Battling Inflation Together

The 'Street' can be a lonely place, so these two old pensioners tagged

up to ask for handouts together to supplement the high cost of living on

their pensions which have been heavily eroded by inflation. Their plight

is best seen in their facial expressions. 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

My only suggestion would be regarding the composition...I would have cought less from the wall and leave more room for their sight...also framing more of the crowd passing by......guess the impact would increase....

 

Anyways tehnically is a very good photo, focus, exposure, expressions, grey tones and all that 'azz

 

Best regards

Awesome shot!

Very similar..

Believe it or not, as I walked down the street, this is the very first photo I took, as I walked to a brief meal.

 

I spied this scene, turned around to make sure my camera settings were correct (they were as usual) and turned back around to take this scene.

 

Such scenes usually deconstruct quite rapidly, even when taken with a zoom at 200 mm as this one was, if one can be spied or if there are passersby, and this one did just that. I took two high-speed frames at eight frames per second and the second frame was unusable because of motion/subject blur. That's how time-sensitive this photo was. Just 1/8th of a second and the photo was over, though there were new and different (and not as good) photos to follow, all of which I captured.

 

(And yes, my companion, for me, did give them some money, as I walked by ahead of my companion, with me seemingly unaware of their presence, not wanting to tip my hand that I was aware of the presence of these women or that I'm a 'soft touch' which can affect people one passes frequently on the street.).

 

Thanks for the help on composition; the 'crowds' to their left just weren't there, or I'd have made it a more crowd-concentrated photo as you have suggested. As such, I had to make do with the wall (their *empty* cup and what was left of the crowd that had passed by. One has to make do sometimes, as in such photos there often are no do-overs -- you get one chance, and here it was for one-eighth of a second for this shot.

 

Thanks for the nice comment (and the helpful suggestion).

 

John (Crosley)

 

This photo is copyright 2008, All Rights Reserved, John Crosley

 

Thanks for the very, very kind estimation of this photo -- and for the attachment. You show a good sensitivity to the plight of such people. (I hope I do too).

 

While one might be criticized for taking such photos at all, it is only by publicizing such plights that these people can be 'seen' and the otherwise 'invisible' horror of inflation can be seen for all its danger and its affect on people's lives.

 

One cannot, for instance, capture easily in a photo how someone has to freeze in one's flat in winter because the heat is down, as a photo of a cold person may show the person cold for many reasons unrelated to trying to stretch a meager pension payment.

 

(I also cropped this one more tightly, but decided to show this one in its true setting -- the anomie of the 'street', to show you its true feel.)

 

Thanks for letting me know your estimation and for holding it in such high esteem.

 

John (Crosley)

this one doesn't need too much words, it's simply one of your best - technically / aestetichally and let me say - emotonially, thank you, Giuseppe

I toyed with the idea of putting this one up as 'untitled', and didn't only because some are not familiar with the idea of why two women might be begging together (to supplement inflation-eroded pensions).

 

Also, 'untitled' makes it the devil to locate a photo when one is combing one's files for a photo for making a 'Presentation', especially if all photos are 'untitled' even with a number attached, unless they also have a thumbnail with them.

 

I agree that this one is very good. I told my companion when I put it up that it was 'very strong' and 'among my best' -- my companion agreed and even helped choose the correct degree of contrast for this one (and gave very good advice I think).

 

Thanks for your endorsement.

 

John (Crosley)

This is great journalistic telling capture. The street the the cold emotionless massive wall and their faces all add up. very emotive.

I was some distance away with a 70~200 mm f 2.8 ( at full aperture) in the early evening, and easily could have cropped these women and come up with a very good photo just of them, but something told me to leave in the wall and the sidewalk with the walkers in the growing distance.

 

It helped (as you noted) somehow to emphasize their humanness (and also their smallness) in relationship to the largeness, massiveness and immutability of their surroundings, to include those surroundings. I'm glad I passed up the chance to crop.

