A-OK

The youth of this world have adopted nearly universal sign gestures,

(and not those favored by US motorists) to expresss their

satisfaction. Here a subject shows his happiness with being a

photographic subject in Kyiv, Ukraine by expressive hand gestures,

which might easily be understood by a youth in California, and that

appears to give this 'shot' a sort of youthful universality. 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

Well... this "universalsm" of the gesture is rather doubtful. It's because all East Europeans look toward West for inspiration with a great complex of their anglo-saxon peers. They adapt everything they can see on TV, especially everything from the black culture. That's maybe because they also feel closed in some kind of a ghetto - and they feel strong identity. So this universalism is just a pattern of behaviour they have taken from there...

 

As for the photo itself - it's really good. It shows an Ukrainian youth adapting to one part of the western "culture", under a commercial banner showing the other side of it - the one that's probably far beyond their reach. They abandon any thought about pleasure and relax. Their identification centers around negation. Their world isn't positive. And the photo contains it all. Well done.

The spelling of your name indicates Polish, and being a Ukrainian neighbor would suggest some authority on the Ukrainian culture/spirit, especially since they were much later in getting their freedom than the Poles.

 

Your dissection is fascinating and engaging, yet I lack enough specific knowledge to say 'yea' or 'nay' about its truth and accuracy, so I must let it stand without endorsement and to say 'let others with knowledge comment'.

 

I'm not a youth, and hand signs have fascinated me, since when I was a youth, ALL hand signs were negative and had sexual connotations (they were proxies for some sort of sexual act or gesture, and probably still are, as are many slang words today, and if parents and children only knew where those commonly-used words they use got their origins, they'd blush with embarrassment).

 

But if no one knows, what's the harm? Except, of course, I do know . . . . but just not about hand gestures.

 

Is it just a 'black culture' sort of things'; I was recently in California and saw white, middle class youths employ similar hand gestures.

 

Mark me confused now.

 

John (Crosley)

 

Anybody help an older guy on this one?

I doubt that there is any meaning to the hand gesture the young man is making. I think Maciej is correct that he is simply imitating something he has seen urban American youth do on television or in the movies. The origin of these hand gestures is the early '80's black gangs of Compton and Los Angeles, CA., where gang members would "through up sign" to show what particular gangs they belonged to; for example: a 21st street Crips member would show two fingers on one hand and and index finger on the other, followed by a "C" shape made with a hand while beating on their chest. There were and probably still are a multitude of gang signs still used, many of which can (and do) get many young Americans killed. We are in a sad state of affairs in the US. The carnage among inner city youth is appalling, and it's been like this for nearly 30 years, no end it sight. I wonder how it came to this. I doubt seriously that either Dr. King or Stokeley Carmichael (aka Kwame Toure)are resting well, or peacefully. Having said all of that, I hope that I have explained this well enough. This is a very disturbing photo for me. The object jutting out of his pocket as if it were a weapon makes the photo an even more bizarre imitation of a reality very far removed from his own. Good picture for February....black history month. Thanks, John.

An interesting trio. The background depicts an ideal world and the path of light disappearing into the distance hints at a promising future to which our young man turns his back to.

Very nicely composed, John!

Whether or not such hand gestures are 'poor imitations' of what is seen from Americans, especially black Americans, they are very, very common in Ukraine, and probably in Russia too, if what I see on Russian television is any clue.

 

Whether or not they are 'devoid of meaning' is another point entirely; certainly they do not mean the 'Crips' or 'Bloods' or any other American gang, even if the signing resembles the signs of those gangs, or at least I believe that's so, because those American gang signs probably are as unknown to Ukrainian youths as they are to me.

 

Now, as it happens, I have recently been spending a lot of time in and near Compton as well as lots of other places in South Central, and these days seldom see gang signs.

 

There is new legislation and law in California that offers a 'gang enhancement' to crimes, which 'enhances' for gang involvement certain crimes all the way to 'life in prison' which has put the kabosh on many outward displays of gang involvement, which is not necessarily a bad thing. The only problem is the 'gang enhancement' has been pretty arbitrary, especially if one's whole family is gang-related, from all one's uncles and aunts to one's cousins. How does one do anything that is not gang-involved, and if a crime is committed, any district attorney can easily get a 'gang enhancement' just for the asking, because gangs are in such disrepute -- and well-deserved. Gangs also were a problem when I grew up; just not WHERE I grew up, thankfully.

 

So, as I go photographing (carefully and from my car usually) in Compton, out Rosecrans, Century Boulevard, all the way to the Forum in South Central (LA), I seldom see anyone 'signing' anyone else -- in fact I cannot remember having seen anyone this year 'signing' anyone else.

 

The 'gang enhancement' to crime allegations apparently has made major news in the hood; and now I understand why I didn't see the gang involvement I expected to see, and perhaps why I've been a little safer in South Central than it's been reputed to be for a white guy like me.

 

Imagine, a photographer who photographs 'signs' in Kyiv, who also photographs in South Central and who really never has seen a gang sign in LA in the last half year he's been photographing there, and who often photographs with a telephoto and so I'm unseen at that, and any signing would have surely been picked up by me, as I watch people's behavior very closely to get the photos I take.

 

And people do turn away sometimes when they see my lens poking out of my car window; and I don't photograph if I meet resistance; desperate folks violating probation and/or parole (or on the lamb) are not ones who are gonna take being photographed lightly, and that's one instance in which I make it apparent that I'm just not gonna photograph.

