An Unlikely Pair of Friends

This unlikely looking pair of friends embraced recently in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Man at the left, a Ukrainian in American Western garb, has a sister who

lives in Promontory Point, Utah (where the Golden Spike was driven

joining Eastern and Western transcontinental rail lines). 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

the contrast is well explored - as is each individual character in this photo. These kind of portraits are not easy at all to take and show a very good eye behind te lens, thank you, Giuseppe

[but they were the devil to bring out in in a photograph since his pupils almost totally were obscured by the darkness of his lenses, so some manipulation was required, and that required working also with the rest of the photo's tonalities, which made processing this photo very difficult -- I'm not one for fine manipulations including making 'selections' and then working on specific areas.

 

Then it was the juxtaposition -- these guys couldn't be less alike as two white guys in Ukraine. One is larger, more rotund and with a huge lips, large nose and Coke bottle lenses on his glasses -- obviously a guy who didn't excel in athletics ever -- probably the class nerd.

 

His friend (or relative) is a thin drink of water, somewhat handsome and dressed in Western (read that U.S. Western as in Cowboy Western garb) and what could be more contrasting than that in the center of Kyiv for a non-American? Of course, Americans will and do wear such things when they travel, making themselves stand out like sore thumbs. Imagine a bolo tie and a silver holder in the heart of Ukraine worn by a Ukrainian.

 

Contrasts are my thing, but I think the contrasts in tonalities here are not the best, because this photo was taken mostly after sunset when contrasts were very low and light was practically non-existent. That's an issue shooting such things in late afternoon, nearly evening with sun gone down which is allowed with cameras with increased performance in low light -- lack of contrast, but if I boosted contrast, I'd miss the necessary detail in the right guy's eyes. It's a conundrum, solvable, probably by a Photoshop professional, which I'm not.

 

I accept my limitation. (Low light meant guy to left was now not in plane of optimum focus -- I saw prime focus in the eyes of the guy to the right).

 

Thanks for the kind words. I'm not myopic (so to speak, if you'll excuse the expression) about the failings of my own images.

 

John (Crosley)