Turn Off That &#*%@ Phone!!!

This advertising poster man, on the side of a truck, appears to be

giving the message from the caption to the man with the mobile (cell)

phone, far right, while the younger boy, center bottom, appears to

duck the karata or kung fu kick, of the advertising athlete. 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

Of course it is spelled karate, not how it is shown in the Request for Critique.

 

The Administration said soon it would make changes for spelling, etc., errors available for a limited time after posting, but that has yet to come about.

 

John (Crosley)

Great shot, everything in the scene works perfectly together to create this story. I really love your shots like these, and when I saw the thumbnail, I knew it had to be you. Congrats, I love it.

Here it worked like this:

 

 

I saw the poster Adidas guy on the side of a truck and waited.

 

I took a few photos but the guy with the mobile (cell) phone was in the way and I waited for him to move to one side.

 

Alone came a kid, just as the mobile phone guy moved to the side of a building, and the kid dropped something or other or bent over for some reason.

 

At that moment, I released the shutter (again).

 

I didn't really know that I had caught the whole scene like this with a 'story' until my companion, who is quite brilliant AND observant was looking at me review shots on my digital back and started laughing when she saw this one; I looked again and saw why. I had 'missed it' in first look.

 

Of course then it was less clear because of contrast/brightness issues, which still are hard to bring out in a photo like this to make it 'work'.

 

But in this case, the poster art brought the photo and the other elements simply moved into place. I took a bunch of photos hoping something would develop, and sure enough it did (and in spades).

 

That doesn't mean I wouldn't have tried for auch a scene if I had thought it were possible, but don't give me credit too much for 'creating' this scene as discovering it, after carefully planning to capture 'something' and this scene just resulted. I have others where similar things have happened. It was in the cards to have the mobile phone guy look like he was getting kicked away by the karate guy, but the kid ducking, was almost beyong belief. (Maybe he was ducking to avoid being 'captured' in this photo? Such things have happened, and with some regularity, where the duckee becomes a protagonist.) I always shoot when someone's trying to 'avoid' or duck, or even put up hands.

 

It often works out with interesting captures.

 

Thanks for the kind word about my 'style'.

 

John (Crosley)

I just looked at my short series of shots.

 

I was wondering why this youth was bent over.

 

When I first started taking photos of the poster, the man in the cell/mobile phone was in front of the youth, apparently, and the youth was bent over.

 

It appears that either the youth was playing with a toy on the ground or was tying shoes. Because he did move (and I can't see what's at his feet), I believe he was playing with a toy. One doesn't move forward when tying shoes, at least normally.

 

I suppose if I had thought through this entire composition consciously (instead of unconsciously, which in fact now I know I did, including the bent over youth), then I could take more credit for a conscious 'creation' rather than just pointing my camera at a likely scene and somehow, some way, intuiting that when the guy with mobile phone walked to the right of the frame that I had a clear shot at the karate guy AND he would be appearing to kick the mobile phone buy in the face, as well as having the youth appear to duck the shot.

 

In fact, it appears that I did indeed intuit subsconsciously all these things, but that they still surprised me when I discovered how well they worked together.

 

Most time swhen shooting a single shot or a short series, I have the photo already made in my mind and the framing is often done without eye completely to the viewfinder, and sometimes the viewfinder doesn't provide a proper view -- for instance a camera strap may be interfering with part of the view. I don't let that stop me and fire away, because with my type of shooting so often, time is of the essence, and a slight delay to brush away a stray camera strap end would mean that the scene would already have unfolded and gone away.

 

Instead, when I already have framed in my eye, and only need to raise the camera and zoom to appropriate length to visualize and also to autofocus, sometimes I only have a minimal or partial view of the scene -- I often may even have my eye far away from the viewfinder so I can only see part of the scene through my viewfinder when the shooting is done very, very quickly, which is how I can say with justification that sometimes I can lift a camera, frame, autofocus and shoot a scene in less than a second. That's because it is not necessary in all cases for the viewfinder to be pressed to my eye; only in most cases that my eye get a chance to 'see' that autofocus is working and that the frame is correct, even if my eye is some distance from the viewfinder opening.

 

Much of what I shoot is 'catch as catch can', and if I don't catch it, it's lost forever.

 

When I was a youth shooting film, these moments were lost forever; even if I did see them, I had to manually focus them, and they had to last long enough I could see them, focus on them manually, frame them properly without zoom lenses, which often meant changing my physical location to fill the frame properly without cropping (and I almost never cropped, especally since I often shot transparancy -- slides).

 

The result was that with autofocus, zoom lenses, and rapid fire 'C' drive the ability to catch shots 'on the fly' has changed for the better -- I can almost assure myself that if I go out for an hour or three, I will come back with at least one and maybe as many as a half dozen worthy shots, and even few days or every week or so, a really great quality shot, with many of them caught 'in an instant'.

