Jump to content
© Copyright 2007-2008, John Crosley, All Rights Reserved

'The Family Photo Album'


johncrosley

Nikon D70, Nikkor lens, desaturated in Photoshop CS3, by checking (ticking) monochrome button and adjusting color sliders 'to taste'. Full frame. Unmanipulated except for brightness/contrast adjustments which are not 'manipulations' under the rules. .© All rights reserved, John Crosley, 2008

Copyright

© Copyright 2007-2008, John Crosley, All Rights Reserved

From the category:

Street

· 124,943 images
  • 124,943 images
  • 442,913 image comments




Recommended Comments

Engaging capture composed of different textural layers. The child is the center of two converging lines. The first created from the woman's view and pointed by the camera towards the child's eyes. Then the child looks straigh back at us with a charming smile while the crack on the concrete points to the direction of his gaze.
Link to comment

There are some lighting difficulties with this - it called for being taken with a camera with active D-lighting because of harshness, but such a camera wasn't then in my arsenal a year or so ago.

 

This is an old one -- maybe even three years old, but destined for a folder like this -- people taking photos -- caught in the act, if you will.

 

Thanks for giving it a lucid analysis. I just posted this one 'for fun' because this is a web site for photographers, and her posing is unusual (as is her camera).

 

Best to you, Adan.

 

John (Crosley)

Link to comment

This is a wonderfull photo !

 

I'm just wondering what a square crop, ( same Height, but cut the ear of the photographer, and then probably a very little bit of the right ) would give you

 

Link to comment

I did't post this for critique, because although I like it very much, it's a little schmaltzy, but then people react differetly when kids are depicted as being 'cute'. I guess that's why I like it.

 

It's actually a surprise that it is getting critiques at all.

 

Thanks for yours.

 

John (Crosley)

Link to comment

Thank you for your appraisal -- I just never thought this worthy of putting up for critique, but have a folder of photographers and their subjects, so after waiting years (two or three), I decided to post it.

 

I don't know what a square crop would look like, but I like this crop -- in part because it shows the background oceean and beach more. So, I think I'd keep this crop.

 

But on another day, maybe a square crop.

 

Who knows?

 

Thanks for the suggestion.

 

John (Crosley)

Link to comment

This photo is so full of life, and optimism, that it is normal that it will trigger reactions.

 

As for the crop, it wasn't a suggestion : just me wondering aloud :-)

 

 

Link to comment

Sometimes I can be blind to my own captures, or somehow prejudiced against them, at least for posting.

 

I've been looking at this for maybe three years, and wondering 'should I post it?,' and finally when I did, I did it without a critique request --through ratings, yet already it has substantial critiques as a purely 'critique photo'. Quelle surprise! (what a surprise!).

 

What I had overlooked is just what you note -- it's full of life and optimism.

 

This is one of the better aspects of posting on Photo.net -- sometimes the critics' reactions will surprise you by being very well-founded and help a guy like me open his eyes (and mind) some more.

 

It's a good way to learn, and a major reason I stay here.

 

This photo had technical difficulties because of harsh lighting, and it was just a moment (taken twice), but I always liked it; I just didn't want it to be my example of my best or most 'serious' photography.

 

But here it is, and it's getting interesting (and enlightening) critiques, and that surprises me a little, but pleases me even more (not that it's getting good critiques, but that my eyes have been opened re: the reactions of others to what I figured was a pretty schmaltzy photo).

 

Best to you and thanks.

 

John (Crosley)

Link to comment

We are often our worst judge.

 

 

When I used to paint, my galerist always went first to the room where was putting away the pieces I didn't like, before looking at the selection I had prepared, and always, he took some of the pieces which I didn't like at all.

 

Almost always, they were the first ones to be sold ...

 

As you said, perhaps we are looking too many times at one particular photo. Also we can't help but think about the photo it could have been instead of really looking at the one we have, and by making a comparison with an ideal therefore inexistant photo, we just become blind, which is not too good a feeling for a photographer or a painter.

