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© Copyright 2008, John Crosley, All Rights Reserved

'Ulitsa Church (Church of the Street),' Ukraine


johncrosley

Nikon D300, Nikkor 70~200 f 2.8 V.R. E.D. full frame, unmanipulated from NEF, full frame, desaturated in Adobe CS3, Adobe Camera Raw, unmanipulated

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© Copyright 2008, John Crosley, All Rights Reserved

From the category:

Street

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This is outdoor Eastern Orthodox church services one recent Sunday on

Kyiv, Ukraine's most central avenue, which is closed to traffic each

weekend and open as a sort of park. This group utilizes a small part for

their outdoor church part of summertime. 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

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for the simplicity and verity of the left half .. Maybe I'd crop to square from right, to first girl, but this way > it has some additional tenseness + original frame is original frame.. (-;
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My thought process exactly.

 

You have things well ordered in your mind, at least in a way that I understand and am correlative with.

 

I took this a week or so ago just before returning to the US, maybe on my last day there (even my last evening.).

 

Didn't even go to bed,caught plane on Monday before dawn, and downloaded this in USA before dark the next day.

 

It also is very good as a color photo,but different (colorful national costumes),blue eyes on girls - great eyes.

 

I needn't really explain things to you, at least so far; you read things very much as I do.

 

John (Crosley)

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As you may be aware,in small town America Christians have their Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes and demeanor.

 

So, it appears, do religious Ukrainians.

 

These are some of them.

 

There also are Pentacostalists and Baptists vying for their souls; they'd be surprised as heck to learn the Pentacostal Church was founded in Atlanta by a black man; Ukrainians and Russians seem to think Pentacostalism was 'home-grown' and many are rather naive about racial diversity -- read that they discriminate rather openly when they speak, if given the chance,exceptthere's no chance -- to spot a black person in Ukraine is like spotting Polar bears in Brazil. I can happen,but the odds are very slim against it.

 

And not everyone has the same attitude. One Russian woman I knew (and liked very much) had a cousin who met a blackman and married him, he was welcomed into the Moscow family, then they both moved to Australia (where black men were not then too welcome, and multi-racialism was not then too well practised. Nowadays Sydney is aswarm with racial diversity, though not many

Africans at all call Sydney home.

 

(I know nothing about your racial/ethnicity makeup and assume nothing from your name -- after all some famous American white men adopted ethnic/African/Middle eastern sounding names as a show of solidarity -- and I didn't look at your bio because it's not important to what I write.)

 

Thanks for the kind words about this photo. I switch genres and styles from moment to moment; I'm not stuck in one genre,although 'street' is a first love,but even within 'street' not all my photos have the same 'look and feel'.

 

I am free to experiment,and you probably notice I do.

 

John (Crosley)

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Welcome back (again).

 

You know how the maitre felt about cropping. Why not just go take another photo?

 

As it was, I might have taken the cropped photo you indicate, but I didn't have a long enough lens for this low-light occasion.

 

And your crop is very good.

 

It's just that I take so many photos, if i were to start cropping them, I'd be overwhelmed. I hardly have time even to give more than a cursory look at my captures after I've downloaded them, other than the ones I've pinpointed for posting and/or other work.

 

So, I seldom review older captures, and when I do I sometimes find treasures I've overlooked.

 

Every once in a while, I do go over old downloads, such as this and play with them, and come to conclusions like you have. Your cropping is very artful (and not as the term 'artful' is as in 'artful dodger' but maybe 'artistic' is more appropriate.

 

I like to show the whole photo first, and then if there's a subsidiary photo within, a good critic, such as yourself, is likely to point it out . . . as you have here . . . and it's a good workup.

 

Thanks for taking the attention (but the smudging at the upper left is a little rushed, I think, but then I think you were just trying to show me how to emphasize the subject, rather than create a polished product.

 

I'd love to see you again.

 

My best to you.

 

John (Crosley)

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You are right about the blurring, I photoshopped it in one minute flat and was just 'sketching' out a rough possible look.

