The Ideal and the Reality (As Age Progresses)

The poster model selling sexy wear at left is at the height of her

womanhood, according to those who would sell women's wear, while the

reality of life certainly has set in for the woman, right, holding

her floor sweeper. 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

knowledget to help improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

I love it. It's very Elliott Erwitt.

You're exactly right.

 

Remember Erwitt's famous photo of the priest listening in the outdoor confessional to the confession of a Pole, with a long line waiting and at the end of the long line were two village women gossiping.

 

A wonderful juxtaposition, even though there was a long line and thus much space that separated the subject (the priest giving confession to a 'penitent') with the second subject (the two gossiping women).

 

I remembered that photo when I took this, after first wondering whether I could 'get away' with having two subjects separated so widely.

 

I thought of Erwitt's photo for a brief moment, and said to myself, 'He pulled it off'.

 

This may be above the head of some PN raters, but then wouldn't you expect . . . '

 

Some people rate for pure photographic reproduction values and overlook the content . . . .

 

And they thus give high rates especially for sharpness, lack of noise, and other technical things that can be very important, especially in product advertising shots, etc.

 

But here there was symmetry, and ample time to frame the shot and take several (for exposure purposes mainly, as the range of Exposure Values *brightness to darkness* begged for a sensor with greater exposure latitude -- in effect a HDR sensor.

 

Today's sensors have about the latitude of color slide film (transparencies), aided a little bit by shooting 'raw' (in my case NEF -- Nikon Electronic Format -- Nikon's version of raw, which gives a little more exposure 'latutude' -- maybe one stop).

 

But the sign, left, was brightly lighted and even here does not show great detail, while I had to use shadow/highlight filter (an exposure tool) to bring the women with dust mop out of the shadows to 'even out the brightness of two 'subjects'.

 

Although in everyman's terms, it was a simple contrast/brightness adjustment, it took a great deal of work just to make this presentable.

 

I wanted to show it in black and white, but I couldn't get anything 'crisp' enough for a black and white presentation because of 'noise'. The ultimate ignominy is that some photos that are presentable in 'color' just do not make good black and white conversions because of noise, but the color presents the 'noise' fairly well.

 

I think a B&W version actually would have to be printed on special high contrast silver paper to make it work right, and may give that a try, then scan the print, re-upload it, and see how it compares with Photoshop CS3 work. I used that program edition's black and white command (desaturate) comand in Adobe Camera Raw, raw photo processor.

 

I LOVE Erwitt's gentle and sly sense of humor -- while people don't realize so much that Cartier-Bresson had a pretty biting sense of humor (in the Mark Twaine sense -- only using images instead of a story), Erwitt had a much more pronounced humor.

 

Twaine was a humorist (never a comedian) telling stories in his own inimitable way, and they were humorous but weren't belly laugh generators; it was the stories AND the way he told them that were humorous -- and they were more than a little prodding against the pompous and the hypocrites, especially the politicians, as one might expect from that great populist who drew his strength from telling 'the people' what he saw practically as 'their representative' and in his own special way.

 

This shot is hardly humorous, but having it compared to one of my favorites, Erwitt, made my morning (yes, it's morning where I am).

 

Thanks so much.

 

John (Crosley)

You masterfully present two extremes in this capture. Besides the contrasting differences in looks the color coordination in their clothing is uncanny. Both are wearing almost the same color tones. Perhaps idealism and reality can meet halfway along the way, as suggested by the woman with the stripe outfit shopping inside. Who knows? she might feel like the model if she purchases the clothes and wears them. The lady with the sweeper reminds me of someone with a Cinderella complex. She might be looking at the woman shopping with some envy.

Again, you have done a photo of mine proud.

 

There was a time when I posted 'lesser works' that were 'just for fun' because I had so many, and I had a theme (such as 'all the photos I could take that made some sense, on a particular day in one season'), then tying them into a folder for the entire year -- one days' shooting each season, for instance.

 

The photos were NOT wonderful nor were they meant to be; it was just practice for later times.

