'Living on Love'

The sign says 'Living on Love' but do the expressions bear that out for

these two colder weather street denizens, panhandling outside of one of

the nation's largest and most elite book stores (and also one deeply in

its own financial troubles like every other book store in America

because of competition from Internet publishing.)? 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

Super John well composed and great that they are not looking at you, not even the dog. Well out the corner of his eye. Regards Carl

Great street moment so well captured... again.

Jhon,

Thanks for bringing our attention to the facial expressions of these two people. The man with the sign was probably begging something from somebody. His look , I feel, is not at all innocent, rather a look of a cunning fellow. The other man's expression is even more terrifying and it shows that he is very much attentive how the 'deal' proceeds.Quite paradoxical from what is written in the sign!

 

Thanks a lot for sharing such a nice street photo with us.I admire you for capturing such a nice moment being totally unnoticed.

 

Regards,

Suumit

One of your excellent street shots...certainly a loving group...including the Pit Bull...I believe they are safe with him around...Great work...Marjorie

I talked with these guys for a while before photographing them, asked permission, and said 'I'll hang around -- just go about your business and ignore me'.

 

And they did, eventually.

 

Everyone's first impression is to pay attention to the guy with the camera, and early photographs show that, but sooner or later things happen -- life goes on.

 

Here, I recall, someone who they were a little hostile to had passed by, and was being 'confronted' a little bit, despite the message on the sign.

 

Hence the 'juxtaposition' between the sign and the apparent 'looks' of the group that I noted in the request for critique/caption.

 

Sometimes you announce your intentions; sometimes you don't. With pit pulls around, you make damn sure you announce your intentions and make sure the dog is not going to be sicced on you - they never let go. Ttrue story; One pit bull flattened all four tires of a San Jose police cruiser with an officer inside who had been called to control the dog -- the pit bull had to be destroyed.. Imagine a pit pull with such tenacity and force biting your leg or going for your face and never letting up -- they can kill o severely main adults.

 

In any event, these guys were agreeable to being photographed and assumed the sign carried the 'true message' though I think maybe not, in view of the leftmost guy's little hostile look.

 

Best to you Carl; nice to see you commenting here, as you're right on.

 

John (Crosley)

Thanks greatly for the compliment.

 

I sat on this for about five months; I'm not sure why, but I did.

 

Now I regret it.'

 

Do you know where Anytown, U.S.A. is?

 

Ask Josh Root, maybe he does.

 

Thanks for commenting -- I know it takes time and effort and am very thankful.

 

John (Crosley)

Great capture here! Regards

Sometimes I can be pretty myopic about my own captures, liking them perhaps for my own, but feeling the PN audience may reject them for whatever reason.

 

How wrong I have been about this one, taken around Christmas time!

 

That's the continual strength of the critique forum; when I posted it, the first rate was a 6/6 and then another similar rate, and I knew this would be a popular photo and already after one day it has a large number of rates compared to other of my postings, although other, anonymous postings range as low as 3/3.

 

Oh, well.

 

It is interesting, which is why I took it, but I felt it had areas that were difficult in nighttime tones that night hold it back, but the subject matter seems to have prevailed as well as the 'CROSLEY IRONIC JUXTAPOSITION' which often seems to creep into my photographs -- that little extra something that I seem to capture,

 

I think others often see that I just named, but they purposely don't capture it because it doesn't make a 'pretty picture' or it doesn't fit into what they think will make their photo work into their preconceived notion.

 

I just take photos, and look for the most interesting one -- one which tells a story or is the most interesting. It turns out that those with ironic juxtapositions, as here, are often the very most interesting!

 

Hayder, I thank you for your critique here, and all of your many others; they are invaluable to me.

 

John (Crosley)

I suppose the reason these guys so readily allowed me to their their photos was (1) they were the object of much-needed verification of their own authenticity, being 'lost' on the street; and they (2) assumed that with that sign they could only come out with great publicity, since the sign is one of peace.

 

But a street denizen or erst-while 'friend' or acquaintance came by, I recall, who had irked them, and the leftmost guy, I recall, showed hostility, which I caught, and it made for a better photo than just two beggars with an interesting sign -- the 'ironic juxtaposition, which dates back in my better photos to my first posting here -'balloon man' which is my most successful (highest rated anyway) posting to date and in some ways my most 'pure' photo, even if taken with an el cheapo lens a long time ago.

 

You don't mess with 'peace-loving guys' like these whose pet is a 'pit-bull'.

