The Businessman

This is a businessman in Manhattan, well groomed, but with loosened

tie and jacket (folded over) in arm. Obviously grooming is important to

him and/or his work. Shot blindly from waist. 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

Very good capture. Congrats !

 

Given the condition of the economy the tilt of the Bank building together with his expression and the hand saying stop, tell a story.

 

Does this capture, with its tilt and its being taken on streets of Manhattan remind you of any particular photographer?

 

Thanks, of course, for the compliment. I looked at it and decided at once it had to be posted (notice that this is from waist level and I will attest, I didn't even stop to take this shot -- I just took it while walking, with frame and all and pretty much knew what I'd get. I had to verify it of course, but I'm getting to be 'at one' with my equipment, (sometimes).

 

I looked at this and I said this is vey much like a capture from "XXXXXX XXXXX' a photographer whom many will recognize.

 

Am I right?' (I never felt very much for his photographs, thinking they were 'too obvious' even though he was a celebrated wunderkind, but I'm beginning to change my tune, the more I learn about how studied his methods were.)

 

John (Crosley)

I didn't want to analyze this photo in my request for critique -- after all part of it was just pure happenstance, and part was the extension of luck - remember 'luck favors the well prepared' and here I knew my equipment and what I could do, (possibly) even though shooting with the camera around my neck from waist level.

 

Sometimes doing such things you get throwaways and those I have lots and lots of, but sometimes you score a bulls-eye, and I think this is one for such a capture.

 

Now, about that tilt -- does this remind you of any particular photographer (famous for tilting . . . and not at windmills . . . but on the 'strees of NYC?)

 

Oh, and I like the 'story' you made of this - I hoped someone would 'see' that, as I cannot take full credit for having thought it all out (too much even for me, for a 'walk-by).

 

John (Crosley)

I looked at the rates on this and saw a 3/3 and a pair of 4/4s and just chuckled.

 

I thought 'they just don't get it'.

 

If, on the other hand, this had been an oversaturated sunset, or perhaps an ocean taken with a long exposure so the waves are all whispy and ethereal, then perhaps , . . . .

 

I try to avoid fads and the latest popular thing on Photo.net

 

And low rates are OK, for those who think this photo is 'ordinary' or worse.

 

For me, it's a keeper.

 

I'll show it with my best.

 

Thanks both of you for commenting (and taking the trouble to rate, but I don't need high rates to know the worth of my own work - and sometimes I get high-rated for stuff I don't think is worthy, too.)

 

John (Crosley)

and tells a very actual story. Your technique (supported by experience) achieved a good result here, and - as far as I can remember, one of your "unconscious" sources of inspirations could have been Mrs. Helen Levitt. Thank you for sharing, Giuseppe P.

She's priceless, and not somebody the value of whose worth I have underestimated. Her work always has been wonderful.

 

But it was not she who 'tilted' her photos and took photos of businessmen in downtown Manhattan, among other things, in order to impart dynamism.

 

I'm thinking of someone else.

 

Yep, this one's a keeper.

 

She would be an inspiration to anyone, but not for the style of this photo.

 

She primarily photographed children (just Google her name and see four representative photos -- some her greatest -- at the top of her listing.

 

This one should be easy; perhaps not.

 

Or perhaps I'm mistaken.

 

I'm glad you stopped by, and reminded me to have another look at Helen Levitt's work.

 

John (Crosley)

I keep a waist level viewfinder on one of my F4S Nikons. But never have it when I want it.

So who is the mystery photographer?

 

This capture is definitely a bull’s eye John as it has a good narrative and street photography actually photography in general is about telling a story. And you are a good story teller. Since you mentioned Helen Leavitt’s work which now is in the archives of most relevant museums rest assured that your work will end there too. What she did was basically chronicling her time, telling the story of her time in her style. Victoria and Albert museum in London paid three million pounds for the original negatives of Bill Brand who lived and chronicled life in London during the last world war. While we are talking about street photographers John you might want to look up the work of Ian Berry and especially his book published in the sixties called the English. He spent hours on street corners waiting for a capture. But you might know his work already; he was the first British photographer to be commissioned for this book by the Arts Council. Regards, Dimitris Vasiliou.

 

Well, that's a heady comment.

 

Helen Levitt certainly is someone whose work I admire greatly. Her greatest photographs are the little girl, all akimbo reaching under a car parked at a curb, the girl's limbs going in seemingly every direction (and in color) and another that is not published so often, of a number of children climbing in a back alley to do war over the top of a large alleyway door. Amazing.

 

Bill Brandt's work in London may indeed have been noteworthy: I've not seen much of that, but I did see his nudes at the Fondation Cartier-Bresson on exhibition there, and frankly was a little disappointed. I understand what he did with them was ground-breaking, but it wasn't to my taste, though exceedingly well-done and of course the exhibition was amazingly well printed.

 

But each of those photographers had his/her own subject: Brandt: wartime London AND nudes and Levitt had her city children, and I have . . . . nothing . . . . just a bunch of photos from various places around the world of heterogeneous subjects and sometimes in heterogeneous styles.

 

The only photographer who I think ever became famous for doing such was Cartier-Bresson himself, but his art was evident in each of his photos. I have less faith in my photography. But I do enjoy the heck out of it.

 

It takes lots of photographs to get one good one, though I'm getting better and better, and sometimes I can review a flash card and wonder how much I've advanced, but other times, especially this particular day, I shot in low light and was amazed by how many otherwise good photos I took that I had to discard, even shot with a D300 (I needed a D3, but it's not in my budget, and then I'd have some amazing shots to show you . . . as they required very high ISO, and the D300 just couldn't freeze the people enough or left them with too much digital 'noise' at high ISO, my first bad experience with it (them).