 

Often they were never submitted for critique, but their 'view' numbers grew to great proportions, even though there were very few photos of decent quality in any of those folders (a few gems stand out, though, such as the boy on the back of a streetcar, riding the coupler, or the young uniformed man laughing uncontrollably amid a group similarly uniformed who look stone faced.

 

Now, I post things that I know might not have great ratings, but I post them because they spring from a good idea somewhere in my fertile mind. I just try not to post photos just because I took them and have lots on my hard drive. I try to have a reason for every post, even if it is not within the 'norms' of high ratings, here.

 

The Elliott Erwitt suggestion above for instance hit the nail on the head -- it was exactly the Erwitt success with a similar photo that gave me the idea I could try to make a success of this photo, and also to believe it might be worth it to post.

 

So, though a lesser work, and of lesser quality, it still does say something about what I'm doing and where I'm going with my photography. Now I have a destination, and my work is directed that way (gallery sales possibly, and publication).

 

Keep watching; no one knows what I might shoot tomorrow (least of all me).

 

Thanks for keeping a critical eye out.

 

John (Crosley)

A critical eye is only good when it sees something worth critiquing about. ;)

There really is much to be criticized about this photo and many more I take.

 

If one wanted, one could devote an entire Photo.net career into denigrating my photos by finding things 'wrong' with them. Thank goodness you haven't taken that road.

 

I believe that the best lessons are learned by trying and not making the goal.

 

As Thomas Edison is widely quoted: 'I have not failed 9,000 times in my attempt to do 'x'. I just have found 9,000 ways that were not successful.

 

I adhere to that philosophy.

 

One reason wealth is so hard to pass from generation to generation is that it often requires skill to keep it and generate more; few sons or grandsons have that ability -- the ability that their fathers and/or grandfathers had, who started maybe with little or nothing and 'made something out of themselves'.

 

Second and third generations seldom have those abilities - they don't have the 'fire in the belly' or the ability to make mistakes then learn from them that may have been the reason that poppa and/or grandpoppa (or their female equivalents) had that they drove to success.

 

I have tried thousands of ways and devices in photography (as I once did in law) that do not work. If clients used to ask me in law if I made mistakes, I said 'I make a hundred of more mistakes every day; it's just that I think I have fixed all of them, and in the process I have invented new ways to get results that other attorneys haven't figured out.'

 

I value innovation, and shooting 'street' especially, one must continually 'innovate' with the things that one passes, or learn to seek out 'interesting' things and also to see the potential for what may look like 'ordinary things' to be 'interesting'.

 

I went tonight to a large Ukrainian McDonalds in Kiev -- a huge place with hundreds of customers right in the city center, and of course, brought two cameras.

 

My companion knows that I will always bring cameras and shoot whenever I see something interesting. Sure enough I was able to get four or five really interesting 'people' shots from the trip to that restaurant, and clandestinely.

 

People who are engaged in what I call 'interesting' behaviors so often are distracted by what they are doing, that they don't notice being photographed, especially if one uses a zoom telephoto lens with large aperture (for shooting indoors in low light).

 

That being said, I try and fail so routinely that failures make up probably up to 98 per cent of what I shoot.

 

One good thing about this kind of photography is that one is not expected to come back with winners every shot.

 

The man who is curating my work, Michel Karman, once asked me early on in his task, 'why don't you delete all the failures -- the ones no one will ever be interested in.'

 

Later, he began choosing shots from my entire body of work that was not chosen for posting or printing and he came up with some outstanding shots that I had not seen the potential in, and I surely might have deleted them if I were in a deleting mood. He is making 'gold' from what I once thought was 'garbage'.

 

Of course, there are not too many 'amazing' shots that I discard, but I never deleted (1) to keep my hat size small in case I got a few good ones and (2) people such as that photo expert sometimes can recognize gold from its flecks and zero in on the vein, whereas I give a more cursory look to my captures then often do not return to them, as there are too many new ones.

 

I believe I could make another entirely new Photo.net career as a member (with a different name) must culling my discards and posting them, and probably get some decent and even a few outstanding rates from viewers.

 

Fact is, it is guys like you who are willing to critique what I do, and willingness to point out deficiencies too, which make critiques valuable, and I urge you not to hold back. You have proved your worth as a fellow photographer who understands photographs and mine in particular; and if you see something that can be improved reasonably given the exigencies of 'street' shooting, please never hesitate to let me know.

