Spirit Willing -- Flesh Weak

The 'spirit' here represented by the powerful-appearing and

aggressive statue appears more than 'willing' but the 'flesh' - the

man at its base -- appears a little listless and lacking in

ambition. 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

After opening this fine image with PS and rotating, changing the crop, fiddling with contrast and other tone adjustments I've come to the conclusion (which I knew intuitively when I first looked at this wonderful photo) that the only thing that could have made it better for me would be seeing the face of the "weak one." That was probably out of your control. Re-rotating and re-cropping and then comparing to your original post is such valuable lesson for me. Text instructions lay the foundation, but seeing is believing. The geometry makes sense to me when I see the end product. Here, your geometric interpretation - an integral part of this photo - is right on the money. Layers of flooring literally set the stage. The angle of the stairs put the statue skater in motion right into my monitor. Very well done. Thanks for sharing!

Your comment is very interesting to me, as I take photos from views 'I see best' compared to what else I see. I often just move about to get what I consider 'inchoately' to me to be the 'best view', and this was it.

 

I did select out the foreground, the statue, the man and the signs behind him, then did 'inverse select' for the background and lessened their contrast and increased their brightness a little to make the figures I considered interesting 'pop' just a little and to make the story better told -- before it was a little washed out in the figures, which shouldn't be the case in a 'street' black and white usually.

 

After I worked on it for five or ten minutes, I decided then I liked it very much and posted it with my strongest folder -- it tells a story, which I had intended, but the previous version I had did not convey that story; I think this version does (I didn't post any previous version -- I am very critical of my own work, especially now and don't like to post lots of 'junk' as I did formerly, just because it was 'interesting' to me and 'fun').

 

I'm a little more 'serious' about my work now, as I think viewers are realizing.

 

I looked over my first work, from three and a half years ago, (not when I was much more youthful) a day or so ago, and it was 'all over the place', but the best photos then still were worthy of my best; I alway have been able to 'see' a good photo, but not 'every' good photo, and I'm trying to be more prolific in finding the best ones.

 

Making my Presentation 'Photographers: Watch Your Background' helped me immensely in realizing how to recognize those photos on the street before I had taken them. It was a good exercise in self-criticism and self-teaching. (have you looked at it; it's still in progress?)

 

I thank you for the intelligent comment; it seemed to me this was the only way to frame this photo -- it just came 'naturally'.

 

John (Crosley)

is the imaginary line that goes from the left hand of the man to the left hand of the statue: that line - in my humble opinion - contributes in conveying a sort of dynamism to this good shot. Thank you. G.

One can look at it your way, as there being an 'imaginary line' from the left hand of the guy seated, or one can view it slightly differently and just say that there are two left hands in this photo and one of them 'mirrors' the other.

 

The left hand of the seated guy is important -- it is doing nothing and represents (if he is hiding) an attempt to evade and diminish himself.

 

The left hand of the statue, on the other hand, is an expression in microcosm of what the entire statue is about -- it's clenched, full of power and force.

 

The left hand of the seated guy is slightly curled, but definitely not clenched, and engaged in holding his collar to his face -- maybe to avoid the elements, as it was cold that day; the statue doesn't seem to mind the weather -- it charges right ahead.

 

In a way, this photo can be a metaphor for much in life and even to illustrate differences in people's attitudes and ambitions, much as the caption suggests that this man's inner self would 'take charge' just as the statue is doing.

 

(This is NOT intended to be a comment on 'reflection' vs. 'dynamism' however, I think. That's another photo altogether.)

 

John (Crosley)

A favorite photographer of mine, Elliott Erwitt, often focused attention on 'hands'.

 

Hands, he reasoned, often tell more about a situation than what the face shows; people learn to manipulate their facial expressions or control them, but with 'hands' that often is not the case.

 

A student of hands, Erwitt often photographed them.

 

I think almost anyone could learn from watching hands, not just the photographer -- for what one does with one's hands is very reflective of one's thoughts.

 

Thanks Giuseppe for adding to my somewhat devoid understanding of my own photo -- I just liked it and hadn't analyzed it until just before posting.

 

John (Crosley)

The main 'driver' of composition in this photo was to place the statue in the foreground, showing it 'full force' and also to keep the seated man at its base just as close to the statue as possible to increase the juxtaposition.

 

In fact, if one keeps those imperatives in mind, then there almost was no other way to create this photograph; any other view would have made a completely different photo.

 

The escalator or staircase to the rear (staircase I think), actually almost overpowered this photo and seemed at first very much to detract, which is why I for most of the backgrond (including the staircase, walls, bannisters, etc), decreased contrast and increased brightness on the background, then decreased lightness and increased contrast on the subject figures, the curb and the advertising.

 

Then, when I had something that was more akin to how I wanted to see it, I did another contrast/brightness adjustment for the whole photo.

 

And this is how I think it should be presented; sometimes you have to work ona worthy photo that has something that detracts (an overly strong line of the staircase, rear, and the bannisters). Though the background is 'helpful' to composition, if it overpowers, it also detracts, I think -- if you could see the original workup, I think you'd agree.

 

John (Crosley)

Superbly titled. It is a very dynamic composition and the ascending diagonal line created from the legs of the sitting man up to the head of the statue is commanding in its attention. The staircase provides a contrasting balance and the poster with the clutched fist seems to act as a supporting character encouraging the "flesh" to get up and follow the "spirit". Personally I would have cropped a bit on the left side with the window sticking out. Great capture John.

Adan W., you suggested you would have cropped left a bit more.

 

I didn't and did not even give it a thought for two main reasons.

 

One is that I am opposed to cropping where I can get away with showing a photo 'full frame'. I had time to frame this one fully on the 'street', and thus the whole photo is what I 'meant' to capture.