 

(I did crop the women, just as an exercise, but do not plan to add it here; you can frame it with your fingers to see what it would look like, of course.)

 

Thank you for taking the time to look and also for letting me know your strong positive feelings about this photo.

 

John (Crosley)

This photo was taken, hand held, at 1/30th of a second at f 2.8 with a 70~200 Nikkor Vibration Reduction lens at 200 mm full extension at just after 8:30 p.m. one night in very late July, 2008. reflected in EXIF data that accompanies the photo.

 

In case you're interested.

 

John (Crosley)

Excellent shot. In my opinion, it's technically perfect ... very well seen and captured. Best wishes.

I blush to think how many simply awful photos I've taken between good ones, and even how many mediocre ones I've posted.

 

And to think that this was the first one I took that particular day; I might have well just have stopped right then, for there were no better shots to be had.

 

Imagine, going out and taking just one shot.

 

Would be a great story for a competition, wouldn't it?

 

Imagine, you're in a great competition to see who's the better (or best) shooter, and you come across this scene, take one photo, then quit and submit it.

 

That would be sweet indeed.

 

;~))

 

Of course there might be much better, but it's always nice to start a short evening's shootings with something good (1/3 hour of shooting is all I got that evening).

 

Thank you for taking the time to rate and comment.

 

John (Crosley)

Great shot, just the moment for the expression... Regards

Thank you for the very kind compliment. The price of a good one like this is hundreds -- perhaps thousands of mediocre to poor ones, alas.

 

Thanks again.

 

John (Crosley)

This attachment should make it clear why this colorful photo (see attachment) was posted as a B&W photo.

 

(If it is not clear, consider the inherent contradictions between the bright 'happy' colors present in the attachment compared to the predominant message of the photo and then determine for yourself whether or not the photo's message is best presented in B&W or color.)

 

Do you agree that it's best presented in B&W though it is a very colorful photo?

 

John (Crosley)

Here is a larger color version for comparison purposes.

 

In my mind there was little choice but to post in B&W, as there was an inherent contradiction between the bright, 'happy' colors displayed on their garments, on the building, on the street clothes and in the scene, compared to the grimness of their situation - a situation I felt best was portrayed in B&W (or in gray scale).

 

I shoot in both modes (color and B&W), so when a photo is color dependant, I am happy to post in color, but this photo seemed contradictory to post in color given its subject matter. Any thoughts on the matter? B-N (blanco/negro), B&W (black and white), C - B (chernoye/biele), S-W (schwarz/weiz), B et N (Blanc et noir) or whatever other initials you use to denote black and white?

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

Immaculate! Congratulations, El

John, more than a very good photo! I love it.

with regards.

Thank you so very much.

 

John (Crosley)

I just wish I could take photos of this caliber more often.

 

Thanks for the very kind remark.

 

Please don't be a stranger.

 

John (Crosley)

This one makes me feel sad and helpless, nothing you can do because money does not solve their problems.

As a photo, a straight tripple A, and I don't mean the alcohol organisation

Hi John, I don't have superior photographic knowledge to help improve your photography, but thought I could just pass by and drop a line to say I like the photo very much, like all your work. My best regards, Loic

As the photographer, I thank you for letting me know that this photo moved you so. It is part of the purpose of the documentary/street photo to have an 'impact' on people, and if that impact is to make you 'feel' that is part of its intent.

 

As a photographer, I have to deal with such people on a day-to-day basis, and I'd literally lose my mind if I weren't able to place some 'distance' between myself and their misery each time I encounter them, or to take into consideration the whole of 'street' life that I encounter.

 

For instance, beyond them lies one of the shortest major streets in the Western World, but one of the most vibrant, and there are usually more kissing couples than one can imagine.

 

I often stop to consider how I can take a photo of nearly every kissing couple, though I stop short of taking ALL those photos. (One or two can be seen in my portfolio from last year -- as I don't take or post them all and archive the ones I do take.)

