Robert Vote
Established
What could be the story behind this picture?
What could be the story behind this picture?
What could be the story behind this picture? I took it in Berlin on a sunday morning.
Any Ideas?
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fed3b adox50 f09 1+40
Thanks for your attention!
Robert
What could be the story behind this picture?
What could be the story behind this picture? I took it in Berlin on a sunday morning.
Any Ideas?
---
fed3b adox50 f09 1+40
Thanks for your attention!
Robert
Robert Vote
Established
ShutterFlow
Shutterflower II
Someone is less likely to steal a bike that is hanging from a sign post than one sitting on the street . . ..
f/stopblues
photo loner
Here's a shot way back when, right after I started learning photography (5 years ago..). It's the first time I remember going out with my camera and really feeling the scene and it being reflected in the photo.
It was an early Sunday morning and I wandered out in the cold to a lake a few miles from my house. I had my very first camera, a Pentax Program Plus and a 50/1.8. Everything felt so perfectly quiet and serene. Complete peace in the cold air and fog wrapping around everything.
All those feelings are so significant to me because this was taken on 9/9/01 and just a couple days later, nearly to the hour, all hell broke loose with the terrorist attacks here in the US. There's such an enormous contrast between those two days, and in a lot of ways I see this photo as a symbolic "last peace". That's meant in a completely nonpolitical manner of course.
It was an early Sunday morning and I wandered out in the cold to a lake a few miles from my house. I had my very first camera, a Pentax Program Plus and a 50/1.8. Everything felt so perfectly quiet and serene. Complete peace in the cold air and fog wrapping around everything.
All those feelings are so significant to me because this was taken on 9/9/01 and just a couple days later, nearly to the hour, all hell broke loose with the terrorist attacks here in the US. There's such an enormous contrast between those two days, and in a lot of ways I see this photo as a symbolic "last peace". That's meant in a completely nonpolitical manner of course.
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sf
Veteran
That is a poignant moment, surely. Nicely contrasted with the soon to be altered image of world politics.
reagan
hey, they're only Zorkis
So our granddaughters were up for the summer, a couple of weeks. My friend and neighbor comes over one day with an old bike. "Ya reckon the girls would like to ride a little?" Well, it turns out neither of them knew how to ride a bike. So grandpa decides to teach 'em how.
You know the trick. You run along behind, and in my case, hobbling, grunting and moaning on bad knees, holding to the seat yelling encouragement and instructions. "Keep peddlin', keep peddlin'!! Turn! Turrrnnnn!! Easy! Watch out! Keep peddlin!"
"Don't let go of me! Don't let go!"
"I gotcha. I'm right with ya. I'm right here, right here. Keep goin'!"
Finally...
I gently let go of the seat and stand silent watching her slowly, quietly slip away to the "chink-ka-chink" melody of a chain too loose. She never looks back. She glides along wobbling for about 30 feet or so til she runs out of room and smacks into the storage shed at the edge of the parking lot. She catches herself without falling and turns to scold me for almost letting her go down. There I stand, 30 feet away, grinning from ear to ear to see her mouth fall open with a deep breath and then burst into laughter to realize she has just accomplished her first solo. "What...?!! .... You didn't...?!!"
"I'm right here," I replied.
Zorki.4 ~ Jupiter.8
You know the trick. You run along behind, and in my case, hobbling, grunting and moaning on bad knees, holding to the seat yelling encouragement and instructions. "Keep peddlin', keep peddlin'!! Turn! Turrrnnnn!! Easy! Watch out! Keep peddlin!"
"Don't let go of me! Don't let go!"
"I gotcha. I'm right with ya. I'm right here, right here. Keep goin'!"
Finally...
I gently let go of the seat and stand silent watching her slowly, quietly slip away to the "chink-ka-chink" melody of a chain too loose. She never looks back. She glides along wobbling for about 30 feet or so til she runs out of room and smacks into the storage shed at the edge of the parking lot. She catches herself without falling and turns to scold me for almost letting her go down. There I stand, 30 feet away, grinning from ear to ear to see her mouth fall open with a deep breath and then burst into laughter to realize she has just accomplished her first solo. "What...?!! .... You didn't...?!!"
"I'm right here," I replied.
Zorki.4 ~ Jupiter.8
sf
Veteran
beautiful image. Perfectly set in that story - very well written.
That is photography's sweetest moment . . . Especially firsts and lasts. . . like Connor's shot. The contrast between this shot and his. . . well, that is stunning.
That is photography's sweetest moment . . . Especially firsts and lasts. . . like Connor's shot. The contrast between this shot and his. . . well, that is stunning.
