Full Palette In the 'Hood'

This photo, taken in South Central Los Angeles, illustrates many

things (which will be subject to comments), but for the photographer

first and foremost it represents not only nearly a full palette of

colors, but also a range of shades from blacks to whites -- in

essence the photographic equivalent of a 'color wheel' one finds

with 'color pickers' or to illustrate one or the other 'color

space'. 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

John, its been a while. I just finished up an intensive photography course in Hawaii. I'd love if you'd stop by and look at some of my recent work. I think you will particularly like this shot. But then again maybe not, nonetheless I would love your critique on it.

You are very right that this picture does indeed show a very wide variety of colors and blacks and whites. Compositionally I was at first glance semi disturbed by the almost "bulls eye" placement of the bike rider in the horizontal frame. But the more I think about it, I think it works well, the shadow dropping behind him helps bring balance. Is the door necessary for the picture? I guess if you cropped that out you would loose the highlight at the upper left hand corner contrasted by the dark shadow which was probably left very intentionally. Maybe the door was left to show even more tones and color. I'm just wondering if you cropped out the door on the left side and cropped in on the right side up to the bikers shadow if there would be even more impact?

I love the fact that the bike rider is dressed in black and his dark skin tones are accented by his white shoes and his white hat.

was this shot digitally? it seems a tad washed out to me. but maybe thats because i'm so used to seeing everyone boosting saturation everywhere...

looking forward to your response,

jim baker

The entire 'range' of tones of this were suppressed a little to make it viewable for the net. If it were printed, a larger range of lights and blacks would have been left in.

 

In the request for critique, I mentioned there would be other things to comment on beside the palette of colors and tones, and that includes the fact that a grown man (or nearly so) is riding a kid's bike on a sidewalk near a building that is decorated by a graffito work of art (even signed, see above the door).

 

And the fact the door is gated or grated is part of the ambiance of the photo and says something about society and thigs socio-economic, including the prevalence of crime.

 

I sometimes live in Ukraine, and if you leave something of any value anywhere, it disappears instantly, but unlike Russia where i once lived with my then-fiancee, there are no home invasion robberies, at least that I have heard of, anywhere that affected me. In Russia, my then-fiancee and her family witnessed the aftermath of a murder in the courtyard of their apartment building and their flat twice was attacked by home invasion robbers and bore the mark of an axe thieves tried to chop their way in (I bought them a metal door, for which they were MOST thankful).

 

But Los Angeles is not nearly so poor, even in South Central, as Ukraine, and in Ukraine, though everybody locks their doors, there is no particular need to install iron grates over doors; maybe because there's just less overt crime and violence.

 

So, you see the door was left in as an explainer of things socio-economic.

 

And why is this guy riding an undersize bike on the sidewalk, in contravention of California law which says he must ride it on the street. That's anybody's guess; I didn't ask him. I do note it is not 'his size' but then it's helpful not to have a desirable bike in a place where there are active thieves, he may have 'borrowed' it, or he may not be able to afford a better bike.

 

In any case, he's disrespecting the law, and, I note a great many people in South Central (almost all men) ride bikes. I suspect it's because of run-ins with the authorities over the issue of drinking and driving, and many of those guys don't have any automobile driver's licenses. That's an educated guess, but I bet it's dead on. Add to that the fact that many of these guys don't have money to buy a car -- no jobs, no money, no car and thus no way to get to a better job across town or in some other neighborhood, somewhat far away in a city where cars rule.

 

So, this is more than just a visual statement about palettes and tones; it is a socio-economic thesis which encapsulates a substantial statement on the status of many men in South Central area of Los Angeles.

 

And, as noted above, there were many more tones in this, which have been suppressed somewhat -- I could have saturated the top more with its light tones, but then the transition from black to white, bottom to top would have disappeared. The top was left more 'washed out' for a reason.

 

The blacks at the bottom were more intense in this digital capture (NEF - Nikon raw format), but in the interest of having it viewable on the Internet, I lightened them somewhat, or they'd have disappeared into one major tone of darkness. Printing it for a wall in a museum or gallery would be different, with people being 'up close' and able to inspect the print for subtleties which are absent on the Internet.

 

So, compromises have been made, but not too many. the shadow placement was absolutely essential to keep this photo from being too 'centered' and without a substantial shadow (or if it were lightened), I would not have bothered with posting this photo.

 

There were many decisions and judgments made in posting this; and it can be done differently and posssibly better for certain circumstances.

 

But this is the best I could do for PN posting and Internet posting.

 

And the scene was a little washed out. I had a suggestion on one photo that was pretty saturated with deep tones, that I REALLY saturate it, and the poster attached 'his version' -- but it was almost garish in its boost of saturation.

