Reading Martin Amis, a photo from Ontario, Central

Photographer's Note

Another shot of the guy whom I took this shot at one of Ottawa's cafes a few days ago. In this shot I liked how his own head and that of Martin Amis on the back of his book (Time's Arrow) were rhyming with one another. Also, here you can see his other, perhaps less elaborately tattooed arm.
I had hard time deciding whether to upload the b/w version or this one. I have yet again put the b/w one in the Workshop.

dramaqueen, PeterC, AmiBe, don_narayan, eleparc, ElSato has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

marieaude (1196) 2006-04-20 12:49

Hello, surprising photo with fantastic colors. I like the contrast between the "look" of the rider and the "look" of the witter. Very good composition. Thanks for it.

tjanze (5674) 2006-04-20 12:53

Hi Sasa!
It is a little funny photo.I notice that guy have similar poise like man on book page.Very inteersting tatoos.I never see something like this.Inscription on bootle works perfect 3D.I think colors is driving force to quality of this photo.Bravo!

dramaqueen (208) 2006-04-20 12:57

WOW! I couldn't keep myself from beginning with that word :). The colors are so vivid, the depth is so real, and the composition is so great with the bottle, the boy and the book, I really should say that this photo is the best one I have ever seen in Trek Earth up to now. But I have to give it in to the boy too, he's quite spectacular. Is it a coincidence that the brand on the bottle, the only bright color on the cover of the book, the hair color of the boy and the wall are all orange? Simply fantastic. Thank you very much for sharing, you have widened my vision of photography with just a click :).

PeterC (2242) 2006-04-20 13:00

Sasa,
The colours are so strong here i think the colour version is much more powerful. Especially with the hair and the matching little wedge of colour on the book. The tatooed arm works much better than the last as you mention micking the author. But what makes the shot for me is those question marks. They are brilliant. For me this is even stronger than the last, just because of that arm. Superb work yet again.
Good night from Seoul
Peter

siloway (60) 2006-04-20 13:09

Personnaly I prefer the b/w version but the colours, framing, viewpoint, observation and sharpness here are stuning so I'll give you a 10/10 (more like a 2/2 on TE but what the heck, lets go crazy) :-)

Paolo (41258) 2006-04-20 13:15

Hi Sarolta...he's your favorite top model?!
excellent shoy, fantastic colours on the wall as in the other one image, excellent focus and funny attitude of the boy.
great and funny shot Sasa.
ciao

Vincent Vega:
Give me three hundred worth of the madman. If it's as good as you say, I'll be back for a thousand.

Lance:
I just hope I still have it. Whaddya think of Trudi? She ain't got a boyfriend, wanna hand out an' get high?

Vincent Vega:
Which one's Trudi? The one with all the s**t in her face?

Lance:
No, that's Jody. That's my wife.

p.s.
normally i prefer you b/w version, that are really amazing. but that itme i prefer the colorful one.
that wall is really wonderful.

faubry (35447) 2006-04-20 13:22

wht colors!!! amazing shot! and very good composition like usual with you
congratulations!
francine

bantonbuju (51815) 2006-04-20 13:26

b/w is cool but this orange aggression is even cooler :-))
the wall is of the same tonal range of his hair, looks like he was actually there wher the painters were dying the walls so it must be a pretty interesting book if he wouldnt notice the fact :-))
good work, alternative titles woule be about shouting or something, very nice;
best wishes, jerzy

rbcy1974 (20758) 2006-04-20 14:04

Hello Sasa
Colour definetly I like the orange dominating the frame, and the guy''s original look.
Regards
Daniel

AmiBe (6042) 2006-04-20 14:50

Hi Sasa,
very interesting model, very different that the guy on the book. ;-)
I like the warm feeling of this cafe.
The tattoes are a funny detail.
Well done

mouzakof (396) 2006-04-20 14:59

nice moment full of colours

thanks

gaby (19819) 2006-04-20 16:30

Sasa bonsoir - bravo for this duotone shot and the remarquable compo - you are great my friend and I look your shots with always a lot of pleasure -
sorry for my poor english -
I love this funnu view
Thanks
Rgs
Gaby

dolin (7369) 2006-04-20 17:03

Hi Sasa.
Superbe, et très original encore une fois.
J'aime bien ce léger contraste, ce punk, ce livre, ca ne va pas nécessairement de paire à première vue.
Toujours ce magnifique mur orange qui claque et qui se reporte sur le livre, dans les cheveux, sur la bière,...
En plu s ton timing avec l'attitude de ce mec, c'est tout bon.
Bien fait
Dolin

don_narayan (2014) 2006-04-20 17:56

Hi Sasa. What a great composition. I like this level view, the line of the bench and the division of colors it makes. The colors are superbly matched, the similar colors of hair, wall and table are uncanny (as well as that slice on the book). The guy's tatooes are great as well... "more questions that answers..." his face says the same thing. Well done.

