The Midnight Kiss

When going for the late-night kiss after a beer or three, things can be

sort of fuzzy and indistinct, as reflected in this photo taken outside a

California brewpub after midnight closing. 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

like suddenly a paparazzi won an aesthetic sense and produced this wonderful b&w. great mood and light, great image. congrats and regards.

I hope I didn't 'just get' that aesthetic sense.

 

Nor am I a paparazzi (correct term would have been paparazzo -- singular). They in fact are scum. They hector people, cause traffic accidents, stake out celebrities, invade privacy and make life hell for people who have celebrity, and I do none of that. In fact, unless invited, I will NOT take a photo of a celebrity, as explained in my comments, except under narrow circumstances which I outline. One rather obscure Emmie winner is in my photos here, but no one know who he/she/it is . . . . heh heh heh.

 

I don't trade in celebrity, but I hope to make celebrities of my subjects. . . . . kind of the reverse of what a paparazzi (o) does.

 

I agree otherwise about the photo; it was chancy to post it; being completely out of focus, fuzzy and indistinct, but it is 'fine art' in my book, and I might have stretched the envelope and posted it under that category, but I decided to let my viewers decide for themselves.

 

It is different than most of my work, but I have one group of work it fits into rather well (see 'The Brood' for instance, in Single Photos, Color, and some others, such as 'Passersby' in this folder, showing one man (and a smaller person passing by two Communist type wall-hung pay phones at night.

 

Night has its own challenges, and I deliberately used a D200 and stopped it down to use a slower shutter speed so it would not be sharp. A wise choice, then upped the sharpness to cause 'noise'.

 

It's all instinct, as is most of my work and most of my choices. Nothing is a good substitute for experience and good instincts born of experience.

 

I never took a photography course (oh, I registered for one and went to three or four classes, but it was taught by a photo lithographer who made printed circuits by photo lithrographer and he hadn't an aesthetic bone in his entire body, so I just never showed up again. I did pass through a great darkroom at a university and heard a guy (professor with fine arts degree) teaching 'photojournalism' which I once made a living at, and I thought 'a fine arts degree is a qualification for teaching at this institution, so I am unemployable here, but this guy has his head of up his rectum; I could actually TEACH this course and my students would learn something . . . . and they would not only learn it but also retain it and possibly become famous or have a shot at it.

 

But here I sit, posting on Photo.net and hoping for gallery representation, preparing my portfolio, waiting for my tardy Photoshopper to finish his tasks.

 

Best to you and thanks for the praise.

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

John,

 

The distant and unsharped way as the image is presented and the moment of the shot addressed me to the comment of the papparazi ... sorry, paparazzo. I didn't mean to call you that, or even to compare you with one of that. Please accept my apologies if you understood it that way. I think I was clear about how much I like the image.

 

If you browse my portfolio, you will see that i spend some of my time doing street photo with anonymous people, just as i believe you do. It wouldn't make any sense to come here criticize your subjects. It's obvious that I am miles away from you as the difference of ratings and comments that each one of us receive demonstrate, therefore it?s also clear for me that you didn't 'just get' that aesthetic sense.

 

It was really a pleasure to read about the details of the image and mainly about your background. I am honoured to have such an attention, thanks for that.

 

As many others are doing, I will follow your updates by adding you to my favourites.

 

All the best

 

And your adding me to 'favorites list' is the highest compliment of all.

 

Thank you so much.

 

John (Crosley)

Yes, an old friend and former colleague from the trenches who went his way with The Force and I with mine (The Force) -- the good guys always, and I were talking in a parking lot and as we were talking away, I turned my camera to this couple smooching, turned on motor drive, found my matrix meter shots were too dark, made an Easy Exposure Adjustment to brighten by one stop, took two more shots, and they walked away.

 

This is one of those two shots.

 

We continued talking vigorously.

 

He, not being an artist, could never understand that I could possibly have posted this blurry photo, which I told him I would do.

 

'It's so blurry', he said.

 

And I said, 'that's what makes it good,'

 

"If it were 'sharp' it would be ordinary" I felt, and I told him so.

 

Maybe I'm wrong.

 

I practiced law also by the gut as well as mastering fundamentals, ending some 20 plus years ago, but he and I spoke at a high level reserved mainly for attorney to attorney talk. He poured his heart out to me about the perils of practicing law, and I about the gratification of taking good photos.

 

The Force is with him as he fights for the little guy, and the Force sometimes is with me as I strive to depict often the little guy.

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

They say that love is blind and the out of focus effect of this shot couldn't be more appropriate to represent that. Althought the kiss is not discernible, the fusion of the two faces makes for an engaging sight. I like how they merge creating a blended abstract. After all, isn't romatic love the union of two distinct entities into one to create a whole?

This is indeed a 'blended abstract' and intended to be that.

 

Sometimes there are accidents, sometime 'happy accidents' and occasionally such things are known beforehand and therefore are planned, as here.

 

I love to experiment, and to post such things; I note the response has been a 3/3 to a 6/6 with ratings with one member lauding it and another obviously thinking I took a hopeless photo.

 

Maybe that's the sign of a successful photo; it made people think. This is no 'wedding photo' from a bride's album where every photo looks like the same photo from every other bride's album.

 

I'm happy to have taken this one; in color it looks pretty yellow, but 'the kiss' is more discernible and some day, perhaps on a different service, I may post that.

 

I alwys appreciate your observation.

 

John (Crosley)