 

See above for what can happen when one gets out of control vs. a cop in his patrol car (flattened with his jaw, all four tires!!!)

 

Pit bulls are kind puppies, but one time in LA's Venice Beach I saw three different pit bulls on leashes puncture three different dogs, while their owners (falsely) claimed they were harmless lap dogs (or service dogs) and ever so kind. They are bred to fight and people use them in their back yards to keep poachers and cops from their stash of illegal drugs, stolen property, as any wise cop knows to keep away from a pit bull (American Staffordshire Terrier and various related cross-breeds.)

 

This one here was sleepy and under control,so I felt I could approach it, but I am MOST WARY of put bulls, as they will bite with no or minimal provocation, and not just a nip but a full-scale, mauling that doesn't stop.

 

They do well around kids, except with in heat, and then have been known to even kill the same kids (happened in San Francisco last year.)/

 

Photographer always beware of pit bulls.

 

And thanks Susmit for the apt comment and taking the time to express it.

 

John (Crosley)

Sure these guys are loving, but look at the left-most guy's expression,and for 'living on love' their buddy, the dog, is one of the most violent breeds in existence. Pit Bulls (Stafford shire Terriers) make wonderful pets, but if I were a homeowner's insurer, and had to insure for public liability and found you had one, I would pass you buy as a 'bad risk' and refuse to underwrite you -- too much exposure, especially in California where a dog no longer gets 'one free bite' before damages can be gotten from the owner.

 

A pit bull is an instant liability -- sweet as all get out, even with owner's kids, usually, but if 'set off' Katy Bar the Door. And a group wandering around can turn into a pack that exceeds anything you have ever hard of. After all they were used to fell bulls in Olde England and/or elsewhere.

 

Beware of them!

 

I prefer a dog with greater brains such as a Weimaraner, say, or a Jack Russell Terrier. Active dogs who can understand a human's needs and wants and who are trainable to voice command and WANT to obey.

 

And of course, a golden retriever.

 

Looking back to my choice of postings, Marjorie, I'm just trolling past captures as I'm sick as a dog, in bed, passing a kidney stone or reacting to the stent which I cannot get rid of for two or three weeks and keeps me bound to bed.

 

I'll be reviewing past captures when I feel good enough, and some other, passed-over work may see the light of your screen in the future. (the stone may have gone, but the stent -- a long plastic tube still makes me sick and keeps me house confined.

 

My best to you Marjorie. Do you see the 'ironic juxtaposition?"

 

I think you do after extensive colloquy above -- it's a category I excel in because I'm not afraid to snap that old shutter when things get intense, and people often thank me, and if not, I just tell them 'bye bye' as I wave and depart.

 

;~))

 

John (Crosley)

John...Sorry to hear about your health...Hopefully you'll be capturing more colorful characters soon...By the way...I was being facetious with my comments...These guys show clearly who they are and the Pit Bull emphasizes their decadent ways...Get well soon...Marjorie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

t

And the encouragement.

 

I spent all day yesterday at the doctor's for a 9:30 appointment -- Yes nine hours, just for a consult, x-ray and Rx.

 

I am told the stent they put in me is now what is causing my problems and disabling me most likely and that the soonest possible it can be removed is the Monday after Monday, or the Monday after that. Gads! Imagine! Rationed health care!

 

A stent is a 2 to 3 foot long plastic tube in one's ureter to bypass the stone, and probably the stone has passed or it's come a long way baby -- they couldn't tell exactly without a giant blowup of the x-ray.

 

Life is like hell in the meantime and will be for another ten days or so, at least, perhaps longer, with reclining being the only comfortable position, and I'm a pretty active guy, even though I am totally disabled from pain anyway, which means I cannot control WHEN I can be active those times I am active -0- a fact I don't talk about too much as who wants to hear me whine?

 

I'll be so happy just to be able to walk around without pain (and having to go to the bathroom -- or feeling like it like crazy with intense accompanying pain) that I'll be in a perpetual sense of euphoria despite my lifelong pain from having had my neck restructured (with mixed results) in 2000, and a second surgery being urged on me for that -- and for which I may now consent when and if I can get someone to pay.

 

After having my neck completely restructured in 2000, get this, I was in the hospital 2-1/2 days, and discharged, and without cash, friends, or credit card almost 1,000 miles from home and no where to stay. So, I got in my car and drove those 1,000 miles home in some 18 hours, stopping only for gas, and slept that night in my bed, and had no problems driving at all and was not a danger to anyone, no matter how bad it sounds -- I was perfectly safe and drove conservatively and steadily -- the model driver. All after having bones and disk removed and bones scraped in my neck with a diamond drill, and nerves moved about to make me feel better, then swathed, and sewn up (and still weeping at the wound.)

