color -- then and now Two Old Dudes: Study in Brown, White, and Blue

This a 'blast from the past' a long believed lost photo from long ago, an

original color 'street' photo of mine that hasn't ever been seen by

anybody, ever. Note the concurrence of brown in various places and the

same with white (hats, building side shirt/tie). 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 (reminiscing on street shooting of

the 'old days')

Sir this is one of the greatest street scenes I have had the pleasure to veiw on this site. I am glad you mentioned the importance of the hats and the backgrounds, very powerful stuff. This is an image the likes I aspire to take someday. Thank you for sharing.

Sir was not my father, not my father's father, and certainly not me. I'm John, (except those who cross me, then it's MR. CROSLEY).

 

I found this old slide copy interneg in an old box I thought was destroyed, one of the last taken from old slides from when I was a youth, age 22, and taking photos in San Francisco.

 

Don't confuse the costume and it's being dated for greatness, though sometimes 'greatness' is revealed by age (see an earlier photo from my first roll of film taken that same year, three men in a ferry boat in black in white in my Black and White, Then to Now, folder -- yes, my first roll of film ever).

 

My style, you see, was not something that 'evolved' but seemingly sprang from nowhere, almost full blown. Compare this to my present day work. I only took a few photos like this, and many other such photos were desaturated (made in to black and white) and appear in my Black and White, Then to Now) folder, but started out as color captures also, often with such wonderful color 'coincidences' as this. Consider the man on a bench beside a pier for a starter, now shown only as B&W, but which began as a very wonderful slide -- transparency, color photo, now desaturated only.

 

Thanks for the high compliment.

 

Take good photos now and look at them in ten, twenty or thirty years and you also may be in for a great surprise -- they may become 'historical' as this one has (as you view it anyway).

 

Best to you and thanks for the high compliment.

 

John (Crosley)

a very good example of a good eye (supported by a smart mind) at work. Thank you, Giuseppe

Giuseppe

 

 

'Chiasmus',

 

Inverted parallelism -- in a figure of speech or grammatical structure,but it applies to this photo, and you have taught me something about the use of words -- my congratulations. I understood from the start the reversal, but never had a name for it; you have supplied that name. Unfortunately you dd not define the term and supplied another set of definitions which did not define the term and may have mislead.

 

That's why I have more precisely defined it above, taking a cue from Wikipedia and a little extrapolation which is the same process I am sure you went through. Do you have a doctorate in the use of language/reasoning?

 

You have to understand that this photo is 40 years old (there, you know exactly how old I am if you read carefully, but please do not write my current age down anywhere. It is something you can figure out, but not to be written. And I am somewhat youthful; I don't hang with people my age, those who want to plan for retirement, cruises, etc., and I hang with my friends and my girlfriend, a model who's in her early - mid '20s, and whom I love very much (and who loves me equally, she assures me daily), and the world's opinion of such relationship be damned.)

 

In fact, the world's opinion of anything i think of do, be damned so long as they harm no one else, and are interesting and keep me out of trouble. I long have had a fertile mind, and I can imagine going out today or tomorrow and seeing and taking the same photo some 40 years later, (and damn the graffiti!). I could have cloned it out, but I don't do such things.

 

Note that the guy left is short and handsome, but the guy right is seated and taller and both are about the same height in the photo. . . . . Did you see that. The left guy is very handsome. How old do you think these guys from the mid-late '60s are? And my posted photo here is five years old, and on another service just three years old or so, but I think these guys may be in their late '60s or early '70s but getting ready to die. Nowadays men live longer, I think, but I may be wrong about their age . .. and it's a guesstimation.

 

Note also, that they are wearing suits; something I did for two or three years at Columbia College, Columbia University, every class every day until students took over the University (and I got published with my first camera for that and other 'street' photos when the students did that and before when RFK and Martin Luther King got assassinated' This was taken later, after I got back from Viet Nam, so i guess I actually was maybe 22 to 23, and tending to 23 at the time if I was in San Francisco, but I cannot be absolutely sure.

 

I used to stay up late to walk the streets in early morning to take 'street photos', and didn't take too many, but constantly on the prowl, and with two cameras, as now, but one for 'street photos' and another for 'stock photos' since the latter promised to pay some bills (and did intermittently, with a 2-1/2 square Mamiyaflex 220, hanging around my neck or intermittently I walked around with two 35 mm lenses, from riots to parades, to campus occupations, and even the Viet Nam war.

