johncrosley

The composition appears optimal with excellent architecture, good texture and curves, etc., good balance, optimal camera/lens placement, best obtainable shutter timing, best obtainable lighting, all in an effort to make of this circumstance the best obtainable photo, and one that will stand the test of time as both pleasing and significant within the 'street' classification. Did I make it, or did I miss. I invite your opinions. Your ratings, critiques and observations are invited and most welcome. If you rate or critique harshly or wish to make a remark, please submit a helpful and constructive comment; please share your photographic knowledge to help improve my photography. Please limit your suggestions to things that are 'do-able' by the photographer, such as shutter speed, aperture, timing, camera placement, lens choice, etc., as opposed to critiquing the architecture, etc. Thanks jc

I might note this 'lost' photo was rescued from the jammed chip this past week, thus processed this past week. If I had processed it back 11 or 12 years ago when taken it might not have shown the emphasis on the hands it does here which to my belief are the essence of the photo (in my view today) and concentrated on tonalities elsewhere. I think now that might have been a mistake. Perhaps it's better this photo sat 'in the deep freeze' for so many years. Your view? john John (Crosley)

Tommy Mostrup Hi Tommy, Thanks for the entirely positive comment. This photo is 11 or 12 years old. Being 'rescued' from a CF card, there i s no apparent EXIF info, but based on memory of where I was and the circumstance, I can place my whereabouts and even rememver taking this, but not the exact year . . just where and when I was there. What year . . . I am not sure . . . but it was summer and hot (as usual). Thanks so much for a pleasant review ; I can also take a harsh or instructive review too, so don't stint. ;~)) John (Crosley)

Ricardo Girão This photo 'critique request' software was jammed for a half day after it was postede so it lost a half day's being seen by members who troll for recently posted photos to cirtique. As a result it has fewer views than any photo as this stage after posting i have ever posted on Photo.net. I think part of it is due to the format rather than the photo itself, don't you? You call it great, and think it's pretty wonderful, and almost lost if I'd discard the chip on which it was jammed but I'm very careful. Some jems from 2006 and 2006 have finally been rescued through software processing fixes and why not jim unjamming fixes too, so long ago I made a pact never to throw away jammed CF cards. This is the result. Thanks for the positive review. john John (Crosley)

Herman Roes, Thank you for your positive comment. john John (Crosley

Caption: ' Hold Tightly to Your First Love Memory Improve With Age' Critique requested. Taken on the banks of the Dnipro River which bisects the fertile farmland of Ukraine, Europe's largest country, here at the city of Dnipro (formerly Dnipropetrovsk, where they once built rockets to blow up America as the main industry in case pf Soviet nuclear war), this couple like many others in this now university town enjoy a hot summer's day stroll and tight embracel along the embankment of the Dnipro River, hundreds of miles downstream from where it passes-- already a huge river--through Kyiv the nation's capital and still hundreds more before it flows into the Black Sea. Your ratings, critiques and observations are invited and most welcome. If you rate or critique harshly, please submit a helpful and constructive comment; please share your photographic knowledge to help me better understand your input. Thanks! Enjoy! john John Crosley) (Photo rescued from a 'jammed chip' that until recently was incapable of being extracted until the advent of new software extraction techniques. Moral: NEVER THROW AWAY JAMMED CHIPS!)

Svetlana Korolova I think the Administration with the new site has elininated the ratings. There never were any ratings 'guidelines' making them for many members 'useless' and over time they went from 'high' to lower to very low/average even for good photos but partly because of imrovements in keeping out games raters had been playing before you arrived as a site member. In any case, a comment is often far better than a rating, esecially a good comment from a well-known and masterful member like yourself -- comments like that i treasure. (but you can leave critical or 'helpful' comments too, and they are also appreciated, as i need to learn why some photos just do not 'work' or can be improved'. Thanks for your kind comment. I hope this response eases you about the new site design. john John (Crosley)

