Desmond

This is Desmond, who lives and works in Baltimore (a very friendly city).

Your ratings and critiques are invited and most welcome. (Please do not

make your ratings or critiques a plebiscite on whether or not you like or

dislike smoking -- that is for another forum.) 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

Hi, John

Technically maybe not your best, cause of the focusarea, but the intense look and weathered face tells alot about this young man and maybe many young people like him growing up in an urban landscape. But I quess that is another forum too :)

Thank you for sharing, greetings Marco.

best photo, surely that glance deserves a stop. The smoke that splits in two the "weathered" face is another good point. In this one you bring us towards an edge, and it feels like there's only that white smoke to partially prevent the fall. Thank you, Giuseppe

Surprisingly, since this photo suggests otherwise, if this very young man came to dinner with your daughter, you would be impressed. He's smart, kind, well-mannered, and has goals.

 

He's a serious skateboarder and is a delight.

 

I'd be proud to know him for a long time.

 

This is just a photo, for which he posed. His blackness may suggest something other than what he truly is, and it's a cultural thing in the U.S. together with his 'look'.

 

Best to you.

 

John (Crosley)

That glance and look are 'everything' and why I posted this.

 

This photo is unique because of that, and maybe heartstopping.

 

Too bad it belies the truth about this very nice young man.

 

He's a very nice guy, looking not so nice for a moment.

 

Thanks for sharing your view; I always appreciate that.

 

John (Crosley)

Very nice reportage.

Best regards Bart

In a sense this photo conveys a false impression.

 

Never in my life have I been in a community of so many blacks who are so courteous and well-mannered towards everyone -- Baltimore has many model citizens.

 

Desmond is one, as far as I can tell.

 

Thanks for letting me know your impresson of this somewhat powerful photo.

 

John (Crosley)

your reply to the comments is really interesting: you wrote that this photo "suggests otherwise" and "in a sense conveys a false impression". I think that these statements are ok if we consider this photo a documentary - reportage work. But if we'd consider this photo as it is, as a stand alone piece of art, so - this is my humble opinion - we should reconsider the statements quoted above. I think that once you have "published", posted such a work, than its meaning, its "message" isn't yours anymore. As soon as a viewer looks at it and find some (unexpected) meanings they all are plausible and "true". It is my opinion that this is one of the magics of photography. What do you think about "meaning", "interpretation" and similia in street photography?

 

I hope I wasn't boring and that my knowledge of english supported my thought in expressing these concepts. Thank you, ciao,

 

Giuseppe

Race relations in America have not always been the best, and the black communities of various parts of the United States have in the past been VERY hostile to white folks such as me when I go into their neighborhoods.

 

We are just now finding out that slavery did NOT end with the civil war. It has been authoritatively established that in the South, it was a common practice for law enforcement to trump up charges against black citizens, arrest them then force them into penal servitude, often at hard labor for the benefit of companies, both large and small, where their labor was exploited.

 

And they had done nothing wrong.

 

This was stopped by Franklin Delano Roosevelt at the outset of World War II because he feared the Nazis might try to exploit it as an American weakness (when he found out about it -- his wife took his actions many steps further).

 

So, the distrust of law enforcement and whites is well-deserved and deep-seated within the Black community. Barak Obama had to choose to be a 'black' man, as he grew up in multi-racial Hawaii and also had far superior intelligence growing up in Nebraska, but did not have the heritage of most American blacks and therefore the inherited mistrust that is cultural.

 

So, when I publish an unflattering photo (or a powerful one suggesting that this subject is somehow malevolent), then I feel a duty to my subject to 'set the record straight' otherwise this photo might dog him in later life. He is and was a delight.

 

Other than that, you have made a perfectly valid point. The photo is the photo, though this is NOT a documentary photo. This is a guy at break from work in a good restaurant, not a gang member between muggings, and he does not appear 'at risk' -- at least to my way of thinking.

 

So, you have made a very good point (and always eloquently with great English), and I have explained why I have bent over backward to avoid offending or having offense come, to this cooperative young man). It is loyalty to his good cheer and cooperativeness that I feel I must 'stand up' for him.

 

That being said, the photo is powerful and does stand for something different than what is in this young man's exemplary behavior.

 

it is 'dark' in the sense that dark is connected with 'evil' and/or malevolence, and it is foreboding, and it was posted because of that.

 

I just want to make the distinction between 'the photo' and the 'model or subject' clear, out of good will towards this guy. He doesn't deserve to be portrayed 'bad' without explanation from me.

 

I hope you understand that this is played on a more complex stage than just 'art for art's sake'.

 

Respectfully, as always.

 

John (Crosley)