'The Play'

These two men -- the poster athlete and the passerby with his unusual

posture -- appear to be engaged in a football play (soccer for Americans)

in this 'street' scene. Your comments 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

I crossed a street when I saw this one. I also took a bunch of photos, and a few were even better from a framing standpoint, but this one 'tells the story'.

 

I would never have posted a photo if I hadn't caught a passerby seeming to interact with this background in some interesting way.

 

There's no use of taking photos of someone else's work -- one is then just a copyist or a documentarian. I'm not that, at least in the more formal sense, though I hope my photos are 'documents' of their own about the human condition and sometimes also about composition and 'art' (and this one also about 'tonalities' -- at least I hope').

 

This one also shows well in color, at least on the back of a D300, though not as interpreted by Adobe Photoshop CS3, Adobe Camera Raw, which literally takes the color out of it that shows on the D300 camera back. I may post (elsewhere) a color version, so those who follow my work may have a comparison. That color version was done 'in camera' so Adobe Camera Raw had no chance to filter out the color in its search for 'color neutrality'. Interestingly, adjusting color sliders in Adobe Camera Raw would not restore the color that ACR took out.

 

John (Crosley)

Neat photo, as usual, with good tones. What has caught my eye is the "sense" of movement you captured and the non casual composition you chose (this is not for distract, quick observers). Thank you for sharing, Giuseppe

Every once in a while, one sees a background (like every day, every stop, every line on the Paris Metro ;~)) which begs for a skillfully taken photo.

 

This was one of them.

 

But a good background does not a good photo make; in fact one can just make a documentary photo of someone else's commercial 'art' and that's it -- no skill involved in that.

 

To make the background interact with the foreground and surroundings is an 'art' form I try to deal with.

 

Here, this photo is one of the photos I'd chance right now to place in my 'top 100' of all time.

 

The man, right, with his unusual gait and his thrown-back body, appears (for a fraction of a second that he was captured at least) possibly to have kicked the ball to the gigantic player, left and seems to be engaged in the action, at least to my eyes. In any case, his unusual gait seems compelling to me and worth at least a second look, even if it doesn't verify that he's a 'kicker'.

 

There were good tones here and good composition with the advertisement -- after all that's what billboard type advertisements are all about -- to attract attention and to do so skillfully through graphics (often). Here, the graphic which featured the beginnings of a triangle, called for an apex.

 

My guy walked by, with his unusual gait, and was the perfect 'foil' for this composition, adopting his unusual gait just as I fired and just as he hit the apex of the extension of the lines of the imaginary triangle projection.

 

So, this photo is based on a triangle within a rectangle, and the guy's upper body is at the apex.

 

Now add some geometry to an interesting 'scene' and you have the makings of what I hope is a good 'street' photograph, and this one (with only two rates and only a few views) I'll rank up among my very best.

 

If it got a bunch of threes of fours from this point on, I wouldn't worry much about my judgment; it passes my test. This is not 'John as usual' but 'what John posted today and it's unusually good for recent times' which have not seen me shooting much due to a recent theft of the major part of my equipment.

 

You'll be seeing more and more, in the future, I hope, but I want you to know, I don't shoot full time or even very much; I carry a camera, two or three wherever I go and shots just sometimes jump into my viewfinders. You never know when.

 

I took a total of about 15 to 19 shots of this background and some weren't worth showing, though the background showed great.

 

Today, the next day, I went by a similar background and caught two guys looking and pointing skyward (again on my way to McDonald's, which is where I eat to save money when not kitchen cooking in a place like Kiev where their McDonald's doesn't serve crappola. That second photo was really good too, but I won't post it on this service I think, but on another, because I won't post two similar photos on the same service generally, though in that photo the action is the guys pointing (elsewhere) and this (or a similar) poster only serves as a slightly seen backdrop.

 

Giuseppe, as you probably guessed, I like this one very much. A D-300 photo this compares on tones to my photo of the old guy walking past the corner in Vienna underneath a guy pointing with his finger (with the old walking guy having his finger similar pointed, only downward). That camera just has amazing in camera conversion tonalities in B&W.

 

(This is one of two frames, and the other would also be postable, but this is the better one).

 

Whether you rate high or low, or don't rate at all, your comments always seem 'right on', and I am always open to constructive criticism; I know I post some 'stinkers' at times; luckily this ain't one of 'em in my view.

 

It's been a while since posting one 'here' that I really like a lot (since Vienna in fact).

 

Now this one's was pre-framed in part, but the one I took of guy pointing skyward was only one and not pre-framed at all -- just raise the camera and shoot as I saw the two guys raise their hands skyward as they walked past.