Holger Steljes You were right, others did see this image 'another way' as Gregory and Verena Sava' commenting next above you appeared to (although they don't state it outright, and their comment was also right -- the very aged twins did enjoy the posing process). But why? I think it reminded them of what they did frequently when they were very young and very pretty in a fresh, youthful, twinly extraordinariness, in Hollywood's heyday as it filmdom's Mecca was just beginning to transform from the 'star' system to one of more merit-based films at it is now, with the 'star' system at present practically in 'tatters' compared to what it once had been. Merit reigns in Hollywood now, to fill the seats, get those cable views, causes the blu-rays to be inserted and so forth. Things have changed, but these two women pose the same old way that served them well. It's habitual. The gusto with which these two fossils engaged in adopting the poses that surely had carried them through much of their younger years to a sort of celebrity (not worldwide celebrity -- maybe just 'Hollywood' standard' celebrity -- where people 'knew' them because they were 'everywhere' and together, dressed alike, in the same colors (here, a pink, purple for each with identical outfits, and of course, pretty, dressed in pretty clothes. Men lusting after them. Now no longer. Attention, which once came naturally, is of a different nature and seldom seen. More of the nature of an old man telling kids' GET OFF MY LAWN -- grumpy attention from offense given sometimes, but no fawning attention as before. No matter how much they were aging and declining, their identical and fashionable wardrobe was to them de rigueur when they go out even in old age, even when this photo was taken, almost every day -- even if just to wander. Here they were searching for a way to save themselves from eviction (and I directed them to 'legal aid' which would help them for free' almost assuredly, IF they could follow easy directions, and even put them on the right bus} The bus driver recognized them and heaved a sign, as he obviously remembered these two oldsters who never paid a fare. It goes with the job. But it was just a sigh . . . . one of inevitability . . . that goes with the bus driving job, like driving on those LONG routes at all night . . . especially during the GREAT RECESSION with passengers who went straight to the back seats and slept both going and coming on a 90 minute to two hour route one way, then turned around and came back, often with a blanket thrown over their heads to shield from bright inner bus light as they fought for Morpheus.. A tough life in the late 2000s and even into the next decade with buses (and bus shelters) becoming actual 'housing' for the homeless. These ladies had a home of long duration, but they were threatened with losing it and were in distress, but I helped show them the way, iF they could follow my simple instructions and GET to Legal aid who would take them by the hand and help save their housing and keep them together till their lives' mutual end. For it occurred to me that they were bound together like a head to a body, and one would not exist long without the other. I saw it in Kiev when one sister artist who drew caricatures alongside the main thoroughfare often seated near the other suddenly died, it was not long before her identical twin sister also died, probably from heartbreak, or like having a vital organ removed. Heartbreak is the guillotine that separas the symbolic self-chosen Siamese who were NOT actually conjoined but chose to live their lives as though they were? Were those artists just like these two twins? I'll bet they were. Cancer is evident on the left one's nose. It's prominent, undiagnosed, and untreated, but it won't kill -- it's slow growing and almost never metastasizes. It just spreads and disfigures. Death comes from other causes. Yes,they are smiling as in the Hollywood of old, that was their path to a livelihood, or perhaps just to recognition and maybe entree into parties as the 'fun, pretty twins' -- very good looking and maybe 'a gas'. Who knows? Who remembers? Who would remember? They are on life's cusp, the River Stylx must be crossed, and they sense it. First the home may go, then one will go, then inevitably soon after the other likely be guillotined from her lifelong companion -- the one person in the world who thinks as she does, knows everything about her, cares for her intimately, and she alone as a former twin is thrown into a world where nobody else really cares a whit. That knowledge I am sure is implicit. The pose is reflexive. They smile and get close together; eyes sparkling - maybe with reminiscences of the 'olden days' when those smiles and twinkly eyes meant something -- attracted men, caused presents to come their way, and who knows what fun times they had as the 'toast of the town' way back when? Now they're just artifacts and anomalies. Surely they know. Just as the condemned man walks onto the gallows, they know. Yet they smile for the camera and photographer, because that's all they know how to do in that situation, and they do it well. We know the truth. But don't feel obliged to tell them or even let on. We all will face our own truths, sooner or later. And people will know. Wonderful, insightful comment you made. You are always welcome here Holger. john John (Crosley)