Narayan

Furachan (0) 2006-04-20 18:34

Yeah well, here is a guy who will have second thoughts in middle age, sasa...:o) Know what I mean?
But I guess he's just thinking "short term", a true existentialist, Ottawa style!
Lovely portrait once again with that red background. Easily as good as the first.
Cheers,
Francis

rosiegirl (1596) 2006-04-20 20:14

That's quite an interesting scene. It seems to me that if he grew some natural looking hair, put on a long sleeved shirt, and took out a few earrings, he could make those girls in 200 dollar jeans pause from a conversation on their cell phones for at least a moment. But I suppose that's exactly what he doesn't want. So he sits with tattoos and flaming hair reading backwards literature.
I always wonder why people get tattoos; even watching Miami Ink hasn't cleared this up for me. They seem too permanent- people have to know styles going to change. Sorry- this has nothing to do with the photo- which is excellent. Great job; I love the work.

Rosie

vapours (8264) 2006-04-20 20:53

Great shot again, and as with your last image the background and other things I liked remain, but seeing his other series of tattoos on his other arm add a great artistic touch to the shot.

A great subject to photograph, and you have done it well.

ndb1958 (9289) 2006-04-21 0:11

I agree with you, Sarolta ... I like the b+w one more this time. But even this one with the rich colours is great. I like the scenery! Very nice, Nino.

pilpel-adom (3018) 2006-04-21 0:47

Great take, Sarolta! The composure of the guy, seriously reading the book while, is so contrastic with his overall provokative appearance that you just can't be idle. Good use of shallow DOF to blur out the bottle (and to add depth to the scene). The wall color is quite an eye catcher, and competes very well with the guy's dyed hair...I think that the B&W version mostly enhances the tattoes on his arm more than anything else, and you loose also the vividness of both the guy's hair and the BG wall color. Overall, the color version is great, compo is awesome and timing...yep, good timing!
Well done!
Chen

jinju (14265) 2006-04-21 3:36

Who are you hanging out with Sasa? Is this your new social circle?:)

You called my shot anthropological, Ill do likewise here. Its like you are showing us some weird tribe from Ottawa. Personally I dont see the allure in mutilating yourself like that, but I guess he does. I dont get it. And he seems like a smart guy judging from what he is doing. Its strange.

The colors are fantastic. Again that bright wicked red that goes along with his look.

Anyway, your photos are the highlights of my mornings at work.

everlasting (19680) 2006-04-21 3:50

Oh, this is great Sasa, just jumps at and hits hard, the colour version for me. The contrast between your subject and Martin Amis on the cover. The coincidental pose of both of them. If I didnt know you better I would say it was posed, and the coincidental colour of orange throughout I think the boy has even left a small fragment of carrott on his plate.............I just love thse kind of shots.
Elaine

pridel (233) 2006-04-21 5:10

Hello sasa
what a look !
Again I like very much this guy.
Colors flashoo contrast with a concentration of reading of book. I like much this universe. For the compo, I question myself if the bottle does not obstruct a little? The color version is brilliant, the b&w is very beautiful too, wiser, but why not? choice difficult to make.
Pascal

eleparc (24063) 2006-04-21 5:38

I am SO glad you went for the color version... I am somewhat tired of the excess of b&w shots on TE... I have sometimes the feeling it is a stand, like i am an artist so I go b&w... But life is in color, so why not see reality and reflect it as it is?... some shots aesthetically deserve b&w but not all... In short, i thank you for chosing to post this one rather than the other one;-)

color adds so much dynamism that is otherwise lost in the b&w version IMO... this is a great human series that you are showing us around this character who espite his punk look seems truely a nice and sensible guy;-)

puszi

Eric

ElSato (824) 2006-04-21 10:13

Dear Sasa,

A truly beautiful shot! It's many things, but among others it is definitely a portrait of parallels and echoes, of things repeated and iterated.