 

I'm a more 'natural' guy and in fact, I'm also often not sharpening my photos much if they're shot in 'raw' and even in Adobe Camera Raw, toning down the stock sharpening.

 

If a photo needs sharpening, I'd rather do it to the JPEG at the end, anyway, as the ACR sharpening leaves horrible artifacts if it's too substantial, especially for a photo that's slightly fuzzy.

 

And I do use sharp glass, so sharpening it not such an issue, as it might be with less sharp glass (two of my lenses or three almost never need to have their photos sharpened if I 'nail' the focus).

 

Nikon makes good glass and not so good glass, and I can work with it all, but I have three or four lenses that I simply use time and time again because they are sharp enough despite being zooms. Prime lenses almost always are very sharp.

 

Welcome back and thanks for a thoughtful and articulate critique.

 

John (Crosley)

john,

 

thanks for the welcome back... and thanks for your response. i always appreciating knowing what was going through your head as you shot. i hope to grow in my area of deliberateness while shooting. thanks for opening up your photo even more to those of us that overlooked things (i didn't notice that it was a kids bike until you said something) and I didn't even think of the socio-economic impact of the gates over a door. thanks for challenging me to look past just a visual image.

 

jim baker

I like this shot a lot.........I like the door being left in,the white trainers and cap, his bike, and for me the shadow adds a certain depth and balance, also accentuates the beautuful light.Nice work.

 

And did you notice that the 'graffito' really is a mural, signed above the door, in script: 'Lifting (illegible) Spirit'?

 

John (Crosley)

It was the beautiful light, the shadow and the gorgeous mural/graffito, that stopped me.

 

Then I spied this guy coming and set my camera to fire, knowing I had one chance to get him.

 

I did, and the result speaks pretty plainly.

 

I'd like you to see it if it were printed with the full range and tones of black that can't covey on the Internet -- it would really be a great photo -- on the good monitor I have, it's even more beautiful.

 

Thanks for stopping by and giving me thoughtful feedback.

 

John (Crosley)

The background is very attractive and really fits well by complementing the social commentary. Perhaps if the rider was placed in one of the sides instead of dead centered a stronger sense of movement could be achieved (either entering or leaving the frame, by which each of the two options would provoke different responses in the viewer). I'm not very fond of the long shadow at the bottom as it creates an unexpected split of contrasting exposures and thus splitting the bike in half as well.

I do understand your misgivings about parts of this photo. Thanks also for the nice things you said.

 

Oh, that I could achieve the perfection you write of . . . .

 

But I'm a mere mortal (and besides I like the black at the bottom and the gradual lightening toward the top as well as the bicyclist's placement.

 

And at five or six frames a second I think I fired a single shot, and this is what I got. It's what I wanted -- and more. I'm sorry it doesn't measure up for you, but I like it very much and am happy to have posted it.

 

And thanks for letting me know your thoughts; you probably speak for many more who see this photo, but don't write, so good for you to do so.

 

John (Crosley)

To me this has a psychedelic feel. It's the coexistence of fantasy and reality that makes this so captivating with the cyclist taking a ride through a surreal jungle.

Psychedelic is exactly what this is, and it might even have made a good caption.

 

'Pedaling through Psychadelica' or something like that, except this 'art' has a Hispanic, ghetto look and feel to it, that relates more to Aztec art and Mexican folk art than what we saw in San Francisco around the 'Summer of Love' which I missed by a few months while I was in Viet Nam.

 

Oh well, so I wasn't there when Haight and Ashbury were alive with 'free love' . . . . .

 

It is a disappointment in my life that I didn't see that, but I also was not into smoking dope, drugs and communes or believing that living a life of 'love' could undo the makings of politicians, and mostly I was right.

 

Abby Hoffman, for instance became a securities analyst on Wall Street -- the ultimate sell-out -- pedaling stocks -- for a guy who advocated 'stealing' by using a pseudonym for the verb 'steal' as 'liberating'.

 

Come to think of it, having worked for a short time exactly ON Wall Street and having absorbed some of its culture, I can say with certainty, that it is primarily motivated by GREED for the companies that sell stocks, bonds, and other investments and the investor, in general, be damned (I have such stories to tell about that.)

 

Don't ever trust a stockbroker.

 

Or a retired hippie who is trying to sell you stocks.

 

Or writes that you that you are 'freeing' property when you are stealing it; he will make a poor investment advisor.

 

And that's something I have long known, and perhaps why I was not there during the summer of love (but a few months after that).

 

Psychedelic.

 

Meant taking drugs generally, and in great quantity.

 

I rejected that, and though I lusted after those beautiful hippie girls, I was never a hippie, though I got along with them quite well and often associated with them.

 

I just was not going to drop out.

 

Never have.

 

Never wanted to.

 

It will happen some day though, for sure.

 

Life's like that.