Gregory and Verena Sava In a way, these two were a 'fun pair' as you note, but as noted by a commenter below, that was very much on the surface. These woman obviously are former entertainers and obviously worked and modeled or had been photographed, so when I began taking photographs, they instantly adopted a 'photographic model' view which it appears likely they used when they were much younger -- say in the '50s or early '60s or maybe even a little earlier. Their poses were studied and instant -- no time for overthinking or guessing how they'd look best. Of course, and I overlooked this point, GREAT CONTRASTS OFTEN MAKE GREAT PHOTOS. Side stepping the question of whether or not this is a 'great photo', the contrast is great between poses suitable for younger 'babes' and the elderly for whom life's expiration date has maybe passed or is fast approaching. By the time you see this, it may have been expired for one or both of these women, twins to the nth degree, who in their '80s here, were still doing EVERYTHING together, just one - sort of like a single organism with two bodies and two outward miens, but really almost Siamese in their twindom (except of course their Siamese status is voluntary, not one of nature -- they are free to go their separate ways and lead separate lives but have lived together it appears all of their '80 something years. Wow! (and of course, if you look at the face of the one, left, you see a sore on her nose. More than one doctor on viewing this photo tells me that is basal cell carcinoma, a malignancy that eats away at flesh but dose not or seldom metastasizes, but is progressive and causes major skin damage and disfigurement and here they told me untreated (and mostly unrecognized for what it was). It's not usually fatal; life is fatal, and for them, sooner than later I felt after meeting them. But they were 'fun' to be around and it was quite an experience. Their 'fun' was a little bittersweet for me - for them it provided a diversion from the confusions of life with being evicted by their landlord. (Note the comment above and my reply, please on this topic of 'bittersweat', or as the commenter said: 'sad'. Best to you, and thanks for commenting. john John (Crosley)

Wayne Melia There is no doubt I was there, as the 'eye contact' is absolutely present and forms a major part of this photo. I have at times hidden around corners or behind lamp and utility poles, but this time I was right there, conversing as I sometimes do, and also giving these ladies helpful advice (they were being evicted, and I directed them to "free legal counsel' from 'legal aid'. I like your comment about 'contrast' as I had not given that much thought john John (Crosley)

Su Dawen. Days now have passed and still now word of explanation from you. Sarcastic, hopeful, a fouled up transmission or a dropped word in typing? These are all explanations for a comment still do not understand. Anytime you see this, would you enlighten me and viewers? If you somehow means my request for critique was over reaching and asked too much, I have a very proud history here on this site of having received (and replied with) over 19,000 critiques, and most of them were not a simple word of sentence, with many of them expressing highly intelligent thought extremely well written, and the vast majority of those comments have been helpful (and wide ranging at times, with the photo being a 'touching off' point for wide ranging discussions in 'my salon' For that, I don't think I need 'good luck' if that's what you were referring to, but I have no way of knowing. You are welcome to join this 'salon' and its wide and far ranging discussions -- with sometimes world class ideas and critiques being added. john John (Crosley

Su Dawen I am scratching my head on what your comment means. Can you enlighten me? john John (Crosley)

Your ratings, critiques and observations are most welcome. If you rate harshly, very critically or wish to make a remark, please submit a helpful and constructive comment; please share your photographic knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! john

Chris Hamilton From the start of posting on Photo.net I began to sense that many members did not pay big attention to their backgrounds, and it was not helping many photographs that might otherwise have worth, so I authored a presentation entitled (If I can remember the name: Photo.net's longest presentation (illustrated) 'Photographers: Watch Your Background', and this photo is a perfect illustration of the ideas I was then (and still do espouse. You can turn a 'gathering' as here, into a more remarkable photo by combining it with some 'found' element in the background, as the 'falling woman' here, which I had sort of 'staked out' waitiong for the proper opportunity for framing and pressing the shutter. I got it here, but there were other tires -- how many it doesn't matter, as only a 'success' (like golf's sinking a put) really matters. Sometimes, I'll wait a while for something to happen with a proper backtround and nothing notworthy or photoworthy happens, and I'll just move on, the time entirely forgotten in most instances. Sometimes the 'backround, especially in advertising posters, will re-appear in some other locale or context and I get a second or third etc. chance. You never know, and of course by then I'm very well prepared. It's good practice, though one cannot just restrict one's photography of subjects with 'found' backgrounds and integrating the two -- but it helps increase the 'yield' of acceptable photographs after a day's shooting if one masters the technique. Best to you, and thanks for commenting. john John (Crosley)

