ivan_dzo

John,

thanks for your suggestion to see this shot. I like the wider crop, as the oval on the wall is so much part of the scene. Her distracted face whilst standing provocatively is in wonderful contrast to the wrapt attention of her admirer.

 

Interesting that you mention Toulous-Lautrec, as the tango shot of two men dancing in your series reminded me of his painting of two women waltzing. Great series of shots, that I'd love to have taken. If I ever get the chance to visit Argentina I'll definitely look them up!

John, I like the fact that they are impersonal and faceless. It captures a place,not individuals.They are TANGO and their posture says it all. The forlorn girl sitting adds to the pathos. The colours are stunning and I hope you don't mind if it becomes my desktop wallpaper for a few days (my wife is a real tango fan).

Another great shot that you are rightly proud of John!

 

For me its the contrast between the bright consumer dream with hundreds of dollars to splash out on a designer label, versus the harsh realities of life on the street, junk food, cold, disdain and never a chance to enter that "dream life" which is so pushed in his face. When I first went to the US I was shocked by the homelessness problem, particularly in SF but as in all good things, the UK has quickly caught up.

 

Social comment at its finest.

good top half, foreground v dull

Beautifully observed and captured John. Red is always strong in a composition and this being only red, white and black has it all. one of your strongest pictures to my mind (that means I wish I'd taken it).

Lovely skin tones and great the way the skin fades into the sheet colour.

Great photo, but the choice of a strong green colour cast is a bit odd.

Quite right. People with dial up connections deserve to wait for ages for yours to download.The rules should apply to everyone else and not you. Do apologise for pointing it out.

correcting the unlevel horizon would help a lot

maximum dimension 511 pixels, file size below 100kb. It's to speed things up for people rating. nothing to do with how many shots you can upload or store.

horrible posterisation in sky

they're supposed to be below 100kb not 350kb (and it's black and white)

Yes, it's very sad that women don't seem to realise that having a bag of silicon put in each side is a lifelong ongoing commitment. As a doctor, I'm beginning to see the tide of returning women who had implants ten years ago. They develop capsules around them that are painful or the implants leak. They then need to get them replaced (expensive) or removed (an empty sack is not a pretty sight). The later is done for free on the NHS in the UK but the thousands of pounds each 10 years to get new ones doesn't seem to have occured to them before. Bigger isn't always better!

This made me laugh out loud. A wonderful comment on our pneumatically obsessed culture. Don't like the red bracelet, but she is just the correct amount out of focus. Got any more like these?

John, your patience and good nature with some of these people is incredible. They're enitled to say they don't like your picture because.... But to tell you how you should have technically taken it when they weren't even there is arrogant beyond belief! Yes, we'd all like to take one shot at the decisive moment and put our camera away, but in the real world it doens't happen. HCB shot thousands of mediocre shots for every masterpiece, but quite rightly is remembered for his successes.

 

To the picture. Again it's a masterful juxtaposition (which you seem to specialise in). Getting them all facing the same way, with the contrast in age, skin creases and expression is wonderful. The tight framing concentrates the point. This shot looks effortless which is its strength, yet if any of the carpers above have tried taking this sort of shot (as I have tried and generally failed) they'll know that the skill involved is great indeed.

Lovely 19th century feel to it. Be interesting to see it with a blur layer or through a diffuser.

very clever. quite perfect.

Lovely work, great pose and tasteful use of PS for a change!

John, his posture of boredom with mild aggresion is an excellent juxtaposition to the background. Great comment on the mainstreaming of porn, which goes on all around us.

 

But the biggest thank you is for reminding me to have another look through your portfolio, which I haven't looked at for a long time. Brilliant is not the word. Your sense of connection with people and your stunning use of composition and colour is inspiring to me. Best thing I've seen on PN for several years - keep it up, cause i'll be back.

The problem with this sort of pose, is that there is a huge blurry hand and pair of legs dominant in the picture. Having legs near to the camera with a fairly short lens, magnifies them. Many of your other poses work much better IMHO.

Love this shot. Really unusual pose and lighting. Both eye catching yet satisfying.

Very nice painterly feel to it. Only crit is the orange posterised parts on her back. I'd probably just use a saturation mask to tone these down a little as they take away from the gentle feel of it. Lovely!

Nice shot of the abbey. One of the least convincing added skies I've ever seen however. Perhaps something less dramatic would fit better?

The contrast is great. You've captured adequate detail in the black whilst keeping the skin tones good. Well done!

Facially wonderful. Let down by the overlit lower body and the poor skin tones. Nothing a bit of Photoshop can't fix though!