'Ruth' -- Who Fasted Over 24 Hours In Remembrance

This is 'Ruth' whom I met recently, who made a point of telling me she

had fasted over 24 hours to remember the Holocaust. She is Jewish

and of indeterminate age, but grew up her entire life in Los Angeles and

was spared the horror that killed brethren throughout Europe. 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 are the one critic on Photo.net who chooses his words of praise so carefully and dispenses them so rarely, that I am quadruply flattered to receive such kind words.

I am trying very hard, in my own way now, to try to 'capture souls' in my portraits as well as make them inviting and interesting to look at.

Ruth, who is of indeterminate age, surely is a contemporary of her Jewish sisters and brethren who suffered the Holocaust, and seemed very affected still that she is Jewish and had survived with no ill effects personally, having been in America all the her life while her religious kin were slaughtered in Europe by the millions.

If you look carefully at her jewelry, her grooming, and even her looks, you will surely recognize that she's not only a woman of great 'class' without pretense, but also that as a younger woman she must have been stunning in her own and nonclassical way -- certainly the apple of some man's eye and even now quite appealing in a nonclassical way.

When I saw her, I determined to photograph her, and luckily in this major open-air market, she was sitting with an older man whose acquaintance I had made, so he introduced us straight away and told her I was a photographer who would surely want to take some photographs of her.

At the next table in this semi-outdoor market were two photographers with the latest. expensive full-frame Nikon equipment with huge pro lenses just waiting for a chance to approach her, and I surely spoiled their plans.

Who knows how long they had waited to get the courage or to choose the right moment to approach 'Ruth' to ask her if they could photograph her, and I just walked up, sat down, and in a minute or so had already taken 10 photos and ended with 30 or 40 within 12 or so minutes, just as she was about to depart.

I helped walk her out.

She was delightful, and so the task was wonderful. She was somewhat askance at all the attention, and other photos reveal that.

I read recently from Annie Liebowitz in her biography lamenting she never developed the ability to 'talk' or 'schmooze' with her subjects, and surely though she was a great photographer, that ability would have placed her even higher in the pantheon of the greats had she developed it.

But, she lamented, she was too wrapped up in working with her equipment, framing and 'seeing' to interact with the people she was photographing.

Not me.

I can easily walk and chew gum at the same time.

Ruth and I talked about KZ Dachau (Dachau Concentration Camp where I've visited three times though I'm a gentile), and I think I earned her respect. I have a thorugh knowledge of the Holocaust, the camps, the methods, and the history of persecution of Jews from the first pogrom in Russia onward. (and I've lived in Ukraine near the site of one of the major mass killings in World War II, and regularly talk there with Orthodox Jews from Israel who pay pilgraimages to their ancestral land (Ukraine) often to honor a long-dead rabbi or their family homestead, etc., and in some cases, (get this!) to 'find a blue-eyed Jewish girl to marry' because the Jews of Ukraine intermixed enough that many of the traditionally brown-eyed Jews now also include a number of blue-eyed Jews -- just about the only place in the world where such people are found.

A form of discrimination and racism in itself? Yes, but in affairs of the heart and love, I guess it can be forgiven . . . . far worse has occurred than searching for a woman with certain physical attributes.

I liked Ruth very much; I'm certain I'll see her again.

I met another man, a former 'constable' if you get the drift, (I write somewhat in code here for good reason), and photographed him, but i cannot show his photos during his lifetime due to his former profession and certain fears he has.

Everybody agreed the captures are SO GOOD that they belong on museum walls, though I photogarphed him near midnight at ISO 1250 along a wall in the back of a bar with an old manual lens at 1/3 second hand held at f 2.8.

They're stunning and every one of his friends (who theretofore didn't know me) and saw them on my camera agrees that I 'caputred his soul'. His numerous friends now give me great respect, though I didn't know a one of them and they didn't know me or or me and none has seen other work of mine so far as I know.

Regrettably they captures are embargoed until after his passing, as he wants no publicity, given his former occupation. (He's in his '80s, but very vigorous so I may never be able to show them in my lifetime.).

Some day, should i live long enough, I'm going to blow those up and try to get those on a museum wall -- all ten shots, and say 'this is what I did in 2009 in ten minutes.'

It's among the best work I've ever done and completely of another sort -- you wouldnt' expect it from me unless you understand (as you do) the above photo of 'Ruth'.

I'm zeroing in on the portrait in my own style and I like it very much.

Cartier-Bresson made fun of photographers who 'do heads' -- his 'portraits' were 'environmental' and wonderful, but he didn't do 'head shots'.

I do.

He thought there was no 'art' in the 'head shot'.

I am beginning to think I disagree.

Lex, I may have to wait another several years for another comment from you, but when you do comment, you can be sure I'll pay rapt attentoin.

john

John (Crosley)

(and just when you thought I was only taking and posting LA fluff, hunh?)

I follow my own muse;

I have little to do with fads.

I take the photos I like to take of whatever genre, and no matter whether they'll be popular or not or 'giants' or 'little photos' I fee free to post them.

It's a very rare day when I take anything down.

Photo.net for me is a testing ground for popularity - for learning public taste, through its rating system.

I've made a personal one-off 'book' of the photos I'd present to galleries and museums but have not shown it yet -- it's a galley, but ready for reprints and showing when I get more money. Each copy is about $150.00

Some photos in the book were chosen because they were extremely popular on Photo.net -- so much they surprised me, and others were 'little photos' that I judged were very worthy that had little following on Photo.net at all, but which I judged had great artistic merit.

I follow my own drummer. (if you follow my writings, you may remember I had a 'mentor'/ He has just reappeared briefly in my life, and we'll see what role he plays, if any in my career aspirations.)

Maybe some day I'll want to do those things you mention, but these days, I've got my hands fulll, trying to take 'one good photo a day that will be worthy for a lifetime.'

I think Ruth above is one.

I think there will be more.

My very best to you Lex.

John (Crosley)

Today from a 40-year friend of Ruth, depicted above, who was lapsing into senility, I have learned that almost certainly she has passed away.

Never truly 'beautiful' in a physical sense even as a young woman, she was always 'attractive' or as the Russians have a special word 'sympatichne' which fits so well.

She grew up in Los Angeles and spent her life there, I understand, yet fasted to remember the Jews who died in the Holocaust.

Lest We Forget, she felt.

john

(her goyim photographer)

John (Crosley)

Yom Kippur 2010

The above comment should read Rosh Hashanah, not Yom Kippur.

Pardon my mixing up of Jewish Holidays.

I am informed by one of my good Jewish friends that it is 16 days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur.

We spent 2 solid hours talking about Ruth, last night, among other things, and he especially noted her deep blue eyes (not common for a Jewish woman) and speculated her roots were from Ukraine, which interested me, since many Israeli men come from Israel specifically to Ukraine (I meet and talk with them) to find a blue-eyed Jewish woman to marry.  Ukraine Jews are unique in that a significant number do have vlue eyes, a result of intermarriage as the Jews of Europe and the diaspora generally are brown-eyed.

In any event, look at Ruth's eyes:  beautiful, huh, even in black and white?

john

John (Crosley)