I had spotted this particular poster at a few other stations, found myself waiting for a train in the opposing direction n the opposite plaqtform and began to focus on this area seeing if I could wait to find a good way to portray it. It took a while of waiting and watching and a few more photos as these young adults filtered into the station, but this is the best of the group -- by far the best. I LOVE Parisian metro shooting with their wonderful, illustrated and graphic ads that change frequently. It's a THING for me that'd I'd do again -- to shoot scenes like this even before the monuments, art, etc. THIS is my ART. Best wishes while we wait forl the groudhog to come out of his hole john John (Crosley)

But that's basically of my own doing because of what I post more frequently. This is for newer members who have me figured for a guy who shoots protests/war/homelessness/ the tired and so forth -- and the beggars of this world. While I seldom pass up shooting a beggar IF that photo might become real 'art' or a 'statement' or better -0- BOTH, I also shoot lots of things that are fun. Not all are posted, and the good ones can be rare. Nothing worse than trying to explain why something's funny or amusing to someone who didn't laugh or wasn't amused, so I am usually quite certain before I attempt to post anything I intend to show humor or amusement. Look through my folder and find the two youths in outrageous laughs -- and a companion photo of four tightly packed youths (including the two), still in outrageous laughter. I went to a protest, then an afterconcert, and that was a 'world class' photo (pair) in my eyes, instead of the political happenings -- speeches which had come over loudspeakers. And they were laughing at the absurdity of my having pushed the tightly packed youths en masse, backward in the crowd, so tightly packed that they were off balance but prevented from falling -- all with my left hand, while I fired away with my right -- with a 12 mm lens in their faces. It was great fun and they and I were briefly kindred spirits. We turned something solemn and stolid into a celebration of a moment that caused great mirth, partly because being nudged backward and off balance as a group from me, a much older guy, they figured was SO out of what they thought was my 'character' as revealed by me physically. But it really was not a repeat 'trick' from a grab bag of tricks; I had never done, or probably will again, do such a thing. What I did that moment, like much of what I do (and when long ago I practiced law) was entirely custom. I deal in 'custom moments' and 'custom work'. I Photoshop everything to the nth, though my skills are NOT top notch, and never will be. I'd rather be out on the street seeing great images through a viewfinder and capturing them, than doing adjustments of this or that sort which can take an hour or more per image (yes that's right!). Thank you so much for your critique which really was a great compliment, and as such, I decided instead of annotating or elaborating on what was going on in the posted photo ----since you did so ably yourself, -- I'd let people know this is not a 'one off' sort of photo -- I've lots of photos that show great fun or can to the right viewer be puckish or humorous , etc. I'm no 'one trick pony' -- and figure I can do most everything photographic well, but if others can do such things so well and ably, why not leave them to their specialties instead of trying to compete and leave me to do some things for which I have unique talents (or think I do). Yours also in FUN for photography -- it's just one more attribute of what we do that makes it so rewarding. As you may be aware now,m my goal is to take 'interesting' photos, and whenever I can to make them view worthy and artful -- even to a 'fine art' standard. I have been learning to greatly enjoy your critiques . . . . they are most welcome here, and they don't have to be optimistic or congratulatory -- all sorts of critiques are welcome here, if they're made in good faith. Best wishes. john John (Crosley)

It's late at night,Paris Metro trains are running infrequently, the station walls everywhere are adorned with amazing, often eye-catching advertisements that change frequently and are worth a metro trip in themselves, this group has just left a concert venue, and is gathering on the platform waiting for a train home, when unexpectedly, surreallly and with the use of telephoto compression, these people seem to be in danger.of being struck by a large, falling, human butt. Your ratings, critiques and observations are invited and most welcome. If you wish to make a remark, please submit a helpful and constructive comment; please share your photographic knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! john

