'The Unreal Gets Reflected; the Real, Well . . . .'

It's the coldest part of Winter in downtown Kyiv, Ukraine and the ever

present Okorona (security) guard stands post outside a fancy and high-

priced store, as Okorona are ever present throughout Ukraine protecting

products and cash registers everywhere - -since police are universally

judged to be corrupt and untrustworthy. The man, naked, distance,

reflects or has his alter ego inside the store while the lone security

guard just stands there bundled up. One is reality, and one is not.

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

Some real "digita" problems especially in the face. Also the coat appears to be dogded. John you should pull this. Explaining my rating as you request

Which at the time was a better than average camera for shooting in low-light (nighttime) conditions. The D300 was not then available to me. I happen to like digital 'noise' in some circumstances just as some photographers feel 'grain' is something that is important to them.

 

I like my photos a little 'gritty' at times, and am unapologetic for those that are.

 

I may ask a friend who is excellent at processing from raw such photos and has some excellent 'filters' to see if he can make this look better, as it is going to stay posted, whether in this folder or another.

 

I can always use a helpful critique, even when it suggests things for a photo such as 'manipulation that I have already said is 'unmanipulated' then concludes publicly I am a 'liar', which decidedly I am not.

 

Unmanipulated for me, means just that: unmanipulated.

 

John (Crosley)

As always, I like your street photos; after all this is your first love. I also like the way you interprete the shots...I see this as a bleak photo...there seems to be some sadness in the man's expression. he looks rather forelorn, doesn't he? To draw this out a little further...maybe the naked manikin reflects an emptyness that the man perhaps feels...that way, the manikin becomes an image of the man himself.

 

The manikin also provides a good balance to the photo with the man on the other side...the cropping, hence the composition, is brilliant. Great capture of mood here. Regards.

 

I don't view a potential 'photo situation' from the standpoint' always of making a 'social comment' but somewhere in the back of my mind, so often there really is one, but it's unspoken and often undeveloped.

 

How else to describe a photo in which a bundled up young man stands in front of one storefront or door and down the street is a mannequin on the street standing in front of a like mannequin (no it's not a reflection actually), in the window, which 'mirrors' himself, but in the dead of winter, both the indoor mannequin and the outdoor mannequin are buck naked?

 

I must have had some 'comment' to make, hadn't I?

 

Well, the commentary perhaps is for my viewers - I saw a scene loaded with ripeness for commentary, and maneuvered for quite some time and with some difficulty to obtain this view, especially since the okorona (Russian for security *guard*) did not particularly want to be photographed because he couldn't possibly understand what I was doing, in part because I could hardly articulate it to myself. I had a companion who might have tried to articulate it, but that companion, who truly does understand what it is I do (very,vvery bright person, and a great friend), would have a problem conveying the situation I was trying to achieve to a mere security guard, unless he were a college student 'moonlighting' (literally at a night/evening job.)

 

It was just a photo that had to be taken (and posted) no matter how poor the condition because of lack of sensitivity to low light -- the D200 is not outstanding, even in RAW format to such low light and this scene also was very yellowish all over because of street lights with an extraordinary yellow cast, so to convert to black and white, I also had to filter out the yellow in order to make it somewhat presentable. Oh, how I long to have had a D300 or a D3 or D700 at that moment and it might have been a wonderful shot -- without the noise. I'll pass this one in raw by my friend Giuseppi Pasquali, to see if he can make any sense of getting rid of some of the noise to make it more presentable. He's a Photoshop wizard in making captures presentable -- I don't know if he does much more, but he's great at cleaning up messed up captures due to poor exposures in low light.

 

(and only if he is interested - Giuseppe is a perfectionist AND he has digital darkroom skills among the best I've encountered for 'street' photographers -- although I have heard from Frederick Pascual who says he's also improving his Post processing, which never was really in need of improvement) These are two of the best street shooters I know -- at least for my money, although there are many, many others.

 

One can make up just about any story -- this is more 'art' than photography in a way, so one can almost place any interpretation on it, as one does with 'art'.

 

I just wish I had a cleaner version, though I do not shy away from posting pixellated images or those with digital noise -- if they're otherwise good enough in content, rather than let them go away, so people can see otherwise 'hidden' work of mine.

 

I didn't want to be the only person who ever saw this shot, even if technically it does fall short.

 

(I may look once again at the JPEG from the camera rather than the 'raw' version, and just switch them out -- the camera jpeg version may be even stronger with a few adjustments than the 'raw - NEF' version. We'll see.)

 

Best to you Samrat. Your critiques increasingly are 'on the mark' and best of all don't confuse technical issues with artististic ones, which is a fault of some.

 

I do thank you especially for the good commentary on balance and composition - a lot of thought went into that, especially since the mannequiin was some distance from the security guard and making any composition was quite difficult -- it would have been easier if they had been closer together. You have made my day (and night).

 

Thanks for the fine commentary overall.

 

John (Crosley)

 

P.S. Wow, I just looked at your rate. I don't thank for rates; they're personal and express how one person views a photograph; I'm glad this one impressed you, but if I said 'thank you' for rating high' I might also have to say 'blaaahhhh' to those who rate low, but I hope I'm above that. I'm thankful in general for all ratigns just so long as ratings are honest and not tainted by animosity and don't arise out of sheer stupidity (well generally anyway).

 

john

 

John (Crosley)