 

Thanks for the critique and and opening the door to 'psychedelica'.

 

Must have been great to be a participant in the 'summer of love' - I was just too hidebound realistic to be an active participant (and getting shot at in Viet Nam or elsewhere).

 

John (Crosley)

I think it must have been great too. I was born in 1966 so I missed out a lot.

Some things you missed out on.

 

The country going to Vietnam in a war based on a lie -- the Gulf of Tonkin incident this country has acknowledged was based on a lie -- it never really happened, or the way that this war trigger was told to the American people and the war.

 

Going into a barber shop and seeing girlie magazines spread out all over everywhere, hearing jokes told by the barber and nearly all his customers, mostly at the expense of (1) black people whom they called 'Niggers' and hearing incessant jokes based on race and discrimination - Q. 'What did the President say when they sent the first Nigger astronaut to outer space?' A. 'The Jig is up.'('Jig' being another of many derogatory expressions for black Afro-Americans (I note the term Afro-American to denote a black person is a misnomer, as there are many north Africans, from Morocco to Egypt who are quite fair skinned and can at best be called that indeterminate word 'swarthy' -- a word often used in Russian-English, which is hard to translate) (b) Marilyn Monroe, with nearly every 'girlie' joke being told at the expense of her chastity and femininity, and in derogation of her essential self (she was always a 'whore' or someone to 'screw' or who 'screwed' everybody in those jokes), and © etc. etc. etc., with all sorts of discriminatory things said about just about everybody, from women, to people of color, to foreigners (slopeheads, ginks, gooks, etc.) to women (whores most of them, and especially the prettiest ones), to homosexuals (fags for the most part, even though that term as 'Nigger' can be used in the black community to denote one of its own, so can the gay community sometimes can use the term 'fag' or 'faggot' to denote one of its own, but definitely the terms 'Nigger' and 'faggot' were not terms of endearment in the white barber shops of this country.

 

And of course, Q. 'What would you do if one a them coons came in and asked you to cut his hair?' A. I would refuse, they didn't teach me in barber college to cut black hair -- (feigned upset) I wouldn't know what to do - how to cut it.

 

People throwing waste out of their car windows nearly everywhere so that if you drove a main road or highway at night the headlights caught the glitter of reflections from broken bottles, beer for the most part, almost everywhere on the shoulder - newspapers, garbage, and everything else was thrown into the great outdoors.

 

Billboards that lined some of the prettiest (or not) areas of the country, incessantly lining up on remote highways, as one drove across the country, advising everyone what pop to drink, what beer to buy, what cigarettes to smoke, what chewing tobacco to buy (usually painted on the side of large barns facing traffic), and so forth, including across the entire stretch of Wyoming, billboards saying how many miles to 'Little America' as one cut through that vast eroded and very high and barren part of the Rocky Mountains, and finding when one got there, it was certainly the largest gas station in the world, with more pumps than most bearded men have whiskers . . . . the prototype of the great auto and truck stops for today, but none now as big.

 

'Loitering' as an offense - in essence: 'hanging out' 'without an obvious purpose' was deemed 'agains the law' and one could be jailed just for that, a great hammer to give police, and many used for personal vendettas or to perpetuate their prejudices.

 

Sheriffs who actually looked and talked like Rod Steiger 'In the Heat of the Night' including one I met while police were taking my statement in Trenton, N.J., a heavy guy with a bulldog face, smoking a stogie, who was the spitting image of Rod Steiger, calling in all off-duty troops to quell a race riot that was forming in Trenton (where I had been shot, and the reason I was in the police station - to write my statement. This is soon before the black rioters broke into the police station and that cop held them off with a shotgun, me at his side)

 

The police chief (Mr. Steiger's look-alike, was by that time out on the street with his men. Toll: two rioters killed that night.

 

But if you ewalked through jail corridors that night as I did with police escort -- to have a 'look see', you could hardly imagine the venom they shot at me, solely because I was white, and not because of anything else (they didn't know me or that I tutored in Harlem, or that even my tutorees, had named me a 'Nigger' too, because I was 'just like them only with white skin'. They just wanted to kill me, and threatened me viciously, solely based on my race.

 

Watching on television Bull Connor, police chief of Birmingham, Alabama sic police dogs on nonviolent anti-segregation protesters, and having President Eisenhower have to call out the National Guard just to let a school be desegregated because a state's governor refused to follow the edict of a federal court to desegregate.

 

Vagrancy laws, which allowed police to pick up anyone, and if they did not have what police deemed was a sufficient amount of money on them (or any other particular reason such as the famous 'spitting in the streets') to jail them, often for long times and often losing the key. Being a poor person was illegal.