 

And my eye hasn't changed that much despite a huge hiatus in between. It's like I mostly stopped for decades and just picked up cameras four years ago (after taking a few photos every decade) and revived my ability to see mostly as before, but with special new powers and abilities lately and amazing new ability to 'see' and produce' anew.

 

I am indebted to you for expanding my vocabulary and naming the vital element of this long-ago photo.

 

Best to you.

 

John (Crosley)

Very nice! The tones resemble a scene by Rockwell. Expressions are wonderful.

 

I only miss the fingertip and there is a slight tilt to the left.

Perfect in every aspect. Congrats !

It's a transparency (then known as a 'slide'.

 

Exactly as shot.

 

Not one bit of manipulation or compensation, preserved on a copy Internegative recently found. Imagine that.

 

It's as though my present shooting went back in time to then, or my shooting then went forward to now; there's very little difference, I feel.

 

(except modern subjects are . . . well, more modern)

 

Thanks for the critique.

 

John (Crosley)

I am glad this one pleased you. I am also pleased you left a rating showing that.

 

Best to you, even if you did not rate highly.

 

Thanks for taking the trouble to view and critique.

 

John (Crosley)

As I recall, these guys are on a corner, so the line at the right is actually downslope as it runs to the man, right, as it approaches the right angle of the corner of the building structure. This is not one straight wall but the intersection of two..

 

So, the only real indicator of whether or not this is 'tilted' truly would be the one true vertical line -- and I am undecided whether it shows a true tilt or not. I'll let you put on 'grids' on Photoshop and tell me (or anyone else for that matter) but the horizontal lines are not good indicators -- though it looks like 'the' horizontal line is one continuous horizontal line -- it actually is a continuation around a building corner -- again, if I recall.

 

This addresses an unresponded to part of your critique, above.

 

John (Crosley)

If you got it you will always have it, and this is a telling testimony of your ability to capture scenes with your talented vision even back then. The colors, jovial subjects and lines dissecting this composition are what makes it work so great.

I hadn't seen this photo in 15 years, and then only as a red masked copy negative, and before that it was in the early 1970s when I saw it.

 

I look at it now and I instantly recognize it as one of mine. I have posted maybe two color slides featuring color work of mine from an early period -- maybe three, but they're landscapes and don't show my 'street style' in color.

 

Others, B & W captures, originally were in color and some were colored as propitiously as this but worked just as well or better in B&W, so they got desaturated long ago into 4" x 5" copy negs when I also had them printed as 8 x 10s (stupid me, not to have ALL of them printed full frame, especially 'Balloon Man' and also copied full frame -- they gave me little choice -- 'this is the way we do it here' and I was not taking photos actively at the time, and had little in mind other than to save precious captures and little technical proficiency, and it was a giant, well-known lab, so I took their word they would do a good job.

 

Well, their work was impeccable, but they did crop some to 8 x 10s and others were printed full - frame where absolutely necessary to save the capture.

 

I had the copy negs scanned as TIFFS, saying I wanted 'exhibition quality' scans from my photo finisher (a highly regarded Palo Alto camera store/photo finisher) and they gave me large TIFFS (a redundancy, of course, as TIFFS are always 'large') but in all cases they worked out with large files to 466 dpi at 3" x 6" scans. Hardly enough for gallery 20 x 30 blowups, so I am having them redone (at their expense). They listened politely to my instructions, then wrote nothing down, -- they were too busy seeming to admire my old B&W captures, reduced to those copy negs.

 

Well, this also was among them, and it shows just how close my present work is to what I was doing then -- although my repertoire now is vastly expanded -- I SEE so much more now than then, and with auto everything, have better chances to capture so much more.

 

And film then was very expensive. This was Ektachrome (not Kodachrome, as immortalized by Simon and Garfunkle, since that had to be returned to Kodak, although Kodachrome was usually much better saturated, but other labs and even home processors could do Ektachrome, though mistakes were easily made in the hour-long process with many, many chemicals and carefully-controlled temperatures.

 

(One guy I know had a tape he made then played: '. . . pour solution six into the canister . . . at the sound . . . . pour solution six out of the canister at the sound . . . pour solution seven into the canister at the sound etc. . . . all of which was pretty ingenious and hard to screw up).

 

I found the graffito here hard to stomach and felt it helped ruin an otherwise picture perfect street photo, but it's street, so what are you gonna do?

 

But it's color dependant, so the blue hardly helps, though the leftmost guy has on a blue suit (notice)?

