'Give Jesus a Chance!'

'Give Jesus a Chance' is 'street photography' at its rawest, all from

Manhattan, New York City. 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 (I am aware of its technical inadequacies for the most part)

jc

maybe didn't even had time to raise your camera. Tech quality apart, you spotted very well the background and finely composed this raw street shot. Street photography will never die, simply it's one of the most difficult fields, because it requires a bright, quick mind behind the camera, one that catches the moment in it's significancy apex, thank you for sharing, Giuseppe P.

This guy sure looks like he needs help. But I don't think Jesus will come.

Those Jesus-lovers are there for themselves and forget this man. Welcome to modern society, all for yourself and yourself for yourself !

The thing I most wonder about, every time again, is that these loving people don't care, it is always their own satisfaction, nothing more or less.

In fact, I was shooting the street sign and holder, then spotted this guy, foreground, lurking (yes lurking) near a building next to the sidewalk awaiting a chance to lurch (yes lurch) to the intersection so he could cross the street, so I spotted myself in front of him in a way he could not see (he had minimal vision of course) and no time to set focus and fired away with continuous drive always positioning and respositioning myself with failing light.

 

This is the best I could do for technical quality, but I love the juxtaposition, and that's why it's posted. It's absolutely a wonderful juxtaposition . . . even though so far raters are scarce, perhaps thrown off by technical issues.

 

Cartier-Bresson has many shots that have blurred focus but have wonderful layouts that are successful (I've been looking at his U-Tube videos again) and they are just breathtaking. I decided I'd take a shot -- I now post what I like whether anybody will like or even rate or not.

 

It's just good for my soul and my artistic vision.

 

I thank you again for looking AND commenting; you are always welcome here.

 

(This is mostly motion blur by this guy rather than faulty focus, and a little Gaussian blur was done to two background faces to avoid too much distraction -- a rare Crosley manipulation.)

 

John (Crosley)

Don't you know LORD JESUS is OUR SAVIOR AND LORD GOD, and he is going to return and write in the book our names and those who are in the book will be saved and those who are not will go to hell and eternal damnation and if your name is not there -- to hell with you.

 

I'll see you there.

 

It may be a little hot in hell, but if there are interesting people like you there, it sounds a lot more interesting than that heaven they describe where everybody goes around praising everybody else and being so goody two shoes. I like a little pepper in my sauce; some spice in my life, not everything bland.

 

Heaven sounds soooo bland, and this poor guy could have used some help from the guy holding the sign and his cohorts, but they couldn't have cared less.

 

Yes, Ed, Ed, Ed, you hit the nail on the head for this circumstance, but not all Christians are so unthinking or uncaring.

 

Why some of my best friends are Christians . . . and they're downright nice . . . .

 

Even charitable.

 

I come across Mormons in places like Ukraine and I often stop to talk to them and almost always recommend that if they haven't they seen the film Orgasmo, done by the creator of South Park they should (look that one up in Internet Movie Data Base - IMDB.com) -- and they often smile wanly and quickly move on saying they have heard of the movie but regretfully they have NOT seen it and then move on to save a few more people so those can convert their ancestors retroactively after death to send them to heaven, so heaven may soon look like one of those crowded Japanese commuter trains -- with white-gloved Mormons shoving the saved into train coaches headed for salvation (and of course the Mormon pushers will all be wearing white shirts, narrow black ties, name tags, and often wheeling bicycles.. . . . and claim they never saw the movie 'Orgasmo' -- which has NO nudity in it but still has an NC-17 rating.

 

Gotta go convert some more heathens now so they can see things my twisted way.

 

See you in hell, my friend.

 

;~))

 

John (Crosley)

When I saw this circumstance beginning to unfold as this guy started to lurch forward, I adjusted (I think I recall) my camera aperture to a smaller aperture than I had it set for previously.

 

I seldom use hyperfocal distance, since I use superfast autofocus lenses, and they do have a focus override, but I often do not have time to override.