 

The period pre-'Miranda', where police, even on often made-up evidence, would target someone, and then make such terrible threats against them, their families and their financial interests, so that after days of rough interrogation, they often signed 'confessions' though those confessions were really the result of intense, illegal pressure and were often completely unreliable (which is why the Supreme Court passed 'Miranda' and other, similar rulings).

 

Prosecutors and police singling out people they didn't like for single-person lineups -- or lineups of black people in a group of whites or other people not similar to the witness's description, then pushing out the alleged 'perpetrator' who might have the same height, color, and build as the alleged wrongdoer and encouraging witnesses to 'identify' the accused -- even helping them.

 

Police in Winnemucca, Nevada sweeping the carpet of a black man (during your lifetime too) and after allegedly sweeping four marijuana seeds out of his carpet (they found nothing else) sending him to prison for four years for 'drug possession. (Police and the City of Winnemucca later were losers in a giant civil rights lawsuit alleging a pattern of civil rights abuses, that did not end until the '80s or early '90s. My fault, partly too, because I was Associated Press reporter for that part of the country for a while, and I might have uncovered that, but didn't, although nobody intimated such was going on -- it was kept 'undercover'.

 

'Stringing up' black people, because they had alleged committed social infractions such as touching a white woman, etc., (mostly in the Deep South), so that even today a noose to a black person is a symbol of Jim Crow laws and the worst extremes of discrimination and basicallly a racial threat against a black life.

 

The Ku Klux Klan spewing their hatred and filth, and most people too afraid to contradict them, because then they'd be labeled 'Nigger Lovers' and possibly lose their jobs or have their businesses boycotted.

 

Girlfriends (for us straight guys) who kept saying 'no, no, no NO NO NO NO NO') when they often never meant it . . . so they could say to themselves and their friends they had 'resisted' the amount socially necessary even though in actuality they were more than willing participants -- giving some men who actually confronted a women who would go so far bu6t then say a real 'No!' a real problem - did she mean it, or was she just feigning as so many did?

 

Anti-homosexual everything. Anybody called 'Bruce' was being called a homosexual. Milk labeled 'homo' for homogenized, was the constant butt of rude anti-homosexual jokes. The label of being a 'fairy' was used to taunt and goad men into doing things they shouldn't to 'prove their masculinity' -- something nobody should have to do - have to prove their anything or defend their orientation as being solely straight.

 

Laws on many states which prevented people of one race from marrying another (anti-miscegenation laws).

 

Coverture, a legal principle in which a woman who married gave up all power over her sole and separate property to her husband, because as a woman who was married, she was deemed unfit to control her own property; of course, certain men targeted women of wealth to marry them and put them under 'coverture' for life, resisting divorce at every instance, so they could control that money (or exhaust it, then move on). The man literally controlled a woman's wealth - and she couldn't even open or write a check on her own bank account, or even have a checking account or savings account, except under the control of her husband, and bank forms which carefully marked whether a woman was 'married' or 'not married' so they could comply with 'coverture laws' (not in all states during my adulthood, but in the majority, I am sure).

 

And so forth.

 

The Summer of Love, was in fact the culmination of the spirit of those people who had been raised under such a so-called peaceful society which actually was based on part on institutional discrimination and hate, and the hippies simply rebelled against that society which I am describing above, and pronounced themselves outside of law and convention as described and a few others laws as well (such as drug laws, property laws), and tried in their fitful way to try to make a new society.

 

And that is why the 'Summer of Love' was such an important milestone.

 

All those things which I grew up, which were full of hate and discrimination, had crumbled, started to crumble, or were about to crumble, because of social pressure started in part by idealistic and hedonistic youths.

 

So, yes the 'Summer of Love' was more than free, sex, drugs and rock and roll.

 

It was

Wow, those are huge cameras; are you paparazzi?

 

No, I am not a paparazzo; they're mostly scum, I don't take celebrity photos.

 

Well, what do you take photos of?

 

Mostly people here and everywhere; today I spent much of my day in South Central taking photos.

 

Wow, South Central. Isn't' that dangerous? I've never been there, but I heard it was really dangerous.

 

Well, it may indeed be dangerous, but it's a place where there are great photos, with wonderful, colorful painted storefronts -- essentially it's a whole different world than right here (West Los Angeles), you should go there some time, just because you're living in the same city; you should know what your whole city is like.

 

'I'd be too scared'

 

Maybe sometimes I get a little scared as a white guy when some people don't like anybody, no matter what their color and there are predators, but ya gotta see what ya gotta see, and I take photos, no matter where.

 

I see an occasional thug, and occasionally get 'threatened' but I have learned through a life time some 'street smarts' and usually know when (and how) to protect myself and when to scram . . . and a safe route to do so.

 

There are great photos to be had everywhere, and no place in America should be 'off limits' -- otherwise there never would be any photos like this or many others in my portfolio.

 

John (Crosley)