 

You know Cartier-Bresson's most famous and lauded photograph was heavily cropped. I have seen the original "Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, Paris, France" (1932) and it is tilted and partially obstructed by the fence he was poking his lens through. When talking about this photograph he said he was not even looking through the viewfinder but simply guessed the composition and the result was pure "luck." My view is that he spent much of his later life preserving his legacy and with the use of 'smoke and mirrors' mystifying his art. He did a lot of research, for example, when preparing for "Hyères, France, 1932" and found out exactly what time the bicyclist would pass by every day in order that he could wait to capture the decisive moment. Was this "luck" or meticulous planning of a perfect composition? He was also ambiguous in perpetuating the myth that all his shots were taken with a 50mm lens when clearly many (I'd guess more than half) were taken with a 35mm. I have spoken to people who encountered him and he was indeed carrying the 35mm.

 

Having said all that I don't generally crop my own photographs and embrace the discipline of nailing it in camera.

 

I am enjoying using the Nikon D700 right now with a 35mm lens set almost permanently to f8 and and find the results mostly more pleasing than when using a zoom. The thrill of using FX with a prime is hard to articulate but it is making me fall in love with photography all over again just as I did when I first got a film SLR as a teenager. This self limitation forces me to really 'make' the photograph and takes me back to what I always thought photography was about.

 

Every time I pass by your portfolio I discover something wonderful, I think HCB would have enjoyed your photograph 'No Words.'

 

I hope we cross paths again soon. Do get in touch if you find yourself in London or the far East. I am finding London particularly fun shooting on the streets with it's combination of architecture, vibrant graffiti scene and diverse characters.

 

Regards,

 

Miles.

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In your words and the interest you show.

 

I long have known that Cartier-Bresson did not exclusively use a 50 mm lens. It was impossible for him to have captured with a 50 mm lens so many of the subjects he did; he had to have used a 35 mm lens, and I have written so here, long ago, before I knew he adhered to the artful artifice of claiming he only used a 50 mm lens.

 

He also used a 90 mm and a 135 mm for landscapes, judging from an examination of his photos I made long ago.

 

I'd challenge a 50 mm purist to explain the perspective of some of those photos if they were taken with a 50 mm lens. I have viewed lately the films/videos of him on the Internet, and they show an 'avuncular' older man, but in reality he is known for his 'quicksilver' personality -- he wanted to change history a little, and who is to blame him.

 

'Quicksilver' is a euphemism for being sometimes very 'testy', and I can think of one example written about by a friend just after he died, that illustrates it quintessentially and having to do with color photographs he took, but wanted to claim he did not. (Of course he took color, and also film, but he just about disavowed the color entirely -- he was not its master -- look at my comments from four years ago under my portfolio, and you'll see I wrote about that then.)

 

There is a certain discipline to shooting with a 50 mm lens; it requires you to take the whole 'scene' and that is something I am doing more and more of.

 

Someone once wrote that 'strangely my color captures reminded [him] more of HCB work than my black and white, and now I know why' . . . . I made no attempt at cropping in camera for those and included everything including the context.

 

As I got more zooms and learned to use them, I focused more closely and cropped more.

 

You'll see both styles in my present captures -- I sometimes have to make effort NOT to crop in camera, and I do that. It results almost always in lower scores, but what the heck?

 

Cartier-Bresson made it work and audiences will find interesting parts of various scenes IF they view close and long enough. Audiences are not stupid, but when such photos are presented first in thumbnail it's very hard to pick out a good capture that depends on small but important detail.

 

You and maybe Frederic Pascual (who no longer is posting, I think) have incorporated the HCB style just about as well as anybody on PN. I was astonished when I first saw your captures and realized that, and wrongly supposed you were not well-schooled in photography (belied by more recent knowledge) and had recently taken it up.