S
Simon Larbalestier
Guest
Here's one from a longterm project with the Cambodia Trust who work with disabled people in the poorest provinces of Cambodia
Heng Not (15) a multiple amputee from birth, stands aside to let a Khmer villager laden with grasses pass, on her way home from school. Not joined the Cambodia Trust in 1999 and has been provided with prosthectics, special shoes with built-in inserts and a school support grant to enable her to study alongside her peers. Kampong Chhnang Province, Cambodia.
M6 50/1.4 pre Lux @F2/2.8 TX 400
Heng Not (15) a multiple amputee from birth, stands aside to let a Khmer villager laden with grasses pass, on her way home from school. Not joined the Cambodia Trust in 1999 and has been provided with prosthectics, special shoes with built-in inserts and a school support grant to enable her to study alongside her peers. Kampong Chhnang Province, Cambodia.
M6 50/1.4 pre Lux @F2/2.8 TX 400
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R
Rich Silfver
Guest
Conor, thanks for sharing. Strong story.
reagan
hey, they're only Zorkis
Great shot Simon.
S
Simon Larbalestier
Guest
Thanks CVBLZ4 
kbg32
neo-romanticist
This image was my first big sale in stock photography. I was going to work late one morning, having just finished with an appointment at the dentist. I was walking through Madison Square Park and it was quite overcast. Something caused me to stop and turn around. The clouds parted and the sun came out for a second. I had just enough time to get this one image with my Olympus XA4 before the sun disappeared. The sale went to Cadillac motors for a cover on a promotional mailer. Needless to say, they cropped out the Flat Iron Building and ran the rest!
sf
Veteran
kbg32 said:
very cool. Odd that they cropped out the building. Maybe because they wanted an "it could be anywhere" image.
Sweet to have Cadillac as a customer!
nomade
Hobbyist
tetrisattack, this story has touched me deeply, the photo is memorable, thanks for sharing it with us.
surlysimon
Established
the smiling giesha
the smiling giesha
This was taken on a bike tour in kyoto, our guide was explaining about how most japanese women (our guide was a woman) only dress traditionaly on a few occasions in their lives. the decoration was from her wedding and she made my wife put it in her hair. Now if you new my wife you would know that she hates having her picture taken only marginaly less than she likes dressing up or putting things in her hair, so combining the two make this special to me. plus it reminds me of a magical day in a magical city.
the smiling giesha
This was taken on a bike tour in kyoto, our guide was explaining about how most japanese women (our guide was a woman) only dress traditionaly on a few occasions in their lives. the decoration was from her wedding and she made my wife put it in her hair. Now if you new my wife you would know that she hates having her picture taken only marginaly less than she likes dressing up or putting things in her hair, so combining the two make this special to me. plus it reminds me of a magical day in a magical city.
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JimG
dogzen
My wife and I were staying at a hotel in Cabo San Lucas were this little kid would come to swim every afternoon. He was only 4 or 5 years old but a great swimmer, the hotel manager though wouldn't let him swim alone so every afternoon the kid would get us to hang out with him so he could swim. We assumed his family weren't rich like most of the people we knew in Mexico so we didn't mind helping him have some fun. One afternoon we told him we'd walk hom home. Turned out he lived in a this big house with it's own pool and his father was a former national boxing champion in Mexico. Go figure.
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MelanieC
Well-known
So I'm dating this guy who is really into building stuff, and therefore sometimes finding myself in stores I never would have entered on my own, such as TAP Plastics, which sells, cuts, machines, you name it, plastics. I try to discover what is inherently interesting about most places I go but with some places, such as TAP Plastics, it's a struggle. If I get desperate I'll start perusing the various solvents and glues and wonder if any of them are worth, um, sampling.
On this particular trip I was distracted from my solvents by the guy on the right. He rolled up to the counter in his wondrous wheelchair contraption (note skull, saddlebags, license plate, and, um, handcuffs) and presented the cashier with a 40 oz bottle of Miller, which you can see on the counter here. Miraculously, this bottle contained an intact regulation size baseball.
"Now, you guys have helped me out with a lot of things over the years," he told the cashier, "so I wanted to show you this. I bet you want to know how the ball got in there. It's a secret. I'm going to put this bottle up on the eBay, and whoever makes the highest bid also gets the secret. But I'm going to tell you the secret first."
Unfortunately, I had to leave before I got to hear the secret.
I'm normally self-conscious about taking pictures of people I don't know, but since it was clear this guy enjoyed having an audience I didn't feel bad about it. I wish I'd gotten a better angle and a better shot. If I could do it over I'd ask the guy if he wouldn't mind posing with his beer ball bottle. I'm sure he would have said yes.
On this particular trip I was distracted from my solvents by the guy on the right. He rolled up to the counter in his wondrous wheelchair contraption (note skull, saddlebags, license plate, and, um, handcuffs) and presented the cashier with a 40 oz bottle of Miller, which you can see on the counter here. Miraculously, this bottle contained an intact regulation size baseball.