 

Sometimes you just get in the groove (on the way to McDonald's).

 

Other times you can't take a great (and sometimes even a 'good') shot if your life depended on it ;~)

 

Thanks for the nice comment.

 

John (Crosley)

The unusual posture of the person walking next to the ad of the player about to kick the ball create an arresting image. They seem to be uncanningly synchronized in some way. They both are engaged in this "dance" where the player is about to pass the ball to the guy in the foreground. In addition, the unusual layout of the letters pointing towards the guy is another interesting touch.

Welcome back from 4th of July holidays (or at least to my part of Photo.net after the holidays).

 

You give an astute description of this photo. I happen to like it; it's one of those photos that occurs without a 'plan' when one is shooting -- one sees in one's frames such an unusual 'gait' or stance, and it gives rise to a story that otherwise was unplanned.

 

The fact is a significant number of such photos occur suchly; one takes a photo with a predetermined composition, yet something 'extra' is added when someone in the frame does something unexpected or unusual, as here.

 

That's the 'magic' of photography as I see it, and I love it.

 

Others withhold the shutter, I think when passersby cross between the lens and the 'subject'; for me I press the shutter and keep pressing it in the hopes of getting something worthwhile.

 

It often works.

 

Thanks again for stopping by and adding another astute comment.

 

John (Crosley)

Thanks John. Au contraire, it is I who enjoy the privilege of entering your visual classroom.

Really well done.

 

I've been too busy to spend much time browsing photo.net lately, so it's good to see you're still out there finding interesting subjects to shoot.

This is one of my favorites, that the more it gets commented on, and seems to pick a few ratings it goes 'down' in scores. Oh well, that's the popularity game. I sometimes think that for some photos people just don't 'get' them.

 

But I am sure you did 'get' this one. It also is good in color, if you can believe that. It's just better in black and white -- but it's one of those rare 'b&w photos that also shows pretty darn well in color, with the background having very, very good colors and good tones throughout those colors -- kind of yellow/orange muted tones -- at least in my in-camera version, though not when I worked it up in Photoshop CS3, which tried to 'mute' the tones.

 

(See, there are differences in what one program or workup will do and/or show than another, even for us guys who shoot 'street' who don't give so much a darn, so long as we get the image.).

 

I'm always glad to see your name surface and a comment from you. Whenever you pop your head up from the Far East long enough to browse the gallery, or my folder in particular, please do not hesitate to say 'hello' again.

 

You are always welcome here. At seven years, you are almost a PN greybeard and at going on five years, I am beginning to feel the same, though it hardly seems like a long time.

 

But as you are engaged in photo commerce, I hope to be soon, as well. You'll note my name all over the Internet, and I hope that is a precursor -- create some 'excitement' and visibility in hopes of generating 'sales potential' in the future for galleries and whatever -- maybe books.

 

My best to you.

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

Copyright 2008, John Crosley, All Rights Reserved.

Maybe it's just me, but there's an undercurrent of humor in this scene. The relative position of the "high and mighty" one (as suggested by his posture) and the launch postion of the athlete sets a scene in motion where the ball gets kicked right into the side of the head of the unexpecting passer-by. A snap back to reality. Very nice timing.

 

 

I like your droll or unique sense of humor -- it dovetails neatly with mine -- which is how I manage to take (and post) such photos in the first place.

 

If you scan my portfolio, I think you may find more than one place where there's evidence of just a little touch of humor -- sometimes very, very dry -- try 'The Drollness of Life' with a short guy standing on a concrete riser, hunched over a little next to a Russian-style outdoor pay telephone on a post -- he's hunched over so he can be taller, and he has to stand on the riser so he can be taller. In effect, he has contorted himself so he can assume a taller stance, and at the same time he's assumed the same shape (torso and legs with round head) as the telephone device.

 

In the same regard, see 'Classic Mirroring' -- taken also in Kyiv, Ukraine, showing a guy dressed in white passing an illustrated door/window with a guy also dressed in white -- their postures mirroring each other, but one wearing formal and the other wearing casual clothes.

 

There are lots of such 'droll' shots in my portfolio, I think you'll find . . . if you look carefully enough.

 

This is a good example of one -- I really did not know my imagination was so fertile until about four and a half years ago I took up photography again -- maybe I had one of those 'brilliant strokes' in which people are made 'brighter' by their strokes and more productive -- because I now can see things better than ever before.

 

You might even go way back and look at the woman with the HUGE smile in a Bangkok night bazaar lingerie shop with a mannequin behind her with the SAME huge smile ;~))

 

Humor DOES have a place in my portfolio, unlike so many others here.

 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and giving me a smile.

 

John (Crosley)