pretty darn new 'The Beard'

I first saw 'The Beard' as this man walked down the main street for all

Ukraine - Kyiv's Kreshatik Blvd., a street designed after World War II

(known in Ukraine/Russia as 'The Great Patriotic War'), as he walked

toward me swiftly from a distance and passed me, still firing. I framed,

focused, zoomed and fired on 'C' drive, as he walked toward and by me.

Your comments and critiques are invited and most welcome. If you rate

harshly or very critically or just wish to make a comment, please submit

a helpful and constructive comment; please share your photographic

knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John

This is the framing I was looking for, as I was firing at eight frames a second, for a second or two, but with a slow shutter speed, so the frames were not really peeling off at eight frames a second, especially as my camera slowed to hunt for focus.

Luckily, because light was very, very low, in early evening and although my ISO had not yet been set to 'higher', this man was walking straight at me, so there was little or no sideways motion at that moment, or all captures would have been hopelessly blurred, but as he was walking toward me maybe two were acceptably 'sharp' with this the sharpest.

It is posssible also that this particular capture caught him at the end of one oscillating sideways motion where he 'appeared' still to a camera facing him from 'head on', though he might have been moving side to side as he strode.

Sharpness was the criterion I used for choosing among 'C' captures,(most of which were not acceptable), and although one other was framed almost exactly like this, it was too blurry from subject motion, partly from his closing speed to me and my autofocus camera and 'S' Nikkor 70-200 f 2.8 lens, with the quite slow shutter speed.

The 'best' camera/lens combition I had (telephoto mind you) just couldn't keep up, even with 'predictive focusing', in part because when a person walks there is some side to side motion in their gait and in part because he was moving 'around me' toward the end, which did involve some sideways movement, and in part possibly because he had moved within minimum focusing distance for the lens at that zoom setting.

John (Crosley)

I love this picture.

love the details.

you can see every grain of hair.

looks like he is about 30-40 years old.

and the way he looks away, like he dont know you are shooting a picture.

it inspires me to maybe buy a camera myself.

got any tips&tricks?

I love comments like yours.

I am in Kyiv, Ukraine, working on 12-18 terabyte hard drives, and with two laptops open, one to the Internet, and it was showing this photo,which I also happen to love.

I love it both for its texture (the hair, against mostly a black, plain background, and for its composition, a three-pointed figure, which connected, defines a triangle, a most dynamic figure, which with his head fills the frame.

I do not think too many people understand the worth of the composition, but it's carefully studied, even if taken in a fraction of a second. (Though this precise 'shot' did include his head, it was cropped to match a closer, more blurry shot that was exactly framed like this one - just unusable because of blurs).

Indeed, he was busy walking right past me, thinking possibly I was shooting a bunch of pedestrians with my huge zoom telephoto and 'how could he possibly be shooting me, coming up so close to Mr. Photographer' but I have predictive focus,and an 'S' (super fast) focusing lens, so 'ha', I nailed him, though only for one or two shots, and all without his knowledge, even though he was right in front of me.

The point is not to acknowledge that's what you are doing and to keep pointing away right after he's passed, so after he goes by, don't wheel around (what's the point in that anyway, or look at your captures -- you'll have time for that, because they'll not go away, and you cannot improve them.)

Instead, just keep that camera/lens up and keep pointing down the street/sidewalk as though you really were capturing far-off foot traffic -- it often throws off the curious and the potentially angry (or irritable) very often.

For a full bevy of 'tips and tricks' please start at the bottom of my portfolio of photos where the comments start and start reading all my replies to comments; there's a wealth of 'tips and tricks' in those. Then, if those are not enough (there are hundreds of replies - maybe more - then go to the thousands of replies to comments posted by me under my photos.

There's enough there, edited, for a complete book on 'tips and tricks' for street photographers - perhaps a complete encyclopedia. You need not go far to get a nearly complete education in 'how to behave' to maximize exposures and minimize risk.

And, of course, he was not aware, but sometimes, making subjects aware is quite OK.

This was telephoto, and now I know why. It's a broad sidewalk - almost as wide or wider than a street, and it is rude to get too close to people who are walking often. I use a telephoto to get in 'close'. I also use a wide angle to moderate tele zoom for those seated on benches or in groups. In Los Angeles, Seattle, Bangkok, in aircraft, or any place where people are more concentrated I'll use a wide to superwide lens -- often a 12-24 mm zoom or my standard 17-55 f 2.8 zoom (of which I have owned a large number of iterations . . . . so that I have lost count of how many I have actually owned, sold or had stolen,but I have a great one now ( and a backup at home,destined for a world class friend (see that Mr. Friend in Italy??)

Lasse,it takes some guts and boldness to shoot 'street' but that can come in small increments. Long ago I wasn't so bold, and was rather intimidated or shy about it. Even apologetic like many and I've just outgrown it as the apparent 'worth' of my captures gains in others' estimation -- even experts.

It makes the tradeoff easier to stomach (or rationalize?)

