'The Picketers'

These picketers are actors from a famous acting union, doing

an 'informational picket' on a well-known Los Angeles boulevard. I was

struck by this composition, as well as by their earnestness. I did not

really ask their names, and since I am not paparazzo and do not trade

off possibly famous faces I cannot tell you 'WHO' these actors are in the

firmament of celebrity, so please do not ask. 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

You say 'there is . . . a . . . geometry to it.'

Cartier-Bresson lived for what he called 'the geometry' (in English).

He of course meant 'composition' which was [over]stressed by his art teacher Lohte and guided him all his life.

That's why this is posted, in particular the attitude of the rear-most picketer.

Without that, the photo never would have been posted.

For me, his attitude is magic IF coupled with a the picketer in front.

There were only a couple of frames with the front picketer in which he was not smiling and which were otherwise appropriate, but it seems to have worked out well.

You have given me a high compliment, even if you did not know it. Literally, I have made something of some worth, from very little. For me that is an accomplishment. (and I didn't trade on celebrity).

Thank you for sharing your thoughts; I am grateful.

John (Crosley)

Thank you, I just enjoyed watching some videos on YouTube following your comments regarding Henri Cartier-Bresson. This is exactly why I joined Photo net -to learn and explore.

Looking through your work, I feel i can see the difference between desaturated colour film / digital, and the shots you have taken using black and white film. All are photographically excellent, but do you feel you loose something not using black and white film, a certain texture?

Cheers,

Dan

With film, I walked around with my 35 mm camera with Tri-X (ASA 400, now ISO 400) and would see a scene and say to myself 'no, can't take that, too dark, and 'no, can't take that' it will blow out the film and block it up' and missed a lot of scenes.

With digital, as I move into and out of shadows I constantly am resetting my ISO, so it's like having a different film for each new situation or a new 'film back' for the same. I'm never far off, and if I am I can zero in on the exposure if there's time enough to take another, as here. It make my incredibly productive and 'frees' me. I would need two assistants to do the work that one digital camera allows me, and it is just as easy to carry two and still do the same.

Do I lose anything?

Maybe.

But I gain so much more.

Film has certain qualities, and those qualities can be overlain into a digital capture, so the above can be made to look just like a film capture -- just go check those out.

They are made by several software makers, and the effects are named after popular (and not so popular) films to be applied to digital captures to give them film-like quality (of course it's contradictory, and why do it, unless maybe you're trying to 'match' a look, say for a photo book which has mixed captures?

Sensor do have a narrower latitude than film, so it is helpful to shoot 'raw' which allows greater latitude than JPEG (JPG), and then convert, AND make full use of image editing, such as Photoshop, usually latest edition as here CS4 which is wonderful.

A consumer photography magazine gave it highest marks -- essentially perfect.

Well, it's not perfect, but nearly so.

I have to say, once you learn it, it's better than any competitor, especially anything from Nikon (Nik). Nikon Capture is slow and clunky, although it does beautiful raw conversions, so if you've got one chance to put something out for a gallery, you might try converting in both to see which turns out better, as Nikon guards all the algorithms, especially sharpening.

Do not sharpen in Adobe Camera Raw as it looks terrible, and only sharpen at the end (my view of course).

Others' views may differ.

I suggest you pose a question to the entire Photo.net audience about that . . . . and then send me a link so I can follow it . . . about which is better in sharpening . . . Adobe or Nikon (but hunt first to see if it's been discussed before.)

I think 'sharpening in Adobe Camera Raw is unsightly, so I just turn it off, and wait until I have the .PSD (Photoshop) or .TIFF or even the .JPEG capture before I apply sharpening, always at the end.

That's the way I see it.

(technical notes, of course, but I think that's more helpful than saying 'thanks, I too think that this is an interesting shot, though it isn't for everyone'.)

;~))

John (Crosley)