 

I wish to heck someone would show interest in buying my work; but then I currently am not marketing it, but am preparing some of my best to be presented to galleries, probably to be printed in a book when I return to California, then presented mostly in person to galleries.

 

I do have some good stuff -- no doubt about that -- but the biggest job is choosing which is the stuff they might be interested in versus maybe 'high raters' or those that get 'high views' here. In a certain way PN is a help and in others it's a hindrance. How does one exclude a photo that got high views and rates, but it doesn't 'fit in' to galleries in my mind, but then I'm not a gallerist. Maybe they would like it?

 

Your thoughts are heady, and the financial crisis currently does not add to my hopes of success in gallery sales I had been encouraged to seek. Less money is going to be searching around for places to alight, and I'm afraid that gallery sales will be affected.

 

This photo is almost a fluke . . . I actually did not cease walking as I took this -- it's not only waist level shot, but taking during striding, (though with a hitch in my step).

 

Thankfully, at that early part of the late afternoon there still was enough light to get away with that and the higher shutter speed required. It was stormy soon after and the light disappeared then it really got dark as evening fell.

 

In a way, I'm amazed that this is one of the better shots from that afternoon, but there are more to come.

 

I could not imagine shooting in Manhattan even for a few hours and not coming away with something really, really good. It's like a treasure for a street photographer.

 

Thanks for the encouragement.

 

John (Crosley)

A wide angle lens, often so up close to the photographed subject in Manhattan or the other three urban boroughs, that the subject was unaware of having his/her personal space invaded let alone photographed, the tilted angle to give the photo what we now call 'attitude', and the use of black and white captures are the signature style of one photographer, who one man called the greatest living photographer of the second half of the 20th Century.

 

Garry Winogrand.

 

Frankly, I hardly appreciated his work until I read what a student of his in Texas wrote about how intellectually sound his work was and how studied.

 

It all appeared slapdash to me, and a little eccentric. Eccentric it probably was, and maybe myopic, but quintessentially 'Street Photography' -- at an amazing clip -- with hundreds of thousands of photos taken, large numbers nearly every day while in Manhattan.

 

Books published.

 

Heralded as a great photographer (heir to Cartier-Bresson? Not in my book, but now I see his work was worthy and 'signature'.

 

Would this photo fit into the Winogrand style? I feel it would; but it is not a conscious attempt; it just happened.

 

Perhaps that style and NYC street photographer are made for each other. Did I succeed in my analysis, or am I all wet?

 

John (Crosley)

"I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed." -Garry Winogrand

 

Red hand hold over the 'savings' bank - better image to this times isn't nearly possible - having the looser in front - Did you sell this image to the Financial Times?

 

For my taste give them all a kik in the a$$ - if only the common people have not been involved finally - - -

 

John you did it again!

Cheers Axel

 

 

There is no longer much difference between 'bank' and 'savings bank'.

 

I haven't marketed this photo to anyone; it's for my collection, however, and as you note, it may be somewhat 'iconic' for the times.

 

Newspapers these days have staff photographers or pay a stiff enough annual fee for 'wire services' which feed them staff wire service photos plus photos from other newspapers -- they pay almost nothing for freelance material. Almost nothing at all, and it's almost useless to even solicit their business - you'd spend so much time trying to fit a photo with a market,and they might pay $50, which is deplorable.

 

Newspapers in general have tough financial times and are letting their staff photographers go, and most are not even touching 'freelance' material in general, especially from 'unknown' (to them) freelancers.

 

The news market is basically 'dead' for new entry . . . except for the most rare cases.

 

I share your feelings about banks, but didn't lose anything in the latest round of financial meltdowns -- in fact they created opportunity for me.

 

I foresaw this meltdown (or something drastic) about two years ago and unloaded everything -- even my house.

 

I understood that when the brokers were hugely wealthy despite few skills from selling 'liar loans' to nearly everybody that the consequences would be drastic, and there would be bank failures -- it didn't really take that much figuring out.

 

So, I skedaddled and spent much of my time since in Ukraine and elsewhere. Although I'm presently in the US, I'm going back soon.

 

Thanks for your take on this photo (and how it reflects the current state of the financial institutions and markets).

 

John (Crosley)

I've not seen an enormous amount of photos by Garry Winogrand.

I would say that his photos share one characteristic: the people on them are on the move. This businessman seems pretty static to me.

I'll study more ...

Luca

1.  This man is walking with the light for which he was racing against the pedestrian light which already had turned (see light uppper right, with hand upraised, which happens only after the time for the 'go' pedestrian light has expired, giving pedestrians time to cross the street.  He was going to try to beat the time limit.

2. At the same time, I was walking, not stopped, and striding, and thus this photo was taken while both he and I were in motion.

That it may 'look' static is a trompe l'oeil, but Winogrand purposefully placed his figures in dynamic poses, by tilting his camera so any illusion of static appearance would be overcome by the illusion or reality of dynamism created by the non-vertical line which should have been tangential to the horizon but were not and instead tilted dramatically forward (as here).

See also in my early work a guy in front of marble work at Woolworth Store in San Francisco looking all the while like he'd been posed there, but he was swiftly striding by as I caught him in the jointwork/stone mortices.

Life and photograhy can be like that; illusion can pose as reality and reality as illusion.

Sorry, we both were in motion here, and I didn't even put camera to eye (no time).

This is probably my most successful 'hip shot' to date.

In fact, see his right shoulder (his right, not ours).  He's swinging it around as he pivots to make a turn at the corner to cross the street -- that's his forward (and turning) motion.

It would take a forensics expert, I am sure, to undersand all that, but I can read it even now (even though I haven't thought about it for a couple of years).

Best to you, Luca.

john

John (Crosley)