In any case, for a long time I was an attorney, and in my lifetime I have had to endure any number of huge humiliations, so the anxiety of shooting 'street' no longer looms big in my estimation - in fact it's FUN! and because of auto everything on the cameras I use, it's FUN. This could NOT have been taken generally with a Leica rangefinder or even their SLR camera, as a series at least, and only I think with a motor drive (C drive) drive camera or digital 'C' drive camera with multiple frames per second, under low light just to get one or two usable frames.

In very low light I'll burst several frames as subjects and I both move a little, hoping to get ONE good, sharp one.

That's all it takes, really.

Thanks for commenting.

Now, after you've taken personal inventory, and if you think you have the gumption to do this kind of shooting sometime in the future, you can buy that camera and practice on landscapes, birds (I practice on birds because they move (fly) so fast, portraits, studio, still life (nudes?) and so forth.

Do you really need any further excuse?

Go get 'em.

And thanks again.

John (Crosley)

Wonderful capture, John. Methinks this could be extrapolated...this guy was in two minds, perhaps? Very symbolic, then.

What strikes my eye is the composition and the very effective cropping (if you have done it post-processing). Eight frames/sec also explains the sharpness with a telelens in low lighting conditions (correct me there if I'm wrong).

Can I take this opportunity to invite your comments (once again) on two photos I have posted recently?

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?topic_id=1481&msg_id=00UkI6&photo_id=9901905&photo_sel_index=0

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?topic_id=1481&msg_id=00UpS9&photo_id=9952693&photo_sel_index=0

I would appreciate your views on the composition of both and on your thoughts on the one named "Dali'". Thank you for your time.

I'm glad you like this; early raters were telling me that this one, which I like very, very much, was pretty much a stinker, but several 6/6s snuck in, so it's doing better, but still not so well.

I'd welcome a chance to critique your photos, but am on a borrowed computer as mine has VISTA, and it needs a re-install after service pack one was placed into service a few days ago, so I must re-install my operating system (also to cleans it of the temp Photoshop that I downloaded 'now that I'm in Eastern Europe . . . . ')

I'd welcome it if you could 'embed' your links, or at least state them on separate lines for ease of copying into my browser, if you would, please. I never mastered 'ebedding myself' because places I geneally post take care of that through site software, so I haven't learned. (I think Photo.net has a small tutorial somewhere, if that helps and many know where the small tutorial is (or was).

As I said, this is a favorite and as I explained above, although this is a crop, it is the exact duplicate of a late frame - which embodied my 'framing idea exactly' but that later frame was unacceptably blurry, perhaps because of 'subject motion' and lack of adequately fast autofocus, or just because the man had breached the minimum acceptable focusing distance of the lens. I haven't yet checked with the EXIF data and the lens data to find out for sure (and really, may never do that -- after all this is not studio work where one measures things routinely.

So, if I don't submit a critique in a day or three, please remind me (on the site or by e-mail). I like critiquing your work; you seek to underrstand mine, you know my thought process, and seem to value it, so why not share it with you about your photos.

Best of the rest of the week and weekend to you. (and do not be afraid to remind me, as I do have best intentions and sometimes overlook things, but do not mind at all sharing with you.)

john

John (Crosley)

I do not know about my being a 'master' but if I could take such good photos every day, I would be satisfied, and the two photos I've seen you've commented on today (lesser viewed and regarded ones) place you among a rarified few critics of mine who recognize what I feel is my 'best', bar none.

I like your taste in what I do, even if it not the most 'popular', and it shows independent judgment on your part, something I admire (especially when it coincides with my own 'independent judgment'.

Thanks so much for the validation.

john

John (Crosley)

Longer  you  beard, wiser  you  are  or what ? Excellent image.  I wander  what  sign  we  have to   wear,  to shown,  how  intelligent we are.  Witch  you  can  never  learn,  you  born with it  or  not.

Cheers;  Bela

How wonderful you have been looking at my photos and commenting -it makes my day, perhaps my week.

And you're in the 'less popular' folders of photos I like and posted, but did not post with my 'most popular.

This is a guy who just walked toward me and I shot and autofocused as he walked, continually zooming, thus reframing somewhat.

This is one of a series, and maybe cropped a little; I like it so much; I'm glad it has elicited a comment from you.

Bless you for liking this photo enough to comment on it. 

This is a rarity in Ukraine - most men do not have beards, most men are clean-shaven and have short hair, since I've been coming to Ukraine.  Perhaps this man is 'ethnic' -- perhaps from another country, Jewish (own rules) or some such.  I'll never know.

He walked right past me without evening noticing me or my camera and 'long lens' which -- by the time he walked by -- could only have taken an eyeball full frame, he was so close  . . . if my lens would focus so closely.

In other words, he walked right past, apparently without noticing.

It's a magnificent beard, and inexplicably in two parts, which is especially why I took so many photos.

Thank you so much for taking the effort to leave a comment.

john

John (Crosley)