The Observer(s)

Sometimes more people are participating in life's events than one is

aware of. Is this young woman aware of who is looking over her

shoulder? 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! John

You hit the nail on the head with this photo. The mannequin's head turned with the girls tells me he is in the know. For a street photo this is a winner.

This is a little subtle for most critique forum viewers -- most are used to being 'hit over the head' with the obvious, and I had issues about that before posting this photo on this service. (There is another service where such subtlety is welcome and I also post, but I don't post much there, reserving some of my very best stuff for them -- and cross-posting only occasionally).

 

There is a story about this photo and how it came about. I may tell it a little later, as and if more people show an interest. It's how 'street' photos of this sort come into being.

 

Thanks for the kind comment and making the effort to let me know your feelings.

 

John (Crosley)

I have difficulty looking away from this image. It creates a deliciously eery feeling. The girls look almost like mannequins themselves. Great shades of B&W. Could it be that they are inside and the mannequin is looking in the window at them.. so many interesting reflections that it's difficult to tell. Unique and fun..Marjorie

This was a hard one to decide to post on Photo.net with its sometimes fickle audience.

 

In the end, however, I really felt I had no choice -- I personally liked the image so much that even though I expected ratings in the 4's and mixed with 3's, I posted it anyway and said 'to heck with it' -- but sometimes the raters and commenters show uncommon good judgment, or simply a more complex photo brings out a certain class in raters, (or brings out the more 'class' raters). I should explain that this is in Ukraine, where they often speak Russian (1/2 or more of the nation) and the word for 'really good' or 'exceptional' is pronounced 'klass'.

 

Sometimes I may show a capture on the street to someone and they'll remark 'klass' -- that's my ultimate validation -- when an ordinary person on the street can see that a photo is pretty good or even exceptional. And the 'man in the street' often is pretty skilled in judging what's good, too, at least the ones I show photos to.

 

There is a story about this one and how it was made that may bear telling, but I'll wait to see if there's real interest. This is one instance where there was pre-visualization, as 'Pogue Mahoney' wrote me (Andy Eulass in his PN pen name), when I first became a member.

 

Best to you and thanks for sharing your thoughts and taking the time to write.

 

John (Crosley)

as usual. The mood (the eyes of the lady perhaps) is a very good old one, directly from those old and always new hcb lessons. Thank you for sharing this one, Giuseppe

I don't know about 'as usual', but when I saw the store mannequin (this is the story I referred to above about how such photos come about), I stopped in my tracks and surveyed the field, because these young women were in close proximity and I thought to myself 'perhaps I can get a juxtaposition where the mannequin appears to be snooping into their affairs, as the two were just standing there apparently waiting.

 

So, I stood some distance away with my zoom tele on a broad sidewalk/plaza area that lines this very long street and began the slow and somewhat long job of circling these two in a long semi-circle trying to place them in juxtaposition with the mannequin and get a good 'take' on the two together, as these women moved a little bit.

 

So, there they were, moving about and me moving about, and the mannequin stationary and my zeroing in on them with my telephoto zoom and of course they saw me, but instead of being too self-conscious (emphasis on 'too') they figured I was photographing them and kind of half-ignored me and were, I think, partially puzzled and partially flattered (and hadn't any idea about the mannequin and its place in this short series of photos).

 

So, the woman with eyes looked at me and down the street and appeared a little uncomfortable and put her arms around her neck.

 

Well, the mannequin also has crossed arms, so there's (if you'll excuse the expression) a 'double-cross' or somewhat similar, and that's partially why I chose this particular shot (of the very few I took, and I took not many).

 

This was a hard shot to take and post because I hoped for better expressions, and it was the devil to focus because I was using autofocus and should have been using manual focus so I could use hyperfocal distance calculations and focus on the glass and get the girl's eyes in front of the focal plane and the mannequin (2/3 behind the focal plane) and get both within the range of acceptable sharpness if possible.

 

[Note to Nikon: Manual focus with your non-interchangeable focus screens sucks. They are made for autofocus shoooting and are nearly clear, and don't reveal 'out of focus areas' nearly so well as the older fresnel screens you put in manual focus cameras or in interchangeable focus screen cameras. You ought to at least give us a choice of focus screens, as some of us would like to do more 'manual focusing' in situations such as this.]

