'Sign Language'

It's not a demonstration of 'The Claw' by a pro wrestler, but a youth

demonstrating how he uses 'sign language' to express himself, perhaps

caught in the middle of forming an expression, or perhaps at the end: I

don't speak that dialect myself. This is part of youth's never-ending

quest to confuse others and to set themselves apart and make their

own 'society' 'special' and unapproachable. Your rating 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

Is he insulting me, or what?

 

No matter what, what is he saying?

 

I'm curious.

 

If it's really obscene, you can e-mail me.

 

But let me know by posting a comment here, that you have as I tend my Photo.net e-mail seldom.

 

John (Crosley)

I always thought contortionists were a little creepy (just IMO). This seems to confirm it. Good eye on your part.

He's a nice guy.

 

All the guys he was with were very nice guys and very considerate.

 

This is a mode of modern youth expression, nothing more.

 

I am only interested in specifically what this expression 'says' if it has some universal meaning, specifically among skateboarders or 'boarders' in general.

 

Have a heart, Les. He's far from 'creepy' and probably is saying 'I'm creepy' to him because of my camera and that I'm an 'old guy', and as a youth, he'd be entitled, because he doesn't know someday he'll get there too.

 

If he's lucky.

 

I defend my subjects who are cooperative -- (take note subjects!!!!!)

 

And, Les, I am sure you were just making a quip and didn't really mean it.

 

John (Crosley)

And, Les, I am sure you were just making a quip and didn't really mean it.

Of course :)

I like to encourage my subjects, and any negativity they encounter here would not help me in the field.

 

See John Peri's bio page --or as it has been posted in the past -- for some discussion on the issue or how one relates to the subjects of his photography, and how he welcomes discussion of his photography, but does NOT like personal comments of the attributes of his models or insinuations about them.

 

I believe they pose for free, as did this young man, and it is a gift that they do so; so anything that makes such a person feel scorned, mocked or unwelcome (in the absence of detrimental behavior depicted) is also unwelcome here and detrimental to my pursuing my craft in the street if word gets around, as it sometimes has a way of doing so.

 

Again: Subjects take note!!!!!

 

If this were some creep doing something creepy, illegal, or otherwise despicable, that would be one thing, but this is a really, really nice guy sitting right in front of me making some signs, rapidly - literally forming them right in front of me (so fast it blurred most of them), and I am thankful for the few moments he gave me (and you and the rest of my audience), for sharing his culture with the greater culture, knowing (since I told him) that the photos might be shared on the Internet or otherwise.

 

So, thanks for being a good sport, Les.

 

John (Crosley)

Certainaly that sign is very complex, not likely a part of mainstream sign language. My first guess was that he was expressing some sort of gang identity sign. But, the lack of tatoos, and the polite disposition you describe hardly fits the gangster profile. could still be some sort of brotherhood identity. I'm positive that I know less about what he meant than you. Nice capture John none-the-less.

Let me give you a good example of good citizenship.

 

I drove by while one youth, 16 or so, videoed his compatriots skateboarding along a loading platform, then sailing to the ground below, without skateboards.

 

He caught it on tape.

 

I stopped my car in an empty street, put camera to the open window and took one good capture or two, then drove over and showed the videographer. He invited his friends over.

 

They invited me over to take more photos and invited me not just to photo from my car but also to talk around.

 

When pedestrians came along, far enough away that they could not possibly be harmed, and where it might make a very good capture, these youths would wait entirely.

 

When the second group of pedestrians came along, I urged these youths to send a skateboarder passed the spot where they were jumping, which was quite far form the sidewalk.

 

The response: It's possible there might be an accident.

 

Well, it really wasn't possible, but kudos to them for their good manners and thoughtfulness.

 

If it's a gang, their parents should let them stay in such a gang.

 

Probably the honor roll gang.

 

I'd be proud to be associated with these guys -- I didn't see one bad influence in the bunch, and I'm a trained observer.

 

Thanks for your 'take' on the situation, Terry.

 

John (Crosley)

I've tried to do the same, almost broke a finger. It looks like deer horns sign to me.. Fine shot though.

