Averted Eyes (The Anomie of the City)

This is a study in anomie, with each subject (including the poster

person) not making contact with anyone else, not even the

photographer, something more usual in a big city (in this case a

large Eastern European capitol). This may be a challenge for

newcomers to rate, as it is a more subtle photo with a subdued theme

that may require some reflection, but 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

Disengagement has always been a part of city life where everyone is a stranger. We re all emotional islands. Funny that the only person that tries to look at us directly is the picture of a model on a van, yet her gaze is blocked by natural reflection alluding to its artificial nature. She is not a real person after all.

This was guaranteed mostly to be an unpopular photo with some, or at least misunderstood.

 

Many raters just are not going to see worth in a photo of a variety of people all looking in different directions, yet that is what binds them together -- they're all looking in different directions.

 

And I'm not at all certain the poster woman actually is gazing at us, rather than downward, but I am going from memory, not from the capture, as the poster photo woman (as you correctly note) is obscured by reflections (and you also correctly note, she also is not 'real').

 

This indeed is a study (at least for this moment) in anomie -- the 'islands' that each of us carries with us when we choose not to interrelate with one another.

 

In that way, it's hardly 'appealing' in a beautiful sense, yet for me it's a stunning capture and an unusual one (there is one similar to it in my portfolio from Argentina, using window mannequins and a store manager or salesman at a door that conveys a similar message, but in that case the 'anomie' is the mannequins, and in that Argentine photo the mannequins are staring in different directions (as well as the man at the store doorway).

 

When taking photos I often look for the relative positions of the subjects and/or actors and take their 'masses' into account e.g. their relative 'color' or 'mass' of black, white or gray compared with the surrounding area, and also their separation from each other.

 

When I find a certain degree of interspersal among the units, I think about trying to create a photograph from those actors who are so interspersed.

 

Cartier-Bresson was a master of that, especially of people walking through parks, etc., where he made 'art' from ensembles (of people walking, etc.) that loosely hung out together or those that seemed to 'flow' as they walked through their surroundings, with 'just so much' space between and/or among them.

 

This photo is created in that sense, but because of the expressions and the photo's message, it's hardly a 'happy' photo.

 

This is one photo almost guaranteed NOT to get good ratings, especially from new raters, but it accomplishes its purpose, I think, and it is a very good photo.

 

Before I chose to display it, in reviewing my captures, I scrolled possible photos and just stopped my scroll 'in its tracks', because I thought it so good.

 

Some photos are meant to be 'popular' and others are not; this is one that is not destined to be 'popular' even if it is 'artistic' (at least in my view).

 

For me, this is a 'keeper', no matter what.

 

Thanks for your comment, Adan W.

 

John (Crosley)

Looking at this photo again, I have decided it's one of my finest.

 

Rater's didn't like it.

 

Viewers are ignoring it.

 

I LOVE IT.

 

Just goes to show you.

 

Ya gotta please yourself here.

 

John (Crosley)