 

This is precisely a color photo, and could not properly carry impact as a black and white; and fits my definition of a color-dependant photo -- one that only should be shown in color for maximum impact, even though it is interesting and has good composition and lines.

 

Thanks for the nice observation . . . hope it doesn't discourage newbies though, as it took a while to get back 'into the groove' after I started shooting again . . . and to regain lost 'magic' I felt I had -- if indeed any of my 'street' work had 'magic' - something I feel it had for me at least.

 

I just never in my life before PN or other forums (fora) thought I'd find a place to exhibit it . . . and only showed it to a few private individuals -- very precious few -- fewer than 15 in my lifetime, I think.

 

(it bored most of them, too.)

 

I learned my lesson, and put the photos away, awaiting the magic day when I'd find an audience of people who at least were interested in how I saw things.

 

Now I have found that, for which I am profoundly grateful.

 

(In a way, it's as though a former English student picked up an early short story he/she wrote and suddenly found it was publishable and had worth as serious literature, due to a changing publishing market or changing market tastes or some combination of the two -- don't you think?)

 

In any event, I'm very grateful for a chance to get feedback on this, earlier work as well as my much later work (from my first roll of film to my last download, if you can believe that).

 

How much luckier can a guy get, anyway . . . except to make oodles of money doing so?

 

Best to you Adan W.

 

John (Crosley)

in every way. just love the way the geezer on the left has just a couple of inches of pinkie intruding into the next frame. fabulous pic.

My goal, even then, was to take 'timeless photos' -- only then no one could see it.

 

Look through my present captures and see (if you ever have time and inclination) how many might have future 'timelessness' to them . . . . some may have that quality and you may see it.

 

I know now I am getting a sense of that.

 

Some of my captures which do not rate so highly have that quality. I am thinking of one capture of spots on a wall in which the roundness and whiteness of a boy's head contrasts with the blackness of a spot on a wall behind him, or another in which a boy is surprised by a video store by another in a SCREAM mask the day of Halloween (lucky capture, but well framed to get the store AND the action), or perhaps just the boy with something in his hand running along a storefront in LA which seems to be trailing graffiti but which just overlaps already existing graffiti, or finally, a little seen photo in which a rectangular street sign show up in shadows in a building and are repeated in a newspaper held by a man (in a diagonal) and repeated once again in the shadow of the rectangular newspaper -- pure and wonderful photos that never could be duplicated outside of a movie set.

 

Others, the woman 'flying' with her sprayers on the Paris Metro with the woman with fluttering hands (like the spray from the flying woman) below her, also outstretched arms, and so many more.

 

Enough for a book, or a gallery.

 

A timeless collection, I think, most taken in four years, if you can believe that -- the most recent four years when I really got lit on fire because of the Internet, but wonderful photos every once in a while in between.

 

I can't wait to see what I can take into the future.

 

And look on Photocritiq.com to see some other wonderful ones that I haven't posted here -- few duplicate postings. some there are also wonderful and some of my best.

 

It often now shows up in a Google.com search of my name. Looking for a blue girl on slide or a photo of 'lurking behind you' taken several weeks ago which has its own Google.com entry under my name, often. (Google changes several times a day, so it can't be replicated.)

 

But one posted photo, I say proudly, is from my first roll of film.

 

Yes, my first roll of film.

 

And it has proved timeless and even been pirated by the Internet bloggers who have selected some of my best stuff to steal!

 

At least they don't misspell my name.

 

Thanks for the kind comment.

 

John (Crosley)

Changes in taste are so transient. One day you are in, the next one you are out. Sometimes I wonder about what makes something "hot" or "in". Does a person's opinion carry that much weight and impact? People sometimes behave like sheep and don't want to go through the trouble of thinking. They want the thinking to be done for them. The book might have found a new appreciative audience, but that doesn't mean that it was never a good book.

 

That place in Palo Alto, is that Keeble and Shuchat?

Yes, tastes can be transient, but time tells, and with my photography, luckily time is telling well.

 

This same style here is the same style I photograph in now PLUS another variety of styles as well, just as I did then, as then I shot scenics, landscapes, stock photography, etc., but not prolifically.

 

I just did not SEE as much as I do now.

 

I now have incredibly more vision or ability to SEE than I did then.

 

I just never imagined I could be able to SEE what I did then and be able to see so much more. It is as though I was given a gift and it never went away despite decades of misuse or slight use over intervening tens of years.

 

And, this is one of my styles, preserved. Just compare it to my present work and you'll see it's very much a 'Crosley'.