 

And there are few bars in downtown Kyiv (Kiev) because this street is just loaded with park benches (it's more a park than a street in fact), and everywhere one can sit, it's a place where one can have a pivo (pronounced pivuh) -- a beer -- or perhaps a premixed cocktail, a 'gintonic' or some such (and yes it's gintonic without the space between the two words).

 

In other words, anywhere you sit is a 'bar' here and in much of Ukraine. Drinking is part of the national culture just as in neighboring Russia, and it's not unusual for 16-year-old to be seen having a brewski, or something more substantial.

 

This street, Kreschatyk Street (Kruh, sha tik) in the Center of Kyiv, is less than a mile long -- only several blocks, yet daily it is full of life and absolutely the center of life for all of Ukraine, and these two babushkij (grandmothers or simply 'old ladies) are just part of the daily ebb and flow of its life.

 

That street is ripe fodder for the 'street [photographer' because daily it is a destination for all sorts of Ukrainians, those from Kyiv and outskirts together with its anchor at nearby Independence Square (Maydan) which is a major tourist destination for all of Ukraine as well as for foreign tourists.

 

Street life here is major -- AND -- full of contradictions, as this is a second world country that is developing from a leftover Communist dictatorship that was part of the Soviet Union that fell apart in 1991, carried over to a failed leadership that fell apart during the Orange Revolution of several years ago to a now-vibrant economy, but not until after there were two or three bank failures and pensions got severely eroded in the process.

 

Old people with savings and living on fixed incomes took the brunt of the disaster, of course.

 

Recently food prices have risen substantially and the currency has eroded also substantially as inflation has taken hold -- although it is rebounding, a little it appears.

 

Some of the older people in Kyiv's Center often live in VERY EXPENSIVE APARTMENTS (owned flats) so they just come out of their flats, and because they lack some basic necessities, they beg for daily sustenance.

 

The Communists doled out these flats to the most favored, long ago, and the Center of Kyiv was one of Stalin's pride and joys - he ordered it rebuilt by his prized architects after it was mainly razed by the Nazis in World War II.

 

When older residents of the Center of Kyiv pass away, they may find their relatives (in some instances) have suddenly become rich, when the relatives inherit those flats and divvy up several hundred thousands in flat sale proceeds as they are highly sought after. (this does not speak necessarily for these ladies, of course, as I have no particular information about them at all or even if they live in the center.)

 

Some pensioners who beg are embarrassed to be photographed for fear their children or grandchildren will see photos of them begging, as one or two have told me.

 

I responded, 'Why, the relatives should be ashamed that their mother/grandmother is forced to go to the streets to beg to make money for food/utilities, etc., when their children/grandchildren are able-bodied and should be contributing to support their own flesh and blood.'

 

I tell them that in my own outrage at finding them being 'ashamed to ask for life's necessities, when they have relatives who might care for them, and who often will fight for the proceeds of their flats when they die.

 

'Your relatives should be ashamed,' I tell them. It's a very good argument as more than one older person has told me.

 

Not all older persons are poor, and not every beggar or street peddler who's older is a bum. One man I photographed recently and gave some money to, Alexei, I was told by his friends, gets a very handsome pension, and has no wants.

 

But later I saw Alexei living on the street, eating food on the street at past midnight. It seems he just prefers the 'street' for most of his daily living -- it provides him daily society, which he does not get at home, which is deserted.

 

And companionship is not to be undervalued, as most Ukrainians do have close friends, something many Americans do not -- something even these two elderly women have -- in this instance, each other.

 

I hope that puts things in perspective, Ed, lest you think all I concentrate on are beggars and old people -- I take photos of a lot of younger, prettier people too, but they just are not so compelling as this -- one of my better recent photos on this service.

 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

 

John (Crosley)

You don't have to rag on a photo to comment on it; but I (almost) always value constructive criticism. (sometimes it hits me later when a valuable point has been made).

 

Thanks for the nice words.

 

John (Crosley)

Excellent, really touch me. 7/7a. Best regards.