 

That way I can keep learning.

 

You already have helped me in innumerable ways in showing me things in my captures I had not recognized, and I urge you to keep at it; and at the same time, since you now are very familiar with my work, your constructive critiques will be very much appreciated and valued (I do not promise to take every one as Gospel, though, of course . . . . )

 

I thank you for participating.

 

John (Crosley)

I certainly hope you do not take my word as Gospel. It would be scary to be always right, don't you think? ;)

 

One thing that I have learned from you is a greater appreciation for street photography. Before I came to PN I did not have any idea of what this genre was. Through your work I began to cherish the spontaneity of the moment and its fleeting nature. It takes talent and gifted eyes to capture this proficiently, and personally I will always think of you as the epitome for this type of photography. One can always go back to a building or a landscape, but when it comes to street photography every second counts and after that it is gone.

 

Thank you for your comment and trust.

Hardly the epitome.

 

Try looking at the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson or Elliott Erwitt, both of Magnum fame (Cartier-Bresson was a Magnum Agency founder, Erwitt was the director or head for three 'terms' and still lives -- he published last year his photo book 'Personal Best' which is a weighty book -- the heaviest I have ever purchased. I asked for and -- and received -- a 'poundage' discount from a major chain right after Christmas last year, also the book sleeve, which was huge, was a little shopworn, but it was only packing which was discarded.) (that major chain also gives me the 'corporate customer' discount, just for the asking starting a couple of years ago, all for filling out a simple form and giving my 'business name' -- a 20% discount on all books not already on sale -- regrettably not on magazines.)

 

I'd need 40 years of steady photographic work of highest caliber to even begin to be thought of in the same category of these masters, whose work I hold in awe.

 

I took a 35 or more year holiday from photography for 'other pursuits'.

 

Again, your critiques are always appreciated. If you are new to recognizing this subcategory of photography, you may be showing your intellectual versatililty.

 

I tend to think of 'street' shooting as kind of like 'chess' in a way because of the milllions of 'moves' that can be recognized, and then compounded by 10 to the xth time, because there is nothing in 'street photography' so simple as a chessboard.

 

Finally, every move of the 'street photographer (almost) is made with a 'clock' running, just as in 'speed' chess where a player pounds the top of a clock running against him after every move, -- a premium is placed on making the photographic moves before the scene dissipates.

 

I remember the definition of intelligence as the 'ability to identify significant relationships'.

 

Here the test is to 'identify significant relationships one encounters on the street and under great time pressure to transfer them to a captured image'

 

Cartier-Bresson published his initial tome on photography under the title 'Images a la Sauvette', which was translated in the United States to 'The Decisive Moment' which was a book editor's phrase, not Cartier-Bresson's originally.

 

And in France, I have heard, it was translated literally to English as 'Images On the Run' but a better translation might have been one I read recently: 'Images on the Sly' -- a major difference, don't you think?

 

All Cartier-Bresson's works used to be viewable, page by page, on the Magnum.com web site, (free password required) -- and there were numerous books of his photos, often with many repeats of the same photo. He also had several thousand of his photos for sale on display, and some were masterpieces, often reproduced, and others were, frankly pretty close to stinkers, which fits into the nature of 'street photography'.

 

The books, page by page, still may be there on the Magnum.com web site; he was a heralded genius when he died three years ago at 94 having given up photography at about the time I saw his touring lifetime retrospective in (I now remember) 1969.

 

Viewing that exhibition, which filled a museum in San Francisco,, and not knowing more about his long career, had helped convince me that there was no place for me to go in photography -- he had done it all, and in spades.

 

Now, here in this photo, thankfully, the woman with dustmop hardly moved for the longest time and once again, I am in photography with all my heart.

 

I am thankful she stood there for a long time, as it took a while to get the exposures right with intense brightness and some substantial darkness, all of which needed to be shown in the same frame.

 

Again, you are always welcome, and keep in mind that I post stinkers occasionally, some of which I'm blind to at the moment of posting. (I can be very myopic toward my own captures.)

 

John (Crosley)