 

It's said that prison is one of the most polite places one could ever be, because of all the explosive tempers that are locked up and all the frustrated people bearing those tempers who are locked up with one. Those people often are out on the streets, too, and it does not pay to tempt them. I've come close one time or two, and believe me, it can take a few decades off one's life to have an 'encounter', but it doesn't stop me completely, althogh it does leave me 'thinking' sometimes.

 

I once knew a private investigator who worked for an attorney who employed me when I was a student certified to practice law (yes, I had a secretary and 120 cases while I was in law school; worked 35 hours a week, went to school full time and kept a full-time job practicing law under special bar rules. My boss never interfered with my 'practice' -- supposedly under his 'supervision' -- he knew I was doing my job, didn't need the 'supervision', and he could trust me to come to him if there was any need to have questions answered. He paid me $5 an hour and made literally hundreds of thousands of dollars off my work, and I even had to furnish my own typerwriter (he was absurdly cheap, and rich, too -- a friend of Henny Youngman, etc.)

 

Well, the private investigator drank too much, and his wife, Beverly, also was a private investigator who investigated personal injury accidents for plaintiff attorneys.

 

One day, the wife personal investigator was investigating an injury accident in Los Angeles as part of her job.

 

She got shot.

 

Dead.

 

That was the end of her life.

 

She was a nice enough woman who didn't even drink. She never did anything wrong to anybody that I knew of, but the price for doing her job (for someone else) was to get her life terminated prematurely.

 

I never forgot that.

 

Life can end suddenly in gang territory, and I am guided accordingly.

 

That was when gangs just were starting.

 

Now, Elmo, how do you know about Crips signing; from some personal experience, or from watching a documentary, or from involvement in the criminal justice system (defendant, prosecutor, bailiff, juror, etc.)?

 

In any case, 'throwing up sign' in Ukraine does not have the connotations here that it did in L.A., even so recently.

 

In the split second when I turned and put my camera forward, this guy's hands came up with sign, even though I am sure he was not anticipating my turning to focus on him.

 

(I had the shot preplanned but my back was to him, and I don't think he was reading my mind; it was his reflexiveness that caused him to sign.)

 

Now, in Russian television, seen here, there is a substantial amount of 'thug rap' - something we've given the youths in Russia -- their equivalent of gangster rap, but in this case it's all a bunch of white guys with rude gestures and looking, well . . . very white . . . but also very thuggish.

 

Some day, that too will pass.

 

Maybe the days of Sound of Music will return.

 

Only it will be brought by the Hannah Montana generation . . . . who knows.

 

One can only wonder; one cannot predict what youth will do, other than be different than what one predicts.

 

For that's the name of the game, to be perversely different when one's a youth.

 

One is not truly a youth if one is not so, I think.

 

Don't you?

 

But if the 'rite of passaage' involves a prison stay, or supervision by proation and/or parole authorities, that's carrying it a little far . . . and glorification of thuggish behavior justifiably probably has MLK turning over in his grave.

 

Best to you, Elmo.

 

Nice contribution; very thought provoking, especially for an old guy like me who doesn't know 'sign' from 'shinola'.

 

John (Crosley)

You are more philosophical than I ever ever could be. I took this for the pattern, but you are entirely correct.

 

You just 'see more' than I do.

 

Kudos.

 

John (Crosley)

The composition (with or without the hands), is why I took the photo.

 

Who could resist - two heads top to top and then this guy's head situated equidistant below each of them?

 

And at the last minute, just as my camera comes out, and I turn around to take the photo, he 'throws up sign' (alas).

 

I decided to post it, sign or not.

 

I personally don't like to see 'sign' in a lot of my photos, as they look so posed.

 

But that's what youths do nowadays, and if you're gonna take photos of youths, then they'll 'throw up sign' lots of times; sometimes in a posed photo, I ask them to 'stop it' as it may date a photo.

 

I'd have liked to see it without signing, however.

 

But this ain't an ideal world, and sometimes the most unusual gestures -- and the least expected -- make the best photos.

 

Best to you, Ruud.

 

I'm always happy to see a comment from you; whether or not positive.

 

You can feel free to criticize or question any of my work, also.

 

John (Crosley)

Thank you, John! With best regards, Ruud.

I was in the service (USMC)in the mid to late '80s, stationed in southern California. I was privileged to know several young Marines who had enlisted to escape gang life, to better themselves, as well as serve our country with honor and distinction. I learned some things about that life from them.

The good thing about a large community is the great benefit that willing and generous members present when individual knowledge falls short on matters such as this; one member almost always has a knowledgeable answer, and yours surely comes with great authority.

 

But, I hope you are aware now, that Compton and surrounding areas are changing, with large malls on the outskirts, etc., and although South Central still is devoid of most major retail shopping, it's creeping in from the edges, along the 405 and major boulevards, with shopping selections geared toward the racial and ethnic mix of the neighborhoods they serve. (In other words, if you're white, try buying some shampoo that doesn't also straighten 'wavy' (read that 'Hispanic') or 'very curly' (read that 'black') hair . . . and see if you can find some shampoo without special 'treatments' . . . . )

 

But the same applies to people of color and ethnicities from south of the border (Hispanic) who visit so-called 'white' neighborhoods -- they often can't find what they want, so it's 'sauce for the goose' when I go shopping for such things in Compton or elsewhere near there. And in any case, much of the main part of Los Angeles looks very much like parts of Mexico, with rather interesting (some would say 'garish' but I say 'colorful' signs and storefronts, which make good photographic fodder. I'd rather photograph there than in say, Westwood or Beverly Hills, that's for certain.

 

Best from Ukraine, where the signing don't really mean nuthin' 'cept 'I'm cool, moschina (man)'.

 

John (Crosley)