 

This photo is also so much about innocence and confidence : the young man here is so free from any kind of stress, pressure or pain, that by looking at your photo, I was 6 again for a little while, and this hasn't happened to me for many years !

 

I want to thank you very much for this powerfull but so rare feeling.

 

laurent

 

Link to comment

Laurent,

 

Thank you so much for the insight into why this photo seems to have a good reception - even though I liked it, and with its technical difficulties, I felt it was not worthy of being shown.

 

But you have some of the best taste for what is 'good' as almost anybody on Photo.net, and now I see you are a painter, and apparently one who showed his work, as you state you had a 'gallerist' -- that makes many of your earlier comments more understandable -- you are an artist working at photography, while I am a photographer, working at judging 'art' (with the help of you and my mentor Mssr. Karman, who was very helpful in getting me to break out of the mold).

 

Whereas a first wife (for 17 years, now dead) worked for a while in 'Art in America' which was one of the most artsy-fatsy magazines ever, and I was a regular visitor to their offices, I hardly understood what all the fuss was about, and it didn't rub off on my (now late) wife, who frankly hadn't an artistic bone in her body.

 

I guess I did learn some things, though, as I learn in my peregrinations almost everywhere -- I learn what is to some people's taste and what is to others', and those who fancy themselves interested in the 'arts' sometimes have far more esoteric tastes than lowly me.

 

I just take photos, and show the ones I think are 'interesting'.

 

Interestingly enough, when Michel Karman was reviewing my vast captures of the past four years (and some early stuff -- very little), he agreed with me on the worth of the vast majority of it, so far as I could tell.

 

His 'folder' which he named 'fabulous photos' which he'd culled from terabytes of my previous unviewed and unprinted work, was destroyed in a computer crash, so I never was able to see it, but I know from working with him, talking with him, even eating and having stayed with him, that much of the work on Photo.net -- especially in my highest-rated folders (Black and White, Then to Now and Single Photo - Color) he agreed was some of my best work.

 

Generally I do know what is not the best, or raters sometimes knock me over the head to tell me if a work is 'not up to standard'.

 

But he also was able to find some 'gems' among the discards, helping me defend my general rule of not destroying or 'deleting' any of the less than best.

 

If nothing else, those unculled works might someday be an archive of how one 'street' shooter was able to produce so much -- and the ability to cull so much good stuff from such crap, just might be attributed to my good editing as to any special skill with a camera, though I am getting better at shooting, I think, and certainly more certain that I can come up with something good.

 

I do have an increased confidence, that's for sure. For instance, I went tonight to downtown Santa Cruz to get a piece of very good New York style pizza, next to a movie theatre, and ended up taking a good portrait in silhouette of a spiky-headed student, backlighted by a movie poster -- a very good and interesting photo -- he pronounced it 'very sick' as did his friends. (high praise)

 

I still take photos of 'everything', though I may take more photos of a single situation, looking for that ephemeral moment, and I am getting good results from shootig a little more with each scene in which there is motion or movement, rather than taking one shot and giving up.

 

That's because I am looking not just for one 'look' generally but for a variety of good 'looks', and sometimes a good scene can yield several very good photos in a matter of seconds. Of course, I'll only post one generally.

 

This photo is an example of capturing that 'look', but the boy held his pose for some time and did it more than once, so I had ample time to prepare with my one-shot camera (no effective 'C' drive).

 

But I'm concerned about the reproduction values of this photo; it is not the best because generally of harsh lighting and my attempt to rescue detail from blocked up areas of darkness -- something one can do in Nikon NEF (raw) captures.

 

I'm going to post another, entirely different photo;

 

I'm interested in what you think of the next post. (You can e-mail me if you do not wish your answer to appear in print (johncrosley (insert @ sign) photo.net

 

Thank you so much for sharing; now I understand where your understanding of 'galleries' comes from, and that it appears you have some experience in showing your 'art' work.

 

Best to you.

 

John (Crosley)

Link to comment

Very very quickly : I need to read your post a bit more carefully ( It's 3am here,I am answering another post here, and all this after a couple of glasses ).