 

As it was I had to sharpen the frontmost woman's face somewhat, but it does not 'stand out' because of the low contrast of the lighting and the lack of sharp features on her face (just try to sharpen a face with sharp features -- say with visible face hairs and pores and you'll see that some faces can't be sharpened much or at all.)

 

But sharpening on her face seemed to work out right and I also sharpened her eyes somewhat and lightened them somewhat, increasing contrast, just to bring them out - which is sometimes necessary for nighttime photos -- which just about exhausts my bag of Photoshop tricks.

 

For the record, I don't even still know how to do layers, though I do know the theory, and now I know why.

 

When I went to learn layers, they didn't have 'smart filters' which 'grayed out' my great range of choices for possible use of filters and other manipulation choices when I went to try to use 'layers'.

 

I couldn't figure out why anyone would want to use layers, then.

 

Now CS3 has 'smart filters' which work --I think with 'smart objects' in layers -- so I can try now to learn 'layers' with 'smart filters' but I work in a linear fashion and see little reason to go back and 'tweak' like 'layers' is supposed to let you do. I don't think it's going to be much advantage for the way I work.

 

Giuseppe, you have an excellent eye, and I am humbled by any comparison to Henri Cartier-Bresson, even to the point of being seen to be his student'.

 

I just wish that I had his eye and could have seen 1/10th the things he saw.

 

I have a certain knack, and maybe sometimes I really do see the things he saw or think he saw but its confined to just a few times in my outings while I think his mind was awash all the time with possibilities, while poor I am left taking 'other' photos to fill in the blanks between potential H C-B scenes, and those 'blanks' for me are often very long indeed.

 

But I am greatly indebted to the maitre for the lessons I learned nightly as I would often browse through my tableside book of decades 'The World of Henri Cartier-Bresson' when I wasn't actively taking photos, but my style (even today) predated my known knowledge of H C-B's existence.

 

My affinity for his style grew out of the similarity of his style and mine (mine was developed as a young man before I ever heard of his name -- a style that has stayed with me as I have become older and restarted photography more recently).

 

Whew.

 

Aren't you sorry you commented?

 

But thanks.

 

I take such shots as this and post them to please an elite audience, such as yourself Giuseppe.

 

As I noted above, I didn't expect this to get any sort of rating notice at all, but I had to post it, thinking a few might appreciate it, and I am overwhelmed by its good reception with raters such as yourself.

 

Thank you again.

 

John (Crosley)

John, who cares for the many, post for the few. We know Giuseppe has a very good eye, we can see it from the way he takes pictures, but here on PN there are others, whose photos maybe are not as good as Giuseppe's, that nevertheless appreciate good photography. Like this one. I also love stories about photos.

 

By the way, I am going through your pfolio after seeing your pic with the blue fishes and the beginning of a discussion about the with / without title issue.

 

I began looking at them with the slideshow feature, then turned it off because i) it's too quick for my taste and ii) the title is on top of the photo, therefore if - being allowed just a few seconds - I read it before or immediately after seeing the photo, then I fall back in the blue fish syndrome.

 

I'll come back later on this issue.

I'm highly flattered that you feel my work deserves such attention.

 

Of course I stand in the heat, rain, snow and sleet sometimes for hours to take these photos and sometimes get stared at or have to make excuses for why I'm standing there trying to look nonchalant waiting for my chance to take a photo, but that's my 'issue' and not that of the viewer, who knows none of that, and only sees the photo, and only has 'the photo' to judge my work by.

 

Believe it or not, I get great JOY from taking a good or great photo -- it's an endorphin releasor, I think, and on a high level, especially since I have constant, disabling pain.

 

For instance, this young woman, right, saw me from far away with my lens pointing in her direction but was unable to know what to make of it, and that may have affected her behavior -- she's not uncommonly beautiful, especially in Ukraine which has an uncommon number of beautiful young women, so she may have been mystified, and of course can't have known about my motive with juxtaposing her with the store dummy in the background, and I didn't have an opportunity to tell her because of language difficulty and the way the two moved on.

 

That's the story behind the story, and of course that's just something for you to help you flesh out what goes into these photos to reward you in your quest through my portfolio and to say 'atta girl' for taking the time to let me know of your interest.

 

Thank you so much; it flatters me highly. (I like your scientific method, too)

 

John (Crosley)