I just started counting the hands and whatching where all of them could come from. Then I tried it out myself in front of the mirror, but my fingers are too clumsy to give this kind of confusing picture.

Well done. Karl

Deer Horns Sign?

 

Is that a jest, or a real sign? Surely a jest.

 

But it is confusing.

 

Perhaps he was creating a sign and I caught him mid-gesture?

 

Or he was just jesting also?

 

It's all in good fun from this end.

 

John (Crosley)

Yes, this is most confusing and hard to accomplish, but I don't recommend a mirror - you have to reverse everything in the recreation, and that can be most difficult, and invites danger.

 

I recall a young woman student at the University of Oregon who in her study of spoken Russian actully broke her jaw trying to pronounce some Russian words.

 

True, as reported by the Eugene 'Register Guard' some very long time ago. A pro pos Vladimir Funtak's story above about his finger.

 

Try this at your own risk folks.

 

;~))

 

Thanks, Karl.

 

The perils of trying to be 'with' the youth movement. . . .

 

John (Crosley)

on street characters, and what a composition. Hands (the viewer entering point and narrative starter), hood, fingers, background, facial expression, every single element conveys significance to this shot, and contributes to its value. You did a really good work. Thank you for sharing, Giuseppe

I'll let your fine erudition speak for itself.

 

Thank you so much for the exposition.

 

Now I don't have to explain myself or my work.

 

This is a crop and when we 'chat' I can send you the uncropped work, and you maybe astonished to see how true to this tight crop the original also is.

 

In fact, you may wonder why I didn't post the original; I did.

 

It was essentially a tossup.

 

This one won, but it was a narrow victory, with the closer-up one winning.

 

I'd love to 'chat' any time when you are free.

 

John (Crosley)

John,

I like this photo a lot. It has excellent tones and patterns -- very rich. Oddly, the hands were not what drew me in. It was more the composition and look of the boy. Great portrait.

 

Oh, and ignoring the interlocking of the two hands, the individual "W" formed with the fingers is known as the sign for the "West Side" gang. However, it has proliferated outside of the gang within youth culture. I can't say for sure if that's the inspiration here and if this is a derivative of that, but my guess is at the very least he was aware of the similarities.

This is a crop, but I think you'd also like the original. I wrestled with posting one or the other and settled on this because of the folder I intended to post it into. It looks more 'personal' and 'up close' than the other, in which I was a little 'more removed' and included more of the steel door behind him and its frame as well as the loading dock on which he is sitting, but not so much.

 

I seldom crop, except to exclude things that protrude unintentionally into my frame - otherwise I usually move on to another frame or just take another photograph of something else (I have plenty of raw material from which to work, as you might have guessed. -- I can shoot half an hour or two hours several days a week and come up with hundreds of shots, many of which may be post-worthy.)

 

But yesterday, I felt badly as I took almost nothing, then I spied a girl in a supermarket swinging almost upside down on a separator bar between checkout signs and her mother looking the other way. I took several photographs, then of the same girl as she shimmied under a chain locking off a checkout stand -- at least one was outstanding in my view -- none before or since, but I'm getting more judicious in my shooting.

 

I thank you for the explanation of the sign, as you see it, but one question presists: What is the West Side Gang, and although we know it by its name, what attributes does it have -- where did it originate and what is/was it known for?

 

I'm curious.

 

Thank you for informative and interesting commentary.

 

I am sure other readers will be thankful too.

 

John (Crosley)

I can't say I know much about it's history, but it's a typically violent gang that is in cities across the country. A google image search of something like "West Side gang sign" will yield plenty of pictures of people doing this, most likely all of whom are not in the gang. It's probably the most popular gang sign for non gang members to flash. Blood, and Crip are fairly common as well.

 

As for the crop, I like it. It's hard for me to say how it would have looked uncropped, from the way you described it, I think it would be good. But I like the more intimate nature of it like this.

Thanks for the helpful hint.

 

I even Googled an original preliminary injunction for a variety of youths with names hard to make up preventing them from associating together and making the West Side Gang sign, in 'Safety Zones' in San Diego, issued by a California State Superior Court Judge in San Diego, as well as images of the sign.