 

Just one thing : I USED to be in the art circuit, had some fun for a while. But as soon as it became very serious, and that the galleries interested in my work asked my to contractually agree that I would not change my style ( one even wanting me to contractually paint not more than 10 pieces a year ! ), I stopped everything, commited some kind of artistical suicide, and went some other ways ( always creative ones )

 

And I stopped painting and doing performances almost 15 years ago now.

 

But things have changed, conditions are different today, and it looks like I'll show some stuffs very soon ( but now with a total control ).

 

I'll send you an email later or tomorrow.

 

All the best to you too

 

laurent

Link to comment
... check out his work. I think I pointed you at a couple of his shots before, so you probably already know. BTW, this is a wonderful little shot, John. You can even see her little LCD monitor image. It's perfectly framed and well captured. I have my own ideas why you didn't select this one earlier, but you probably already know, right? Anyway ... look again, John. Look at the space between the camera and the boy, from the girl to the LCD, from her head to top of frame, her elbow to bottom of frame, his foot to the line. This is a shot about tolerances, like a tool and die maker-kind-of-tolerances. Unless you flat out staged this (which of course I know that you didn't) then you have honed your skills so that these framings are second nature. I like this work more than I like many of your more "serious" shots, just as I liked the kids playing the yard shot. I like it when life jumps right off the "page". And especially I like the boy's thought that he must maintain the proper geometric relationship to the camera. His mom turns it sideways, he turns sideways to be in the picture.
Link to comment

You metion the problm of harsh lighting. In my very humble opinion, the ligthing works really fine. What may be disturbing is that the photographer is using too strong a washing detergent ! the white of her clothes is what is un-balancing the photo. This could be fixed easly. ( me wandering about a square crop was probably an unconscious way of not having this white too strong ).

 

Again, it is not a suggestion, just another wandering of the mind in early morning.

 

laurent

Link to comment

Rarely am I as interested in anything someone write, as what you've written about your experience with 'art' galleries, especially that you were asked NOT to change your style OR do more than ten works per year.

 

Those kinds of restrictions would have me running too; I fancy myself rather free-form in what I will allow myself to do. That's why and how this photo came about; it pleased me, I wasn't driven by any particular 'need' and somehow it came out OK in the views of critics (no raters, as I didn't feel I could ask for one -- perhaps a poor decision, but one I think I'll stick with.)

 

I can imagine how you committed 'artistic suicide' in the face of such restrictions -- sometimes in my life, I unconsciously have done the same sort of thing-- perhaps it's a hallmark of someone who's being shoved into a box that doesn't fit. One demolishes the person with the box and the box and the whole construct as one flails around (metaphorically), trying to avoid being 'chained down' and leading a rather dreary existence. After all, it's called 'artistic freedom', and it's one thing that attracts artists in the first place. I've always treated every work I have as some sort of 'art' - especially the practice of law, and I let it challenge me and roamed around doing different things, just because they were 'interesting' to me.

 

I'm pleased to learn that you are deconstructing those who build boxes and try to put you in them; in my recent experience with a mentor that sort of pigeon-holing was expressly something that was disallowed; I was encouraged to think both 'within the box' and 'outside the box' and to allow myself further growth I can't imagine if someone tried to put me in a box of 'this kind of photographer' or 'that kind of photographer' but I think what caused my mentor to give up the ghost on picking gallery-worthy material from my vast work, was it was at once so disparate and at the same time could have lead me in various directions -- any one of which I might have been pigeon-holed in, and he didn't want to take the responsibility for that; being somewhat of an intuitive and 'free spirit' himself. I do not know if he has that insight into his behaviors, but I think I'm correct in imputing those to him, and feel comfortable with my analysis (take note Dennis).

 

I'm glad this little 'trifle' has tickled your interest.

 

Thanks for thinking about it and sharing your story -- it is a life lesson for me, although you might not have thought so.

 

John (Crosley)

Link to comment

Thank you for such an astute comment; I'm glad you watch not only what I put up for critique, but also the more 'fun' ones. This definitely is a 'fun' one that has got more than the share of attention I expected. I frankly expected I would post it, and see no views and certainly no critiques on it -- save maybe one or two, over a substantial amount of time, it at all.

