like me and I told him: You have become a patriot overnight, Colonel. To see the confusion on their faces was priceless and my hate somehow vanished. Their world I thought will vanish.He had that fear on his face. The man had me for an interrogation in his headquarters at some time. He died not long time after from self induced alcoholic Cirrhosis of the liver. Small justice.

 

 

To add another small story in the story, about a friend trained previously by the army to dress in civilian clothes and drink with many paid others, pretending to be just another ordinary consumer at the favourite bar of the dictators son, they filled that bar with fake people, for Nicu Ceauseacu's protection. That kind motherly care from Elena Ceausescu emboldened Nicu Ceausescu to suggest torture to gymnast Nadia Comaneci if she refused him. She did take the better offer. Nicu died of self induced alcoholic Cirrhosis, too. Some say he was killed in jail for his fathers secrets accounts from Swiss banks. But that is only speculation. From jail he use to go to football matches.

 

 

I return to my lost friend who wanted at one time to join the foreign legion. I remember being puzzled of his instant disappearance when I looked around, as the first shots rang next to us in the building , he became one with the ornamental plant, the big pot he jumped into, clinging on the tree made him almost invisible. You see, he was well trained to blend.

 

 

You have to laugh, for otherwise it was all confusion and very well done. Little people have not much say in the events, the crowd can bleed but the selected few still win the game. I learn. People are easily manipulated and fear and confusion and very patriotic staff was peddled on live TV. Who done the shooting, who issued orders, most files from secret police archives are to remain state secrets for many years to come. You talked about similar incidents not widely known in history books. I left with disgust as pretty much the same people as before rule the land, only now turned capitalist entrepreneurs. Just a small real story for you, hope you taste it.

 

 

All the best wishes for you as a person who understands and captures history very well indeed, your words and photography I enjoy very much. Mario from the land of Oz.

 

Don't delete it.

 

Copyright it.

 

Hit the 'edit' button, insert a © sign, your name and the date, then copyright it and register it with the appropriate copyright office.

 

Please leave your writing here; if it offends the PN Administration, they will take it down, but it's masterful writing -- really professional status writing/if you learned how to do a screenplay (it's pretty hard), you might have something,and if not, perhaps a book.

 

Maybe you already have, as the words look pretty practiced.

 

I'm very thankful for your post; many people read my comments - let's leave this here as a testament to the wonderfulness and diversity of a worldwide community and as a testament to what went on before.

 

Even today there are Holocaust deniers, even though Dwight Eisenhower, Monty Montgomery and Omar Bradley all met at Dachau (some were sickened physically); they called in all the press and sent for Congressional leaders -- as Eisenhower said -- some day there will be those who deny what we see before us; let the world be a witness, and it was witnessed by many and well documented (Congressional leaders were practically on the next military transport to Europe -- a day or so later they arrived. They told the Congress about what they'd seen).

 

Holocaust denial in Germany and Austria is a crime these days, but there still are Holocaust deniers there and elsewhere.

 

It's in man's nature.

 

Let you be a witness to what happened in your native land.

 

Let your comment stay, and if you haven't, begin writing - write more and more. Post it here if nowhere else. My space in PN is special to many - you may have many readers if you post here, or make your own space for it . . . but write and post.

 

And I don't think the Adminstration cares -- they never have censored me and I don't think they're about to, and the same with my many commentors (commentators).

 

You have a story in you (probably lots of them; you need to write about them if you haven't -- even if only for the sheer exercise of it.

 

A testament to history for the next generation.

 

Would that George Bush had been a history student . . . .('nough said?)

 

John (Crosley)

Thank you John, I find your words inspirational.This is the first time writing a narrative in English , I just spuriously laid down few words as I remember, to tell you, a little story from my former world.

Some years ago I stared at the TV, here in Oz, and said to myself : would be nice to know what the bloody hell they are saying! I found myself a barbarian, not speaking any English, in the new empire. I started reading all the classics, again, in English in the last 15 years, I have watched most good movies, too. I did set up a decent HD projection room, now. My native language is very much like Latin and for that I am glad there is enough English in Latin. :-) As for the ozzie accent myself I lean very much towards the British, you see, the Brits and Americans would have it confused with South African or Kiwi, the Ozzies hate to be taken for South Africans or New Zealanders , the Kiwis don't like to be confused with Ozzies and South Africans would probably say we sound like a Cockney. What's certain, nearly everybody hates a real Ozzie accent. :-) I extend a cordial salute and if you ever visit Oz, do be my guest, for you will not find lack in fine hospitality with me. All the best wishes and I thank you from my heart for your time and wise advise. Thank you for all the fine photography, history, humanity and exceptional humour you share with us. Mario

 

 

Once I had 'free tickets' and frequently traveled 'down under' to Cairns to scuba, to Sydney and Melbourne, but never across the Great Outback or in the Northern part of your country or even to Perth, the most isolated major city in the world.

 

But I had good times in your country and never was upset, and even enjoyed the accent; and I love lamb, so staying in Australia is a real treat for me, since lamb is a frequently served dish.

 

Speaking of dishes, the women are not to shabby either; I met some wonderful ones there, and very warm.

 

I can spot a Kiwi accent a thousand miles away -0- it has its giveaways, and they're very strange.

 

I'd be delighted to take you up on your hospitality offer.

 

But I don't know when I'll be down under again; I want to photograph the eucalyptus forests in the rising sun's mist, which I saw but never photographed -- right out of National Geographic is what I saw (plus all the dead kangaroos on the road between Sydney and Melbourne.)

 

And the giant Wrass (fish) as big as a diver that hung out under our dive boat on a certain 'bommie' near Cairns -- wonderful.

 

Sydney is my favorite; it is one of the world's most beautiful cities, but I have driven for 24r hours both north and southwest of Sydney (to Melbourne in the SW direction and return).

 

I just flew 8,500 miles, so to bed with me.

 

thanks for the kind reply.

 

John (Crosley)

 

(and no bull *** it was wonderful writing)

 

JC