 

Also, Justin Timberlake making (throwing up) various signs.

 

The 'W' sign appears to be central to the West Side Gang sign, as you appear to state and it also appears to have migrated across the country and assimilated into other signing.

 

I'm happy (in a sort of sad way) to learn this. I learn lots from my photography and exposure to all sorts of people. I am sure if this youth's parents knew the association, they'd disapprove, but then I think this youth doesn't know the crimes associated by guys named 'Malo', 'Beast', 'Little Tripps', 'Spookie', 'Charlie Brown', 'Danger', 'Sicko', 'Cartoons', 'Little Cartoons', 'Pepper', and a whole host of other gang members identified by the San Diego District Attorney's office and enjoined by the Temporary Restraining Order.

 

To name one as associated is not to ignore the rest of them, and because they are named there as a member of a 'criminal gang' is not a conviction of a crime -- merely an indication by a judge that the state was then likely to prevail that these guys (and others named) were members of a street criminal enterprise (e.g. street gang, which is why he enjoined them from various acts.

 

I do not presently know the outcome, not having access to all the court records, but I am willing to take bets, based on my not having seen street signs while I'm photographing in Southern California streets recently and the bewilderment when youths see my camera/lens and suppose I'm doing 'gang enforcement' and hightail it.

 

Gang association plus a felony conviction in California now can lead to life imprisonment, and the association can mean being with one's own family (in public for certain, at least in certain 'safety zones' as defined by that particular judge.

 

Criminal see my cameras and often shy away, often because they fear they've already been photographed and that if they do anything to me I have 'evidence' not thinking that if they take my camera(s), they'll have the evidence (but what about those flash cards I've already removed?

 

It's the same all over the Western/Eastern world -- at least in more civilized parts (I'm presently unwilling to photograph in Brazil and Mexico or in most Middle Eastern countries without protection), and without official Russian government protection, probably not also in Russia now, although I once did.

 

I have little fear in Ukraine at present; I have made a quite famous documentation of Ukrainian life, and my photos are well known among Ukrainian photographers and certain intellectuals there.

 

(Ukraine once was part of the Soviet Union - it was the 'breadbasket of the Soviet Union' -- but the Ukrainians are more peace loving people who gave back the nuclear arsenal left on their soil to Russia rather than have responsibility for it -- a vital view of Ukrainian outlook (Brezhnev was a Ukrainian, but he often hid that fact from his underlings who often did not know -- he came from the formerly 'closed' city where I lived -- Dnipropetrovsk, for which a mini-metro was funded by him and is virtually useless because it is so small. (I've really never been on it or inspected it.)

 

John (Crosley)

The San Diego County District Attorney in a complaint agains the West side gang in 2007, made this description of how the sign is formed, and it became part of a court order prohibiting gang members from displaying the sign or otherwise doing things with the sign and/or related to the sign in certain areas.

 

This is the technicality of the sign's formation, word by word from the court's order, no doubt taken also word by word from the District Attorney's complaint, and the District Attorney undoubtedly drafted the order which the judge signed (or almost without a doubt, as that is common practice in California courts).

 

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No Gang Hand Signs: Using words, phrases, physical gestures, or symbols commonly known as hand signs, which describe or refer to the gangs known as WESTSIDE, also known as “WSG”, such as: forming the letter “W” with one hand by crossing the ring finger and the middle finger while separating the index and the last finger or by using two hands by touching the tips of both thumbs and extending the index fingers at an angle, or touching the tips of the index fingers together while extending the thumbs. Two people can form the “W” by grasping there hands while extending the opposite hand. The “S” is made by cupping both hands as if making the letter “C” then placing the right hand on top of the left hand. Placing the index finger under the middle finger and separating the two while extending the thumb in a downward position also makes the “S.” “Varrio” Westside is symbolic by making a “V” while separating two fingers with one hand and making a “W” with the other hand.”

 

[Notice the misspelled 'there' in place of 'their'. Even courts can make mistakes in spelling and typing. JC]

 

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John (Crosley)