"Now, you guys have helped me out with a lot of things over the years," he told the cashier, "so I wanted to show you this. I bet you want to know how the ball got in there. It's a secret. I'm going to put this bottle up on the eBay, and whoever makes the highest bid also gets the secret. But I'm going to tell you the secret first."
Unfortunately, I had to leave before I got to hear the secret.
I'm normally self-conscious about taking pictures of people I don't know, but since it was clear this guy enjoyed having an audience I didn't feel bad about it. I wish I'd gotten a better angle and a better shot. If I could do it over I'd ask the guy if he wouldn't mind posing with his beer ball bottle. I'm sure he would have said yes.
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sf
Veteran
JimG said:
that's pretty cool. Another instance where the story really makes the photo.
sf
Veteran
Tonight, I saw that my mother was going through old albums looking for some set of photos. She was holding an album full of old photographs of myself and those around me during my very earliest years. She and I flipped through the pages as she narrated the context of a photo or a small biography of a person standing next to me in a tiny polaroid. It was a very brisk and intensely nostalgic jog through my first 3 or 4 years.
I noticed, as I scanned through a bunch - maybe 100 or so - that I wasn't just looking at old photographs of myself and my family, but was also taking a pictorial tour of the roots of my personality, my own history, and building a very disturbing sensation that I had lost touch with my own existence a long time ago. As if maybe the majority of years since passed have been a persistent (and sometimes perilous) decline from totally spotless self knowledge to a state of painful uncertainty where "I" has broken into pieces under the pressures of various facets of maturity. Years 5 through 24 have been home only to a physiological and nmemonic growth. No sign of that person remains. Squashed away to make room for "George Masters"
That concept of "Self" as something that one "knows", as if it were capable of being perceived from outside, is reminiscent also of the decay of "I" from year one to infinity. You won't find a 3 year old in search of himself or herself. Losing touch with who you are starts at birth and develops into total spirit/mind/body amputation by the time social self awareness comes into its own.
In other words, in these ancient photos, the light in my eyes, my apparent personality, and my physical presence is seamless. These are pictures of "me" in the pursest sense, before mental pollution and errosion had begun its work. There is no, "That's me. I'm somehow not there because work and worry has smothered out the light inside." There's little effect of moulding to have broken the seams quite yet.
Regardless of these photos' vast temporal distance, in viewing them I come closer to seeing myself than I would looking in a mirror.
I decided that I'm going to scan all these photos - all the albums and negatives that I can because the value a photograph holds just seems limitless.
I noticed, as I scanned through a bunch - maybe 100 or so - that I wasn't just looking at old photographs of myself and my family, but was also taking a pictorial tour of the roots of my personality, my own history, and building a very disturbing sensation that I had lost touch with my own existence a long time ago. As if maybe the majority of years since passed have been a persistent (and sometimes perilous) decline from totally spotless self knowledge to a state of painful uncertainty where "I" has broken into pieces under the pressures of various facets of maturity. Years 5 through 24 have been home only to a physiological and nmemonic growth. No sign of that person remains. Squashed away to make room for "George Masters"
That concept of "Self" as something that one "knows", as if it were capable of being perceived from outside, is reminiscent also of the decay of "I" from year one to infinity. You won't find a 3 year old in search of himself or herself. Losing touch with who you are starts at birth and develops into total spirit/mind/body amputation by the time social self awareness comes into its own.
In other words, in these ancient photos, the light in my eyes, my apparent personality, and my physical presence is seamless. These are pictures of "me" in the pursest sense, before mental pollution and errosion had begun its work. There is no, "That's me. I'm somehow not there because work and worry has smothered out the light inside." There's little effect of moulding to have broken the seams quite yet.
Regardless of these photos' vast temporal distance, in viewing them I come closer to seeing myself than I would looking in a mirror.
I decided that I'm going to scan all these photos - all the albums and negatives that I can because the value a photograph holds just seems limitless.
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An ongoing story
An ongoing story
Little Boy in a Big World
When he was three weeks old, I held him, looked into his eyes and knew, at that moment, he was seeing me clearly for the first time. That day my vision also changed, allowing me to re-explore the world, for the first time again. He still is a little boy in a big world, but we are discovering more and more each day, together, through his eyes.
This was taken 3 years ago, we ran into frogs, snakes (he almost stepped on one), a great blue heron, red winged black bird.....
He is 6 now.
An ongoing story
Little Boy in a Big World
When he was three weeks old, I held him, looked into his eyes and knew, at that moment, he was seeing me clearly for the first time. That day my vision also changed, allowing me to re-explore the world, for the first time again. He still is a little boy in a big world, but we are discovering more and more each day, together, through his eyes.
This was taken 3 years ago, we ran into frogs, snakes (he almost stepped on one), a great blue heron, red winged black bird.....
He is 6 now.