 

Honest to gosh, I was driving very, very safely, and hurting less than than I do lying in bed now.

 

I prefer neck surgery to this.

 

Thanks for the helpful words . . . . don't ever pass a kidney stone in a place where they ration their medical care.

 

As to these guys, they actually were pretty friendly, but they were living on the street, and a pit bull can be handy, as there are some grim creatures who might harm someone who appears vulnerable -- street people often carry weapons, etc., and prey on the weak -- these guys might have been seen as weak, but were pretty nice guys actually, and I caught them here in a moment of stress (to be fair).

 

Best wishes and thanks.

 

John (Crosley)

Jhon,

I pray to God that you will get well soon.Not too many Mondays to wait to get rid of the stent.I had an experience of having a in-dwelling catheter for one night for a very minnor but tricky surgery.I know about the pain.

 

It is really a matter of appreciation that you write separately to every member of PN even with the pain you are bearing.It proves without doubt that you are a true lover of photography and love to write to people.I think you don't feel that pain while you are engaged in writing.That acts on you as a true pain-killer!

 

Wish you a speedy recovery.

 

Regards,

Susmit

Well, I thank you greatly for the kind thoughts about the stent -- it's horrible to have one in, but I think it would have been worse to have lived without one - maybe much worse. At least there are positions I can assume where I have less pain, but almost all of them are reclining, and I'll be lucky in ten days or so when this ends if I have any skeleton or skeletal muscles left because of wasting.

 

I do appreciate nearly each and every one of those who stop by to leave their thoughts with my photos; it has been just over five years since I left my first (and highest rated) photo here, amid great trepediation, wondering, since I'd never had any photo lessons and never had any critiques before, though I had been hired (but never taken the job) as an AP photographer, at an early age, so I was full of self-doubt.

 

I doubt if the AP would much have liked my style then, and would have tried to take my 'style' I then had and make it into standard newspaper style, This style you see now would have never appeared -- amidst 'grip and grin' shots of celebrities and dignitaries shaking hands as well as baseball and other sports great shots -- but I would have become a friend, probably with Willy Mays, as most photographers where I was hired did. (but frankly I could have cared less).

 

I do care very much about the critiques I receive here; as there is much meat in so many of them; (not all, but so many), and over time, they have helped me greatly in honing in on my various styles -- and helped me decide how to hone my 'street' style more as well as keep me an honest shooter, plus they have reminded me of things I've overlooked in my shooting so often, that when I go out shooting now, the effect of all the critiques is built in -- I have internalized so many of the good points.

 

And the bad points just slide off me generally.

 

And I've made such good friends, including you and a number of other wonderful people; people who genuinely do care, which can carry me through the rough times like this -- which truly is wonderful, and I thank you personally and all the others who have expressed good wishes.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

 

P.S. Susmit, the true pain killer I learned after my neck surgery was taking a great photo, or the process of doing so -- I concentrate so hard on doing that, that I move my mind away from my constant pain -- it's really the only activity that causes me to remove my mind from that pain, aside from working with those photos, posting them and (you guessed it) corresponding with members about them. (you are prescient, you.)

 

jc

Well captured moment ,hope they are safe and well .regards

Thanks for the compliment.

 

Don't worry about them; worry about me.

 

But so far I'm doing ok.

 

And I'm learning how to take care of myself in a rationed medical care setting. (did you read the above?)

 

These guys were in my life one night, then completely disappeared, never to be seen by me again. They may be anywhere in the country or world now, together or not. They were nice enough kind of guys, not seeming to want to get into any sort of trouble (the sign seemed genuine, despite the slightly hostile look in this photo, which was mostly temporary).

 

John (Crosley)

living only on love, I am sure they did not even get out of the city

Very effective b/w shot of life as it is. I like the expression you have captured in the faces of the men. The dog's expression seems likewise...in all, the photo makes me want to know more...what is the man on the left saying? Are these two people friends, or just people who have sat side by side by chance? The expression on the other person's face is interesting...I wonder what/who he is staring at, what is he thinking.

 

As I said, this is reality...and makes me aware of what responsibilities we have other than just shooting for art's sake. Thank you, John.

You ask interesting questions, and as an artist, I could leave your questions unanswered and be within my artistic rights. For to answer all your questions might take some of the mystery away and thus some of the 'goodness' of this photo.