 

I didn't realize you had more recent experience shooting than I, and you didn't hasten to correct me. Your postings on Photo.net shows that schooling; your photos were extremely well-received by an audience relatively unschooled in examining such captures -- they were inherently 'interesting' and I will turn to them from now and again.

 

I have collected all the U-Tube videos featuring Cartier-Bresson including the one you told me about -- him shooting that parade, and he worked amazingly quickly, and he shot wonderful photo after wonderful photo, no matter what lens he worked with. And yes, in the Charlie Rose interview, when Charlie Rose does make certain assertions such as 'you shot entirely with a 50 mm lens), Cartier-Bresson did not contradict him, though you and I do know the truth; you know it from other sources, and I can see it in the photography.

 

And he's the guy whose work chased me out of photography, as I think you know. At a juncture in my career where I could have become a paid, full-time photographer and the job was waiting for me literally right then (two jobs actually), or I could be a writer; I saw his work and decided to be a writer.

 

It's as though a talented, fledgling artist were shown the work of Picasso and told 'you can be an artist' but here's what you're up against.

 

I did not realize he was, as many critics have said, 'one of the five greatest artists of the 20th Century'.

 

If I had known that, I might have stuck with photography.

 

Who knows what a body of work I might have now, and I am rapidly trying to make up for lost time.

 

Meeeting you has been one of the two or three most heartening relationships I've made on Photo.net, and I guess it's a mutual love of what it is we do that binds us together. Also, as I am sure you realize, street photography is very much an intelligence test, and your intelligence soars.

 

(I try to keep up.)

 

Please keep in touch. I shy away from London because of high price and ridiculous carry-on airline luggage restrictions, but given the right circumstances, I could have a ball in London with a camera.

 

I'm no HCB purist, though, despite what I wrote about this photo or elsewhere; I just like more and more to show them full-frame first, then if there'a a crop, I know others will point it out, as you have.

 

And as you have seen, I have more than one style or genre.

 

I am not bound to the memory or imitation of that great photographer; he taught us much, but I have other photos I'd like to take, and in many styles.

 

And I'm actively taking them, if not daily at least in great bursts of creativity.

 

(Just as when you met me. I'm little changed except a little older and a little fatter, but just as enthusiastic and much more accomplished, although I took some great captures the trip when I met you.)

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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... is when you get the right shot with someone engaging with the camera. This is one of those. I agree with both posters who suggested a crop, but I think maybe I disagree with Miles about blurring the background. If you try the crop (keeping the original aspect ratio) like this, you get a different balance, but still the stunning triad in the middle. Hope you aren't offended, but I saw this the second the picture hit the screen.

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I very well might have taken the photo you crop to if my lens had been 'long' enough. I had a 70~200 zoom and this was at full extension on a APS-C sensor for a film equivalent of 300 mm so it's unlikely they actully were looking directly at me, though 'heaven knows' they might have been -- church can be boring, even if held in the middle of a broad boulevard blocked off for Sunday.

 

I agree with the crop, and especially was bothered by blur/subject movement of the woman right, but posted it anyway.

 

If in doubt or for the first time at least, I'll post generally the whole photo and let others suggeest the crop, even though I can see it myself. It helps the process to have others' opinions, and you know I value yours (and others') highly.

 

And yours is right on . . . . and blurring the background . . . . as Miles suggests is something I have done only once in 1250 posted photos . . and there it was entirely proper and saved the photo, but when not a absolutely called for, I'll pass on such techniques. I once worked with retouchers and know how with their gray paint they airbrushed backgrounds to obscure them -- blowing a thin gauze of gray paint over backgrounds to make the foreground stand out, and that explained the 'strength' of a lot of published photos and why my photos didn't look like them, especially individuals in a crowd.

 

But I try for better and/or different, and eschew such methods except when absolutely necessary. Your crop shows it isn't necessary.

 

Thanks for the effort, the help, and the sage opinion.