 

I retrieved the '1200' ppi or dpi rescans today and they're marvelous, so that place in Palo Alto which you correctly named is absolved of their inattention. They are really a wonderful place and honest to the core, under the watchful eyes of manager Jeff Alford and owner Terry Shuchat who have preserved a fine tradition for photographers and made it a haven for the serious despite chain stores.

 

One wonderful part of their shop is the no questions asked return policy -- I once saw a guy return a 200-400 f 4 Nikon VR zoom because he didn't like the 'bokeh' even though it was wonderful.

 

I held it and shot with it, and it was super.

 

They gave him his money back on the spot (by check I think).

 

I think he actually overspent and needed the cash, if you ask me.

 

(That can happen to the best of photographers and a photographer who is well equipped in a foreign country is never without a source of cash to get home if stuck, if serious problems erupt, especially with the Euro so strong and Nikon selling stuff abroad at such high prices and here so 'cheaply' by comparison.)

 

I still give that shop the highest rating and they do match prices -- something to keep in mind, even if you do have to pay CA sales taxes. That return privilege is super, especially for newly released items which can have bugs.

 

I once ran into a guy on his third D300 -- bugs in the first two - and they still were taking them back from him (a while ago; they seem all to be out of the D300s now).

 

They never blink an eye if a problem develops or raise an eyelid, and, at the managerial level, they have what I feel is high professionalism.

 

They have my unsolicited mark of approval and endorsement.

 

(I shop there often when I want to be sure something works and especially if I need it now and need to be sure I can take it back promptly if it doesn't live up to specs).

 

And many other times as well.

 

And while there today, I took 15 minutes to walk up the street and take 'street photos' -- literally just 15 minutes and got 15 or 20 good ones. (many were near duplicates so only two or three will be exhibited here or elsewhere).

 

I like the D300 because of its desaturation 'in the camera' ability. That's pretty wonderful, plus sometimes its (somewhat limited) in the camera 'trim' feature. (not a full crop exactly -- just 'trim').

 

It's a camera that I could live with for a long time . . . and I've used five of them so far. (two stolen).

 

I have my questions about the usefulness of spending $5,000 for a D3, unless one is in a studio shooting 30,000 frames a month and needs a workhorse body or is on assignment for National Geographic with an assistant.

 

(And I won't be working with Steve McCurry any time soon or any of his cohorts -- I'll have to make my own way--maybe MY WAY).

 

Best to you.

 

John (Crosley)

Well, John...nothing like being the captain of your own ship. Your "way" seems like is the right way...at least to me.

 

I am not comfortable taking pics of people, but that doesn't mean that I would not give it a try, especially because I have been inspired by you. I will be going to Portland OR for July 4th and later on I might visit Alaska. Let's see what type of inspirations I can encounter.

 

 

I took only two photos today amid a 600-mile auto trip and some business:

 

1. A photo of pepper in those black and white single-serving containers in an In-And-Out Burger canister--very,very good,and totally out of genre for me,but almost abstract and looking in black and white as though it came from a top studio instead of a counter at In-And-Out Burger.

 

2. A young girl goofing while her father did banking, eyes crossed and sticking out her tongue.

 

You just gotta carry your camera(s) with you and take whatever strikes your fancy as a good photo; regardless of genre.

 

I just posted last night on another service (you know which) another Michel Karman selection which earlier I had turned my nose up at, and which now I understand the worth of. Funny how those things work, and how he so often has been right about his choices, but this is a more difficult choice, so we'll see.

 

I'm tired and a little rocky from a long drive, and urge you only to take what inspires you and don't take unnecessary chances; I know how to deal with situations on the street and how to disarm people; you only have my writings (so far as I know) to deal with those things. (and they are very handy guidelines, I think, judging from how people approach me with cameras and how readily I often disarm them . .. based on even today's experiences.)

 

People so often remark when they see a guy burdened with one or two professional looking cameras, it begs for a remark they think and often a quick comeback, so it helps to have your quiver full of such.

 

Best of luck on your journey; enjoy yourself.

 

If you have salmon on the B.C.Ferries, don't expect anything but cooked, smoked salmon, and it ain't so great. If it is smoked, it ain't raw, deli or French style, but cooked, and almost always pretty dry.

 

Not great eating. But B.C.is pretty wonderful if you get up that way (be sure to be packing a passport, though - and you should have one anyway . . . )

 

John (Crosley)

Straight!

From Pygmalion (My Fair Lady)

 

By Jove, I Think You've Got It!

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

 

(with thanks)