 

Or not.

 

I'll let you decide after I give you some of my experience in dealing with these two men (and the dog).

 

These two men were parked thusly outside Portland and the Northwest's most famous and largest (multistory) bookstore, a world famous book emporium that now is struggling financially, as are all other large and small bookstores countrywide and even possibly worldwide.

 

The competition is the Internet book, the used book market where used books are going sometimes for pennies as buyers seek just to recycle books just often for the sake of recycling and not always for a real 'profit' but often out of altruism, or out of disregard for real economics -- as they're amateurs with no real knowledge of value and no overhead.

 

But these guys found a busy place to panhandle at night as that particular bookstore's main entrance gets an enormous amount of pedestrian traffic -- possibly as much from people with discretionary money to spend as any place in Portland (anytown, USA in my portfolio for those who didn't recognize that).

 

These two guys definitely were together as partners, probably as friends and co-dependant on each other and the dog was their companion

 

[An aside: due to the possible horrible outcome of a pit bull attack with the pit bull's propensity to never let go and its ability to inflict deep puncture wounds and severely main, I ensure that whenever I get near a pit bull, I assure myself the owner(s) have full control of the beast - and that there are no other animals nearby as many pit bulls will attack other animals indiscriminately. I once saw three such pit bull vs. animal attacks within two hours in LA's Venice Beach walk and much blood from the attacked animals and possible lifetime maimings with pit bull owners running away with their animals shouting 'he never did anything like that before'! Like heck!]

 

Having satisfied myself that this particular pit bull was tuckered out and was not gonna see me as an enemy of his masters, and having chatted with these two guys and obtained their permission to shoot them (at will, but not a formal portrait but just hang around and take 'random shots', for this I dropped down and framed a variety of shots from the dropped position so I could get a more dog's eye view.

 

A cohort or former cohort of these two had come by, at far left, out of camera view, and the man, left, had not had such good relations with him, or the guy, left had a pointed barb to send to the man, so he is caught here sending that barbed remark, which is somewhat out of character for him based on the totality of what I saw while I was there with these guys.

 

But it was real, and it was a true part of the totality, even if it was not completely representative of the rather nice guys these guys seemed to be. I judged them to be rather harmless and really rather friendly.

 

I took my photos, wished them success in panhandling, them mosied off with thanks to them for their cooperation.

 

Now, I don't know if the photo is better for having told you the story, or not.

 

Cartier-Bresson for his earlier, non-journalistic photos, did not like to tell 'the story in part because he was a surrealist, and surrealism suggested you didn't need to tell a story. A photo could stand or fall on what was depicted within the frame.

 

After the founding of Magnum when he took on the mantle of photo-journalist, however, he wrote, long, detailed captions that would substitute for stories if his photos arrived at a magazine without someone else's accompanying story -- so they still could be sold with some significant words attached -- Cartier-Bresson's words. He took this task very seriously, too.

 

I once wrote captions for part of my work at Associated Press as a photo editor, so it comes naturally to me to describe a photo, but I also know how not to tell the story, but it goes against my grain.

 

You tell me which you think is the better way for this photo, would you -- to tell the story, or withhold it?

 

I'd be pleased to learn your answer and your reasons therefore.

 

Thanks for an interesting set of questions and the implicit observation(s).

 

John (Crosley)

With or without; does not matter. Commentary is an issue that came between us from the time we met and keeps me coming back. Your commentary is interesting but adds nothing to your photo and if fact has nothing to do with the photo.. But both are interesting. I wrote more but came back and deleted. It is not a new matter between us and you were not asking me for my opinion. Hope I have not orphaned a thought of yours.

Hi John,

 

I dropped by to take a look and find that you are a little off colour (pun unintentional) health-wise.

 

I do hope you feel much better soonest and continue to keep your audience satisfied with your fine photos and extraordinarily conscientious always interesting commentary.

 

Best wishes,

 

Miles.

I am ever so thankful for your good wishes; I hope to rid myself of this curse very soon - maybe within this week -- at least I have hopes.

 

I know it is showing itself in my output as you have seen.

 

Thank you for your good wishes, my friend. Such good wishes help me keep going through good times, as pain truly saps my energy in ways I hadn't thought possible, but the minute it is not present, I seem 'normal'.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

I just want to see it again. It is great.

Regards.

P.S. John, you enjoy the writing as much as the photography so I'd not suggest that you stop. Keep writing.!