This is a nice photo and outside the 'fishbowl' of mainstream Photol.net experience for most viewers and raters who tend to stick to a pretty predictable menu of what they 'like' and 'don't like' and 'rate highly' and 'don't'.   One thing I decided long ago, is that I would not be driven by ratings, though I like high ratings, but as once the famous Henri Cartier-Bresson advised me 'shoot for yourself' which is much the same as 'be true to yourself'.     I found it very good lifetime advice.   When I joined Photo.net my style of photography did not fit in, but people learned to accept it and me;   I literally had to teach members to accept my work and me.  It took time.   I posted a lot of dreck during between the really good stuff, partly to gauge reception, and partly to get the critiques which did guide me to 'see' things I might not see otherwise, and they were helpful in that regard.   But I once posted an entire large folder (which turned up on the highest viewed' list, without any single request for critique . . .  and nothing in that folder was rated by anyone.   Welcome good critiques.  Nice ratings are nice, but there are no ratings guidelines; it's sort of a crowd-sourced 'collective 'like' of varying degrees by the PN audience.   In that regard, ratings are valuable to a degree, even replicable, and often helpful, but be your own person.   This image is interesting, different, just a little experimental (for this site), and may not turn up in most highly rated lists,, but it's good and shows promise -- maybe a nascent style, for instance.   I suggest you look at our premium shooter, Gordon B. (formerly Gordon Bowbrick) whose work is stunning and goes against all PN standards and excels .  Gordon is his 'own man' with his own style.  He sets his own standards, his own style, then excels.   No one shoots like him, and his work would be welcome even in galleries or museums I think.   Keep on posting; shoot for yourself,  learn from critiques and even ratings, but try hot to shoot for ratings or you'll end up king of the fishbowl -- and not much more.   I hope you find this helpful.  It's meant that way.   Best wishes.   john   John (Crosley)  

I try to take 'interesting' photos, and the 'interesting' part may have just one component (or aspiration) or numerous ones. Part of this photo is about mom lugging very huge daughter on her back in a very large metro station underground area before the entry and between the entry stairs and the entrance booths and gates which lead to stairs down to the trains. You can see it's huge, empty, and clean. The Kiev metro is absolutely spotless with never any graffiti or any despoliation at all; if there's any vandalism on a train, they take it out of service until it's fixed, then back in service with repairs are so rapid you NEVER see any vandalism, nor do you see anybody trying to do that; it's an unspoken rule of conduct that even the most drunk or rowdy (not many are rowdy) obey. Ukrainians in Kiev especially are pretty good citizens and civic creatures, yielding their seats to the infirm, elderly, aged, unsteady and mothers with small kids in tow frequently without any asking -- they just spy those in need and someone gets up and offers a seat. I'm told by a Roman friend, that would be unthinkable in the Roman metro, and for sure that would never have happened in the many years I rode the NYC subways -- which I once did, including every mile of track, I think, all over, and again, again, an urban explorer (minus camera alas). This 'story' has a moral about mothers and parents in this woman's burden; not especially 'intended' in the taking, but surely in the posting. Kid's huge, but mom's not complaining -- no sour expression. It's her duty. She doesn't vandalize the metro, her kid probably was offered a seat and sat all the way to this final end of the line station, but there's nobody to help her out, so she has to do it alone, and she does her parental duty. This photo is an entire story, and a civic lesson at once with maybe some didactics thrown in about the parent-child relationship -- not only in Ukraine but universally. I take a lot of photos that 'interest me', and some of them turn out to have 'stories' in them that are part of why I was so interested, and only needed some study for me to explain in words the reasons I suddenly put camera to eye and shot quickly. Is it a great work of art? Maybe not at all, but it's workmanlike enough for me, and maybe more so for the 'art' world than Photo,net's general 'fishbowl' standards which emphasize 'stunning', focus, and 'sharpness' over thoughtfulness, concept, meaning, and story,. Sometimes I opt for story and meaning when I have some 'art' included-- even if not in the traditional Photo.net fishbowl style. I would not feel wrong seeing this exhibited by me or someone else at a giant photo expo of name. Much on Photo.net would never make it in the front door of such gatherings, I think, as the two venues sometimes are world's apart in what they value, Of course the 'art' here is in subject mom with her burden, and also the spotless vast mostly empty underground she's standing in, plus the questions some viewers probably will ask him/herself about what this depiction means in an 'art' and 'other' sense. You asked the right questions and made the observations for my book, and that moves you to the head to the class -- from commenting on a most unlikely posting. Thanks for your observations and comment. Best wishes. john John (Crosley)

The 'Request for Critique refers to the child as 'him',yet it appears it may be a girl; in which case if I had been more noticing, I might have written that the mother mounts 'her child' on her back (instead of 'him') which may not be true.   I try to fix errors or possible errors so people can rely on what I write or post.   Apologies.   john   John (Crosley)