 

Dennis, you know I must frame rather instintively and always pretty tightly. I don't know where I got the idea of 'tight framing' but it has stuck with me for shots like this. Other work, say the boy being scared by the 'Scream!' mask posted last Halloween, likewise was tightly framed in the viewfinder, but in tht instance, the whole photo was something different than just some 'subjects' -- one boy scaring another, but their presence within the context of a Hispanic neighborhood, and probably the children of the owner of a Hispanic video store.

 

I did check out my tolerances, and I can asssure you this was not cropped. I did check out he boy's foot versus the crack - a helpful synchronicity.

 

If you look far, far back in my work, you'll find that same sort of synchronicity in a shot I posted not of a clown, but of a clown's pants leg and the cement expansion joints on which his tearfully painted shoes are placed.

 

I guess I 'see' such things, but don't thoroughly process them. I think that's part of why I started my never to be finished Presentation: Photographers Watch Your Background -- Photo.net's largest (until you post all your Romanesque shots and make them into a tutorial Presentation on how to do what it is you've done so skillfully.)

 

In that Presentation, my job was to explain to myself by learning to explain to others, why certain shots seemed to work and others didn't, and then to teach myself how to create more such shots and make them more interesting.

 

I think that my former mentor missed this one, or it didn't ring a bell with him (or it was in his crashed foler of 'fabulous photos' from John which I never did see and which couldnt' be rescued because it was on an Apple (a windows folder is easily resurrected . . . )

 

So, I plead guilty -- I have been cropping my shots carefully, even though taken 'on the fly' as this one was (they never knew they'd been photographed, except maybe the boy recognized I held a camera. But I move quickly and often from a great enough distance, that people (subjects) often have no idea they fill my frame. Of course, I'll sometimes switch to a wide angle and get them up close, too. And sometimes, if they're at the edge of my wide angle frame, they'll have no idea they're in it either -- thinking of 'normal' lenses and a 'normal' 'field of view'.

 

I'm delighted this one has pleased you (and others). It makes my day.

 

I just returned from shooting (reshooting actually) a landscape and decided for the shot I was retaking the original shot, complete with artifacts from noise, etc. at high ISO was more 'artistic' even if not so acceptable from a Photo.net standpoint, but in the process, I got new and different shots -- ones with a bit of life in them, when I had been out to shoot only landscape geometry (strawberry fields covered with plastic in the setting sun, near and after dusk).

 

It seems I can't get away from interesting photos, and now that I've got skills in doing so, I just see more. I can only imagine what would happen if I had assisants for all else (as I did for a while last year) and could shoot more and more.

 

Thanks for the helpful analysis; it's something I just 'take for granted' I guess. Maybe I shouldn't. But then this is a discovery process for me.

 

If I ever got 'perfect' I think I'd walk away from it. I keep getting attracted by all the new and different things I see and record -- and am stretching myself a little, just for fun and because I'm caught for a while on the West Coast doing the 'perpetual download' of compressed shots from my photoshopper --a weeks long process

 

Best to you, Dennis (and PJ)

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

Link to comment

but somehow I get the idea that the woman's sweatshirt is washed out -- with obliterated detail from being overexposed, but then again, I don't know where in my organized but huge archives this photo hails from. I could take me a day to find the original jpeg or NEF and discover the truth.

 

But I'll watch for it, and see if I can 'fix' this photo by applying the 'highlight' part of shadow/highlight filter, when I have the original capture in front of me in Photoshop if the highlights are not 'blown'.

 

I wondered why you wanted a more square crop, and now you reveal yourself, perhaps to yourself . . . I am that way too, often doing things for no apparent reason only to find great reason behind my decisions.

 

Thanks for the attention and help.

 

John (Crosley)

Link to comment

I know I had a couple of drinks when I wrote all these posts last friday night, but not beeing a drinker at all I am extremely surprise to find Dennis posts in between a couple of mine ...