 

John (Crosley)

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Two photos in one!Many people with their different expressions around 3 girls who seems to tell us:Why we are here,what are we doing here?I like this photo very much,congrats and regards..
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My critics (and I) seem to agree that the best shot is the triad of girls (and those around them with their expresssions -- maybe even Miles Morgan who first suggested blurring their faces).

 

All because I didn't have a long enough tele . . . . or I night have zeroed in on these girls and the near bystanders - and all at about 1/15th of a second as this is 'after sunset' but in the gloaming . . . pretty well held even for a vibration reduction shot, hunh?

 

Others weren't as sharp, and that accounts for the woman, right, who is slightly blurred -- it's subject movement.

 

Actually, under the somewhat adverse conditions, this shot is remarkably sharp - which contributes to its power, I think, or others would be making no cropping suggestions at all, don't you agree?

 

I thank you as before for an intelligent critique.

 

You have been very helpful today (and before as well).

 

John (Crosley)

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I am reminded of the FSA images from Walker Evans and Margaret Bourke-White and this was my immediate response to just the thumbnail as well. Here, as in many of the FSA photographer's work there are several images within the image. The harried and unsettled woman on the right, the open-mouthed Janet Reno figure in the background. All of these images within the main image incur different psychological responses within me as a viewer. Even the look of curiosity as displayed on the faces of the gathered assembly as a whole. Faces of others appear even indifferent or distracted. Still this image invokes the feeling of an earlier time in our own history as a culture here in the United States. Although I realize this is actually the Ukraine in modern times. I love images like this that illustrate a slice of a community’s culture and humanity. I think this kind of clarity is really what you see most profoundly in your choice to create images of people you encounter. Happy New Year and I wish you all the best in the coming times.
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Last Friday, I walked into one of the world's most famous photographic exhibition and sales galleries. As of a year ago, they had sold $75 million worth of fine art photographs, and there I was dirty, unkempt and a bit smelly, having driven 12 hours previously and taken a dogleg to a nearby printers which was to consult on a private 'book', then to drive another eight hours nonstop, after a three hour wait in that famous, large California city.

 

I had only been there, once, as a guest of someone rather famous in reproductive arts, at a hugely attended opening,yet one of the owners somehow said he 'recognized me' and felt we had met.

 

We had indeed, and I explained that sometimes I lived in Ukraine.

 

I tried to keep my distance because of unkemptness. I had intended to show up 'incognito' and to draw no attention to myself -- and to talk to no one. Just to 'drop buy' and view their current exhibition - this time more current works by Mary Ellen Mark.

 

(Which by the way, were very, very good - this particular gallery represents more famous and worthy photographers -- living and estates and trust of the deceasdd than any other I am aware of).

 

To one the owners I spoke with, I recounted my life in Ukraine,and I said I envied the 'old-time magazine photographers and how they had a different life to capture 'of old' and those times no longer were with us, UNTIL I got to Ukraine where I found significant aspects of the old, along with an admixture of the very modern thrown in.

 

You have hit the nail on the head, about why I so often shoot in Ukraine - it is possible to literally 'turn time back' by going to such a country. . . . . at and the same time with enough Western money, enjoy a Western and modern living standard (if one has the cash).

 

So, live in a Western-style flat, go to a supermodern supermarket (sometimes), for staples and low prices, then go on the street, for captures like these.

 

In small towns and villages, one occasionally sees horse-drawn carts and wagons, though rarely, now.

 

The capital is choed with cars - almost all are very modern.

 

It's like turning time backward selectively, and I have the luxury of sometimes living in times like those chronicled by those great magazine photographers -- and by the FSA, etc.

 

So, any resenblance you see in my photography may be more than coincidental, though I certainly am not copying the FSA style. But of course I have been influenced by all I have seen in my life.

 

Best to you, and thanks for a cogent and insightful analysis.

 

John (Crosley)

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I think it's the look in their eyes. The people are connected in the moment you shot it.

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I agree

 

In retrospect, I prefer the crop of Dennis Aubry above if forced to a choice.

 

Thanks for the comment; I almost missed it.

 

john

John (Crosley)

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