 

Here, this guy was moving toward me, the sky was very dark, a thunderstorm was forecast and impending, winds were blowing, and rain appeared imminent.

 

In short, it was VERY dark.

 

Too dark for the chosen shutter speed to stop action from this guy and also keep the focus front to back with a smaller aperture, but i needed that smaller aperture to keep him and the sign visible and especially not to blur the sign as that 'made' the photo. The aperture was small enough to keep the foot, right, in focus and the distant building windows, so it was small enough on my 17~55 mm wide angle lens set at 17 mm.

 

So, the blurriness is caused by subject motion and nothing else.

 

(maybe some rain on the lens, but I doubt it -- no rain on pavement.)

 

John (Crosley)

Hey John

As usual you are getting people stirred up with your amazing images. I can't help just enjoying the impact you present in so many of your shots.

You have a wonderful sense of wit and even a bigger sense of humanity that always floods your work.

 

Dont understand the obsession some have with technical trivia..

Its a bit like quibbling over the brush strokes of a Van Gogh..

Its not about the techniques except insofar as to make the point or statement in what elements are captured Most people fall way short of producing anything exceptional when it comes to street shooting..you have always been an inspiration to me. I visit your page often for that reason.

I still think it would be a hoot to walk the earth with you sometime..

 

PS thanks for the encouraging remarks on my humble presentation as well.

 

cheers

Lee

Lee McL.

 

It's getting harder and harder for me NOT to take this sort of image -- I just automatically seem to 'see' them and 'wait' for the moment, and nothing else seems to suit my fancy.

 

If I have 'wit', there are some who just don't get it; they think I'm a sour old man or they try to 'match wits' with me or overpower me with their intelligence, thinking that if we speak it always must be a match of wits, there can be only one winner, and it must be they -- I always am sad to encounter such people and especially when such people don't recognize what they do . . . . engage in a contest and insist that they emerge the 'winner'.

 

I am always at my happiest when I am with someone of equal or superior intelligence with a great sense of humor and a quick wit who has a great life experience -- I met one such person the other day -- in a sense my analogue in terms of 'great stories' and 'life experiences' -- just a little younger. he had great joie de vivre - at least meeting with me brought it out. We had a joyous time. A chance encounter with a bank official of marvelous intelligence also brought that out in the both of us -- a routine meeting stretched into almost two wonderful hours.

 

Each pair of us above met, did some business, instantly recognized each other as 'equals' in terms of who we were with really nothing to prove, except to do our business, thoroughly enjoy each other's company, then went our separate ways. We each were happier for the experience, I am certain. I'm always disappointed there are so few such people around.

 

I'm sure that when (and I am sure it will be 'when') you and I meet in person, it will be much the same way - we will hit it off instantly.

 

As to 'humanity' -- I am a 'street' shooter, who has been in war, riots, and some pretty awful places, and seen some pretty awful things, (though I have not spent time in African famines), and often I've had to walk past people who desperately needed help, and if I tried to help each and every one of them, I'd have been an emotional basket case long ago.

 

In fact, for the 'street shooter' to get emotionally involved with his subjects often is the kiss of death, especially if he returns to the same place.. People recognize him if he is seen to give charity, for then they hope or expect he will do so once again, and they flood him, and the 'street' opportunities evaporate.

 

Think of all those photos Americans bring back from Africa of those wonderful, smiling, tumultuous village kids, and think why all those kids are so happy and smiling -- they're kids but they're also not just looking to get photographed, but also to get a few coins or bucks (or local currency) from the photographer or his assemblage.

 

(If I give - which I do sometimes -- it's usually through a companion, who goes ahead of me or behind me, and quietly gives from an amount they are carrying for me a sum I tell them to give in a low voice, and when they donate, I am by then pretty far away and totally disassociated in the recipient's eyes from the charity being given.)

 

That way, I am not seen either to be 'paying' for the photos, nor seen as a person who in the future can be exploited, and when I walk that same street again, all the people will just treat me as a 'normal person' -- not one they can 'hit up' for alms.