 

Sometimes on the 'street' the aspect ratio is wrong (ratio of height to length of the photo frame). In such cases, cropping always is required.

 

Or the full frame photo is too much because a proper length tele was not on the camera or available in time (or at all). Sometimes one cannot even zoom fast enough to crop top, bottom and sides enough, because action is disappearing.

 

It's better to have to crop then absolutely miss a capture, but I do dislike to crop and will avoid it when a photo actually had time to be framed (there wasn't much time, as this man did see me, though I think 'after' this frame was taken).

 

Sometimes the 2:3 ratio (aspect ratio) of a 35 mm camera is just wrong and takes in too much to the sides and not enough height, if one takes a full frame capture, wheras a 4:5 aspect ratio would be superb.

 

Neither is 'right' or 'wrong'.

 

My 'balloon man' photo (first in my portfolio), was a 2:3 photo that got cropped in a darkroom by darkroom workers because 8 x 12 was not then popular but as a 4:5 (8" x 10") photo it happens to work very well, thank god.

 

It was the 'perfect photo' for me with a great subject and even the proper aspect ratio was up for grabs 4:5 works as good as 2:3 (I actually did have prints at 2:3 and now the negative is lost and the prints are also gone, but they were never good quality. At least the photo was salvaged and in very good quality.

 

My recent Photo of the Week, 'The Progression of Age' is a crop because the 'aspect ratio' was wrong for the circumstances. Cartier-Bresson stubbornly held on to his 'no crop' practice in part because as a wealthy man, he could do any damn thing he wanted.

 

He also took tens of thousands of pretty darned good to world class superb photos, so the odd photo that needed a crop, he could just discard, if only stubbornly to say 'never crop my photos'.

 

Yet the 'Gare St. Lazare' shot of the man jumping over the puddle (or into it) was a crop.

 

Go figure.

 

I think he was just cussedly stubborn, and also didn't want newspaper and magazine people destroying his well crafted compositions to become 'one column, two column or three column photos' or even 'head shots' as newspaper layout editors so often crop photos to 'fit' column space that's available and by cropping excerpt head shots from otherwise very good photos.

 

He wanted what he sent out as a photograph to be what we as viewers saw, not what some magazine editor later determined we were going to see, thus ruining his carefully crafted compositions.

 

So, why didn't I crop?

 

Aspect ratio for this one was right in my view: it was a 2:3 capture for my money. You may argue with that.

 

Also, note that the place where the statue's base and the man conjoin is in almost the middle of the photo; cropping left might have been OK or it might have ruined the composition; I'd have to compare a cropped photo, but don't have the time to do it myself.

 

Usually I can absolutely see a necessary crop when I evaluate a photo, and crop literally in seconds when I do. I never spend a lot of time figuring out where and when to crop/it comes naturally. I put the 'crop tool' on the photo, draw it across the photo, adjust the sides then crop - almost one motion and almost never any redos.

 

I guess that and the triangular or pyramidal composition here, for me called for placing the spot of conjunction between the two figures exactly in the middle and a left crop would have destroyed that (I'm thinking 'after the fact', but I think that's the reason).

 

Whereas the window, left, may appear 'distracting' it also says 'pure street' and 'not posed' and is one of those elements that sometimes I like to leave in my photos to show their impromptu nature.

 

Look at my Photo of the Week (The Progression of Age) again, and you'll see at right the beginnings of a second face photo on the wall, but it's cropped so very much it doesn't seem to interfere; at least it didn't prevent it fron getting huge ratings or massive exposure (30,000 clicked views so as of today -- which is 'huge' for a 'street' photo or any of my photos, and it's from 'clicks only' being counted as 'views' -- and not 'thumbnail deliveries' and clicks as before.

 

I think centering the composition made more sense to me than cropping left -- and hardly find the window distracting (or that thing up high, either). Maybe I should look at a crop so I can compare.

 

Helpful comment; makes me reflect and provides healthy criticism, Adan W.

 

You are an outstanding student of my photography, and critiques are encouraged more -- you have shown that you know exactly 'what' to critique.

 

John (Crosley)

I have finally understood, I think, the composition of this photo, which I never previously had analyzed. I took it rather unconscious of its composition (or not consciously analyzing it when I took it or until today).

 

Now looking at it I understand: The dark figure, left, is the beginning of a diagonal line continued by the immenseness of the statue's left.

 

The staircase at the right is a second diagonal figure. With two diagonal figures, and a base (the step or level on which the statue is mounted and the man is seated), there is a triangle.

 

So, if one looks at the photo in one way, and looks at the distant step rail I(bannister), then the photo subjects form a giant triangle (no pun about giants intended).

 

But if one looks at the lower rail (bannister) of the staircase, then the photo's composition is one large 'X' which marks the spot and draws the eye toward the center, but all the rest of the photo subject (man, base, hands of statue and man, etc., ) draw the eye away from the projected 'intersection' of that large 'X'. So, the eye must infer an 'X' and it can't exactly because there is no 'intersection of lines to finish the 'X', so the eye is drawn elsewhere.

 

That fact alone makes this a more complicated photo; the eye is a bit confused, but there are major geometric figures (two - the 'X' and the triangle) that form the basis of this photo.

 

But neither geometric figure is worthy of carrying a photo in and of itself, and it is the 'story' together with the geometry which carries this photo, I think, plus an able caption to set the mind thinking along the right lines.

 

In my analysis, that makes this a rather complicated composition; not exactly thought out beforehand explicitly, but seen as 'very interesting' in the viewfinder, and now I know why.

 

That's my story, and I think I'm sticking to it, but before I make up my mind finally, anybody with any different or further observations?

 

John (Crosley)