 

I'm very surprised to learn that you are doing some PR for me Dennis, and especially coming from you I have to admit I'm very flattered, but I don;t think my already over developped ego really needs that.

 

Dennis, actually your comment is really putting into the right words the right things my brain saw but couldn't analyse properly.

 

"I wondered why you wanted a more square crop, and now you reveal yourself, perhaps to yourself"

 

It is not really a revelation for me : I'm a lazy guy, and not really seeing exactly what was perhaps "unbalancing" the image, not wanting to think in term of heavy "retouching", a crop was more some kind of a reflex for a quick fix, BUT was an uneasy move, as the composition as it is, is perfect, the wrinkles of the white shirt, the white band in the hair, the whole position of the upper body and the head of the photographer are all re-inforcing the compostition and the spacial feeling.

 

I believe that what makes this phot stand out so much is what Dennis wrote : This photo has all the perfection of a massively staged photo, BUT, not beeing staged, the whole reality of genuine life is flowing.

 

Just a very quick personal comment. I did commit some kind of artistic suicide by not accepting the rules I was offerd, but I was already in an artistic suicidal phase before that anyway, as I did reach a point where I was doing a piece, thinking "whatever I do it will sell, so why should I care". And this was actually what was destroying me.

 

So by not accepting the rules of the market and art world, I strongly believe, with the distance now, that it actually saved me.

 

Best to you

 

laurent

 

 

 

Link to comment

... John and I exchange references to people whose work we like and I remember sending him your way earlier. I like your phrase, "massively staged" to describe the alternative to this shot. Of course it is not, which makes John's skill even more impressive. This is the kind of shot that just pleases me. Glad you two have hooked up.

 

John, think you might have missed my point about tolerances. I'm not talking about cropping, which of course would affect the outside tolerances (edge of object to edge of frame), but the internal ones. The ones that are far more interesting and complex. Those are the ones created by the slightest movements left or right, up or down, with the camera, or slightly closer or slightly more distant. These are, in your case, what I believe are your instinctive moves. For this reason, I find this shot far more interesting than a good shot of a background, at which you wait for the appropriate person to intersect with and create that image. I don't mean to diminish the accomplishment, but this other is far more difficult and far more rewarding to someone like me.

Link to comment

I understand what you are saying in your critique addendum above. You will find Dennis Aubrey goes where there is excellence -- he has fiely honed instincts, and considerable experience in the world of images (still and otherwise) -- the depths of which I only now am learning to plumb.

 

I received your interesting e-mail(s), and as I noted, unless you expressly suggest something is 'public' I treat it as private -- that's the way I conduct myself. Although I once practiced law, I am not like most former lawyers, full of stories about my clients and their interesting and often complex and very interesting stories (unless they have long passed away or have given me permission to tell their story, or in some instances, where it's public knowledge and I am careful not to go beyond the part that is publicly known).

 

I found your experience and viewpoint not only interesting, but fascinating, and I hope we have future exchanges. I did read/review your enclosures, and was most impressed. You obviously have great accomplishment and abilities. I left a remark on 'Dorian Gray' which was entirely genuine . . . the photo is most worthy.

 

I continue to be surprised that this 'little' photo has earned so much attention. There is a lesson to be learned from this.

 

John (Crosley)

Link to comment

There's Pool in River City.

 

Yes, Dennis, pool, as in that game played with sticks and balls on a green felt table.

 

When I was youthful, I lived near the University of Oregon, and like many city kids, the recreation area of the university's Student Union was open to us. It had a great selection of pool tables; Minnesota Fats and some other pretty famous pool players even had stopped there at one time or another; there also were bowling alleys.

 

Well, somehow in playing pool, and learning about complementary angles by banking shots, etc., and spending a large amount of time with those giant rectangles and balls, I think I picked up some sense of proportion and some idea of how to work and 'see' within the space of a giant rectangle -- in that case a pool (or billiards) table -- such as I played on there.