 

It is a great luxury for me to take a series of shots where I can actually stand with viewfinder to eye and frame, focus and procure shots without worrying if I'll be 'found out' or the scene will disappear -- things that usually landscapers don't have to worry about, and often that many portraitists don't either (though if I were shooting portraits, it would be looking for that 'instant' of a moment when a shot were at its best with my subject, and applying the same skills I use for 'street', I think.)

 

In any case, discursiveness aside, I think the boy was playing with a toy, and I took that into account with this shot.

 

John (Crosley)

Thank God for technology. Funny shot expressing an universal feeling towards loud talkers on the cell phone. This is even more irritating when you are traveling and you encounter the big shots making sure that everybody hears how much money they made when closing on the last deal or proclaiming that they are sitting in first class when babbling from their seats. One of these days I might get a phone scrambler toy and watch out, this kid is going to have some fun.

A couple of years ago when I was flying more frequently within Ukraine, it was especially annoying to know that it was not the Ukraine businessmen, but the Russkije businessmen who proclaimed loudest over their mobile phones on airplanes that they indeed were businessmen, often in deep baritone booming voices so that all could hear, so much that I could mock them and bring most of a plane into major smirking laughter.

 

Some cultures know how to keep it under wraps more than others, though there are transgressors everywhere. Generally in Ukraine the conversations are quite quiet, so this caption is a stretch, but I knew it would be understood by Americans (and Russkije).

 

Thanks for the contribution.

 

Let me know how much and where those 'scramblers' are being sold . . . . I here restaurants in S.F. are occasionally installing them to enforce no phoning zones.

 

John (Crosley)

John, you know how I like these so for once it stops here. What I really don't understand is that you upload it as flat and unappealing as it is. I know all too well what really could be made of this as I'm sure you do and it would be so much better.

But for the life of me, with my rudimentary Photoshop skills, I really cannot make this better; it is flat and I'm afraid that has much to do with the photo/illustration on the truck to the rear as well as my more rudimentary Photoshop skills. I did select here and individually work on the three figures; is you'd seen the original photo you'd have wondered why I even chose it.

 

The main problem is the truckside illustration is in graphic arts format/washed out, while my figures are not, and it's hard to make them mesh without making my figures have the same 'graphic arts' and 'high key' format as the illustration guy, something I just don't do in my Photoshopping. It's not only NOT in my skill set, but I am not sure I want it there, as having rudimentary Photoshop skills helps keep me honest with my captures -- I don't resort to changing colors of things, moving things around, or such. I take photos, and if they don't work out, I take new ones. Maybe in this instance I should just take a new one? But it has been a good try . . . . maybe it should be classed in the same category as broken eggs and omelettes -- as I learn what 'works' and what 'does not work'.

 

I saw some hope in it, but your criticism is well-founded. I have the same feelings, but need a Photoshop expert to work on it for me, or teach me how, and although I have such an expert on the payroll right now, he's working on gallery presentations, making photos into gallery-level quality presentations, after being presented to the web audience, as I had worked them up.

 

He can do a bangup job on them, presuming he works as agreed and on time.

 

You are right about the quality of this one, but here the story won out. Otherwise, it would have been posted in a lesser folder. If you have any specific ideas (or your own workup) I'd be very happy to take a look at them (it).

 

I certainly cannot take offense at criticism that is right on target and mirrors my own feelings; yours is right on.

 

Best to you.

 

John (Crosley)

John, I'm hardly a photoshop master myself and anyway I wouldn't do you a disservice to do a workup on such a compressed image. Yes, it's great content, again, you know how I feel about this one I guess. On my photo's however I don't think that's enough and that's why I edit them myself. Sometimes better sometimes less so but NEVER by converting them just in grey scale like you seem to have done here. I really would like to see this one once you have it correctly processed. Gr. Ton

If you read above, you will see (or at least I think I left it in) that I selected each of the individual actors, and processed each of them individually.

 

This is not a simple gray-scale conversion.

 

Fact is, that outside of working up the two actors (bending youth and cell phone man) into the same high key, stylized workup as the Adidas poster guy, this just won't work.

 

Or as the Texans say 'that dog won't hunt' (meaning the same thing, but harder to translate, unless you're an American I think.)

 

The info just wasn't in the poster guy's photo to make him better, at least to my skills, but again, this is not just a 'grayscale conversion' -- heavens no. You couldn't even look at it if it were that, no matter what. But I do minimum post-processing, and I'm sure some Photoshop guru could transform this capture into really 'something' just not me, now. Maybe next month or next year.

 

If anyone else has any workup ideas on this one, I'd happy to be educated.

 

Although I do have a Photoshop guy on retainer right now, I have little contact with him, or I'd ask him how he'd work this one up (he might just shake his head as he does sometimes - meaning 'no way'), but he's busy working (on contract) on other things. As required, I do all my own image editing for posts here.

 

Best to you, Ton.

 

John (Crosley)