 

And the alms often do not go to the photo subjects, when I do give them, but to those who are truly needy. Often the best beggars who make wonderful photo subjects seem to do rather well on their own, and because in Ukraine (and Russia) giving charitable donations to those in need have a long tradition, such people often have basic needs taken care of by their countrypeople -- they are fed well enough and clothed well enough - even if only to bare living standards.

 

I concentrate on those who obviously need more attention than that, and try to be generous.

 

The 'humanity' you recognize was there from when I first started taking photos at age 21 when I first bought a camera -- and I lived in New York City with almost no money.

 

It was a city of 'haves' and 'have nots' generally, and as a student at Columbia College, Columbia University, in some times, I might be in Harlem tutoring on a weekend day, in one of the US's worst slums where addicts had torn out the waste plumbing lines in buildings to salvage the lead pipes to pay for heroin fixes, so when someone flushed the toilet . . . well you can only imagine.

 

Rats sometimes killed babies in their cribs, and as a white guy walking to my tutorial assignment (there was no convenient subway connection), I often was accosted, and those were sometimes perceived rightly as potentially life-threatening -- all on account of my color.

 

The next day, or even that evening, I might be attending a party in a sumptuous Park Avenue or Fifth Avenue 'duplex' maybe even decorated with original Renaissance art, or a the same at 'The Dakota' on Central Park West (where John Lennon was murdered) . . . where I sometimes was invited on account of my work for a Columbia University Vice President or even by young women I dated.

 

It was an interesting life . . . .and imagine the trouble I got into when I spent most of the money I had to take my group of tutorial students from Manhattan into the Bronx by renting them bicycles - none had ever been more than a few blocks away from home -- all the way to Yankee Stadium -- then went to a fancy dance with my date from swank Manhattanville College from nearby Bronxville held in some swank downtown Manhattan hotel, then found I was expected to party all night (and pay for it) in some fancy Manhattan restaurant -- literally to dine and drink all night in the fanciest place and I was expected to pay for it, but my pockets were nearly empty. (I lost a girlfriend over that - she was "SO HUMILIATED' at my lack of funds, but had failed to tell me of her expectations. 'Good Riddance!)

 

Life through university in Manhattan always was a life of contrasts, and it honed that part of me - but I had seen those contrasts from the very first day. I realized that in New York City, there was little safety net, and that if one fell through, one might easily fall to the bottom, and people with unimaginable wealth passed by what they called the 'riff-raff' on the street, almost always without acknowledgement.

 

I found Manhattan and its dramatic gaps in wealth then a scary place, with my only haven being that I was a university student, and as such had a place to live and access also to the cream of the world's most wonderful student jobs -- world class student jobs which I won't recite here.

 

I came by my sense of 'contrasts' then, honestly. So, when I bought my first camera in my fourth year of schooling, it was 'natural' to go out into the 'streets' to record what I had seen, and as Gary Winogrand so perceptually said 'to see what those things I photographed looked like when I photographed them' (there's less flippancy in that statement than really appears, because changing things from three dimensions, to two dimensions, really imparts a different look, while 'choosing' one's subjects and one's moment, as well as one's aspect, captures something, and one really has to return to again and 'look' at that capture to appreciate it.

 

But I write as though I were 'somebody' in photography, and really, here I am on Photo.net really not an 'anybody' more than the next member. You, at least make a living with images -- wonderful images -- still and video.

 

I don't.

 

For me, it's a 'hobby' - a serious 'hobby' but still a 'hobby' though I would change that, and hope to, soon enough.

 

Lee, I always look forward to your comments and reflections - and from time to time I pay a pilgrimage (yes, that's the correct word) to your small collection of wonderful, always almost perfect images, to commune with them, and to see a true shooter who has a somewhat different outlook but also the same attributes that you ascribe to me.

 

For, when you ascribe wonderful attributes to me, you also should just look in a mirror, for they describe you even better.

 

John (Crosley)