Chinatown - Then

This is what the 'street' in Chinatown looked like back 'then' -- a

time I won't spell out exactly -- perhaps you can read the date on

the newspapers. Intentionally left very dark for mood and to

highlight the seller's face; also to show the certain 'alien' nature

then that was how Chinese were viewed by the Occidental world -

before Chinese heritage Americans and immigrants from China became a

very, very large part of California's heritage, as it is today in

California.

Did you notice the patterned tattooes on the news seller's crossed leg above his sock?

 

I'd be interested in learning more about such tattoos; I suspect some viewer here has some substantial knowledge about such things, based on past history of posting interesting but unusual photos.

 

I'd prefer it be a posted reply so all can read it, rather than e-mailed, although any way you contact me is OK.

 

Oh, and back then a good pair of shoes cost me $300 for dress wear which is what I often wore - and a good suit cost $450.00; which in relative terms now would be several thousand to ten thousand dollars if those prices inflated in step with everything else; they just didn't -- we exported much of that work to places like China, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India and Hong Kong (which technically is only 'allied' with China since it has a separate set of laws, though it is controlled by the mainland) - these among other countries worldwide that now make the bulk of apparel sold in America.

 

Any takers on my request, or others who want to comment?

 

Anyone with such tattoos or a parent or grandparent or other relative who has such tattoos; and if they haven't explained, why not ask them?

 

You may never get another chance to inquire if they are aging, and the answer might be very interesting if you're appropriately nonjudgmental.

 

John (Crosley)

... like you've got it here. The starkness of the image corresponds with the look he is giving, and in the larger version there is enough detail to fill out the frame. Am sure your framing would be better today, but the camera eye was functioning even then, John.

This is a great documentary shot. The seller's eyes are cold and serene. One can almost sense a feeling of alienation by looking at them. The boundaries of his world were well defined back then.

 

I am curious to read your personal reaction on this capture. What did you feel when you took this John? The fact that you ventured into "foregin" territory with camera in hand then leads me to believe that you must have been a very inquisitive and precocious individual - perhaps even as a child.

 

Before tattoos became in vogue thanks to popular culture, they were frowned upon by society and Chinese society was no exception. A tattoo was viewed as a marking identifying a criminal. However, there are certain minority groups within China (Drung and Dai) that embrace this custom and pass it from one generation to the next. Perhaps your subject was a member of this group.

 

You might find this link about the minorities mentioned above interesting:

 

http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/01780/folk-custom/tatoo.htm

 

 

 

 

This was taken in late afternoon in shade on Grant St. San Francisco and my exposure was off a little on the dark side. Being film the negative was thin, so it lost detail on the dark areas. I don't have the neg and perhaps photoshopping this print might bring out more detail (it has in other prints) but I do prefer this darker -- his face is wonderful).

 

This tonality does focus directly on the seller's face -- exactly as I prefer.

 

As to this capture; the only one before the seller turned away, there is extraneous stuff at the left, so it is cropped out - and I never could get a better capture, so this is a rare Crosley crop.

 

(No Henri Cartier-Bresson, I, sadly)

 

There was drek at the left - a car or a passerby, or something that didn't fit - the aspect ratio of the 35 mm camers just didn't fit this subject. I debated whether to post it at all, but I took a recent look at this guy's steely face and decided it had to be posted, even with its darkness and lack of detail, right.

 

And you're right about the cropping, but although I wanted to take a better photo, my (dim) recollection is the old(er) guy picked up a newspaper or waved me away, or turned away or did something interfering so further attempts to photograph were fended off, and this is the only frame attempted. I had always liked it enouth to spend what for me were big bucks to print it show quality and it has endured for maybe 20 years since printing, in a solo print (but scanned, high quality -- and if I can find the scan or rescan the print it can be worked on -- this is a non-Photoshopped scan).

 

Now I have Photoshop skills I didn't have when I scanned this and conmmitted it to my upload, library which is huge.

 

But I saw it last night, and I said to myself, 'this deserves to remain black; why dig around for the original scan, work it to death, and not just post it as is; it's a historical document if nothing else'.

 

Who can make a post like this on PN these days from their present work?

 

Vous avez raison, as always mon ami.

 

John (Crosley)

I grew up in Oregon, in a prototypically suburban town -- almost prototypically safe, too, except for dogs chasing me and my bicycle in front of almost every home because nobody kept their dogs from running around, and some of them were mean. I learned to dismount a bicycle and put it between me and dogs' fangs if dogs were particularly ferocious, or to say to dogs (to confuse them) 'here boy, here boy, or 'shut up, mutt' shut up, mutt' with authority and they'd turn, wimpering, tail between legs, confused supremely by my command over them I(not all, but some).

 

When I got an opportunity at 10 to visit an aunt in Oakland, she suggested I might want to visit San Francisco, but she couldn't drive and my uncle was working.

 

'No problem' I told her, told her.

 

I had a good sense of direction and wouldn't get into trouble' and caught the 'A' train from McArthur Blvd. in Oakland, across the Bay Bridge to the TransBay Terminal, wandered the downtown area (my uncle's uncle owned the bar at No. 1 Market St. in those days), and ended up at Woolworth's (immortalized elsewhere herein) eating a hot dog, but never made it to Fleishacker Zoo (my intended destination).