 

I think, then, that that innate knowledge of the properties of a rectangle, and my love of geometry, at which I excelled at age 13 or so, is reflected in my photography -- in that very sense of proportion that you remark on. And geometry seemed SOOOO EASY to me; I was in 8th grade and at the same time tutoring the same course to a failing high school senior who was hopelessly (almost) enmired and had asked for help and paid me real money from her 'graduation gift' to help me raise her grades. I did just that, from an F to a B+, which took into account her prior failing grades before I was hired.

 

I think in fact that may have been my first real job -- and it paid rather nicely too.

 

Although never much of a pool player, despite my exposure, I think it helped me learn that sense of respect for the various properties of the rectangle, and to appreciate other properties of geometry as well -- after all those balls are spheres, and those are another geometric object with interesting properties.

 

Did I have that 'skill' or 'intuition' as I grew up even before that; possibly. My mother populated our house with all sorts of magazines - and that was the golden age of photojournalism, so I grew up with great examples of published photos -- and later believe I learned that I just stepped into my 'skill' in part because of a youth spent observing and enjoying the work of the greats.

 

You are right, I did begin looking at this photo and its 'tolerances' -- looking for things like cropping, but wasn't that impressed with that, as I missed the mark slightly, top and bottom, and somehow intuited that you meant more. I am glad you have clarified that.

 

As to backgrounds, although not a poster in the background, due care was taken to frame this photo with the beachscape behind these two, and to include that in the photo; it was not much different in that regard from other photos of mine in which I 'watched the background' but maybe it's more subtle because it is not some form of printing or man-made 'art'.

 

Thanks for the interesting observation; I view it as high praise, but in some ways maybe I'm just one giant idiot-savant, and maybe that's part of my 'savant' part.

 

;~)

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

 

Link to comment

About massively staged : Anybody else than John would have needed to have radio contact with every single boats to put them in their exact position, and a team of assistants moving the alguaes ( dark elements on the sand ) where they are.

 

And they wouldn't have been able to catch the life we see in this picture. The more I see this photo, the more I actually SEE the smile of the woman photographer.

 

John,

 

This is a photo, I coming back to see on a daily basis since you uploaded it. And I don't do it just in order to check and perhaps answer the posts, but because the time I spend watching it every single time, just makes my day shine.

 

Thank you for that

 

best

 

laurent

 

Link to comment

I never even though to post this anywhere to ask for critique or ratings; and really suppose that if I asked for ratings, because of its poor tonal range, it still would get about a 4.75 for 'aesthetics'.

 

But then again, I never have lived for ratings.

 

Your praise is the highest I can imagine for what I have long considered an 'adorable' and 'likable' photo, that I wanted to share, but felt didn't 'fit in'.

 

Thank you for that.

 

Keep smiling.

 

I am now.

 

Partly out of surprise and partly out of new-found pride; thanks for such validation.

 

John (Crosley)

Link to comment

Why didn't you ask for a rating?

 

OMG! This has humar and life and fun to it. We all love it because it has a bit of US in it. This is what we all do.

 

Well those of us that make our KIDS stand for us,. I love these kind of pictures.

 

I don't think it is too flate. I think the picture works just right. I think the fact that you have to reduce it here on PN takes away from it.

 

I love it.

 

:)

~ micki

Link to comment

1. I post things in obscure folders to give people a chance to 'discover stuff' and give them a reason to hunt.

 

2. I make a 'rare' mistake'

 

Or none of the above, and just made a mistake and didn't ask for a rating.

 

It may not be too late, but it won't end up in any highest-rated folder except perhaps for 'comments'.

 

So, now i'm posting it.

 

Thanks.

 

John (Crosley)

Link to comment

Look Quickly, as this was posted a long time ago, has about 23

comments without any ratings and won't post on any highest-rated

lists. Here a momma photographs and her son, keeps the horizon of the

camera true to the bottom of the camera -- true to his own

childish 'logic.' 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. (this one snuck under my

radar and when i posted iit I didn't think it worthy enough to ask for a

critique and my critics have been urging me to consider it 'worthy' 0--

what do you think? John Thanks! Enjoy!

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...