 

I reversed directions, and went home, after first peering in those peep shows - the ones with flip cards that you stare down into and there are maybe a thousand photos printed on something like index cards, each one showing a new slightly different scene (usually of sex), and as I turned the crank slowly and then fast, the sexual act became more or less animated . . . which made me mightily curious, as the local Rexall drug store in Eugene, Oregon usually was limited to its huge spread of 20 to 30 nudie magazines on the floor and on the magazine rack opened up to racier photos (girls then were born with pasties and airbrushed vaginas - imagine my surprise when I grew up to find how fallacious that was).

 

Kids saw such stuff and they didn't go blind or become perverts. Barber shops were awash in nudie magazines - with gorgeous women shown naked (with obligatory tassles and pasties and airbrushing). From 8 or 9 on, it always was wonderful and supremely uncomfortable (physically . . . for reasons your can imagine) for me to go to the barber shop). There was no Internet porn in those days it was on the seat next to you and you, as a kid, were allowed to pick it up and look at it.

 

Grew hair on your chest, or so they said.

 

Things were different then.

 

I returned to my aunt's safely that evening and ate dinner with her husband and my sister.

 

'What did you do today?' asked my uncle (I was 10). 'Oh, I went on the 'A' train over to San Francisco and spent the day. . . .'

 

It was Ok.

 

(no big deal . . . I've always been known for my perigrinations).

 

Later, as my aunt lay dying of lung cancer (a smoker as were many in my family) she mused that 'perhaps she got bamboozled by me' into letting me go to San Francisco (she had second thoughts all those decades later).

 

But I had aquitted myself well . . . and that walk and others equipped me for the life to come.

 

Your post about the tattoos shall stand alone -- you shine, as always.

 

I asked for info, and you provide it, I won't add anything; you have stepped in wonderfully, and that shall forever remain part of the commentary of this photo.

 

I was 'on the prowl' morning to night for proving myself as a 'street' photographer without even knowing such a term existed and not yet having seen the touring works of Henri Cartier-Bresson, so I didn't know the competition -- I just had a compulsion - perhaps born of a short lifetime of viewing the great photo or pictorial magazines of the day -- Life, Collers, National Geographic, etc., Look (did they use photos, some I think?) - which my mother thoughtfully subscribed to all my youth, just so I would always have something interesting to read, and read I did, all the time.

 

Read, read, read.

 

And somehow, I think I absorbed (perhaps by osnmosis) the elements of good 'street' photography from viewing the works of the greats.

 

I always read 'Life Magazine' cover to cover and took in each and every photo, amazed at Alfred Eisenstandt's work and that of Margaret Bourke-White, among others (no wonder my second sale of photos was to Time-Life.).

 

This was an 'on-the-prowl photo' and I just walked on, a little intimidated in some senses, but not terribly, since I had known Grant Street since I was 10, and though unfamiliar a little in its culture, somewhat, I also had recently returned from Viet Nam and had stayed over (sick) in Hong Kong where I bought a lens and spent six days barfing then recuperating, all with $28 US and no passport.

 

(yes, no passport -- I went to Viet Nam and back with no passport - I had to get an exit visa from Viet Nam and there was almost a diplomatic incident about where to put the visa stamp. It was placed on an exit letter fromn the US consulate attesting to my citizenship and work status -- as being medically evacuated from the war zone).

 

Strange, wonderful life.

 

'~)

 

Not finished yet, either.

 

There's plenty of life left in me -- terabytes maybe of good photos yet to be taken if given the opportunity.

 

Many better than those of the past three or four years, I hope.

 

John (Crosley)

John, thanks for sharing that personal chapter of your youth. I would love to sit down with you one of these days and listen to your fascinating stories.

 

My first visit to San Francisco was at the age of 15 or 16. I stayed with an "uncle" who was busy to show me around so I ventured on my own with a good map and sense of direction. It was love at first sight - an exhilarating experience of discovery. There is something to be said about venturing into new terriroty on your own. You rely on yourself and your "smartness" without a helping hand to take you along. Maybe it is the inner explorer in us, who knows.

 

There's plenty more to see from you John. You are an inexhaustible source of inspiration and talent. You are not Cartier Bresson - you are John Crosley. One is either born with talent or not.

 

it reminds me on some classic photography from jerry dantzic or even antonin kratochvil..

maybe bit darker than used to be in right half, but..what's relevant on street shot is spirit of it..

especially the men on left, with look, hands..

very, John..

BB

This was an underexposure and there was a distracting pedestrian, left, so he got cropped.

 

But this one stuck with me for my whole lifetime; there always was 'something about' this guy.

 

You put your finger on it.

 

John (Crosley)

superb

Maybe not so well framed and the negative was quite thin - Chinatown's Grant Street was quite darker than I had thought when I went to take the photo, but I got the capture. And the darkness appears even to have worked in its favor.

 

Surprisingly.

 

Thanks for the endorsement.

 

Forty years hence, or even later.

 

John (Crosley)