There is the wonderful parallel between your subject's pose -- hand to face -- and the author photo on the back of the book. I can't say enough about that one.

Then there is the way that all the bright orange elements echo each other (table, design element on bottle, design element on book cover, his flaming hair, and the "canvas" of the wall behind him).

More subtly, the blue-grey elements (his tattoos, the back of his seat, the author photo, and the bottom half of the book's front cover) do the same thing as the orange ones, repeating each other's colour scheme, each one reinforcing the others.

Finally, there is the iteration of his tattoos, working their way up his arm, question mark after question mark, until they reach some sort of indecipherable "answer," a spiral that dives down into itself, refusing to tell us what it means.

Apart from the theme of repetition, I love that fact that it is so artfully composed and yet appears so very casual at the same time... a random gesture of the hand while eating, an empty plate sitting front and center.

And on this one I definitely have to vote for the colour version. So much of what I love about this photo is lost in the black and white version, good as it is. To me, this photo is exactly what colour photography is best at.

Lee

plimrn (21344) 2006-04-21 11:42

Hi Sasa,
Your compo has captured the amazing dis-synchony between his tough guy hair cut, piercing and tatoos and his sensitive, introspective soul. Amazing!!
Regards, Pat

tcht (7565) 2006-04-21 14:05

Hi Sasa I prefer the colour one - you need that colour to show his hairstyle & the solid orange background. This guy's got a reallly interesting outfit. I mean I wouldn't dare to photograph him :S. Well seen & superbly captured.
Regards.
Cheukhin

verde (957) 2006-04-21 18:11

such a wonderful repition of the strong orange color. wall, bottle, table, book, food on the plate, hair...wow. I don't know when I have ever seen that much orange.
It really allows the photo to be linked together with color.

a really interesting horizontal divide with the couch and the wall. it almost seems like an unreal background. Very intriguing

thanks
b

greg (2835) 2006-04-22 19:19

Great! I don't know why you would put this in b/w - so much orange is a rare thing outside Holland! Not quite sure where your focus fell - maybe on his hair. A little soft on the face, perhaps. Are those really tattoos, do you think? They seem unusually vivid to me. Cool guy, anyway...

andante (7092) 2006-04-22 19:57

The BW is telling a different story vs the the color. I think that both of them are equally strong.

To me it raises a question of why? He looks like a smart person. Why do people do that to themselves? Maybe I'm the one who's wrong, but I don't like tatoos, piercing, etc. I don't condenm them, but I wouldn't do that to myself...

Excellent presentation as always, Sasa.

nwoehnl (122) 2006-04-23 6:32

A remarkable portrait of this rather fascinating character, Sasa. Great posture and expression captured in the guy who seems rather absorbed by the book, and I also like how the café interior and the bottle add up to this very balanced and casual-looking total. Difficult to choose between this and the b&w, I would lean towards the color for the striking presence of orange in very different elements of the composition.

I wish you a safe and fun trip to Hungary, and I look forward to seeing your take on life in your home country :)

Luko (14000) 2006-04-23 12:27

If you don't mind, I'll pass on that incredible decisive moment you captured and some considerations about the eventual regrets this folk might have in some years time, about the decisions he made tattoing such silly motives. Both have been reasonably pointed out.

I have hard times deciding which one BW or RGB is better too.. even though I first opted for the BW version, considering the RED background was so RED it ate a part of the attention, being push forward almost as a foreground.. then came more sensible reactions and I think the fact that the back of the book shows a BW image of Martin Amis really adds a boon, like a third dimension meaning : yes, first reaction, the guy knows how to read (almost a surprise for the viewer...), yes, second thought, he's mimicking Amis' move, but NO, third analysis, he definitely belongs to another world... perhaps more colorful but like Francis says, more "short term".

Really surprising portrait! In the end, more exotic than many asian portraits (even though I'm not the most appropriate person to say that)...

kinginexile (2598) 2006-04-26 0:27

gald to see this pix again, I had forgotten to comment. First, great capture of the posture of the reader, all in a genX post-industrial context (ouh lala!), but mostly there is a shared coolness between the writer and the young man, from the synchronicity of their hand gesture. I am surprised to see only ElSato has noticed. For me, everything else turns around it.

yanseiler (20) 2006-05-21 9:00

Very good shot, looks like coming from a movie of the 70's...

aralda (1240) 2006-06-23 14:03

Hi Sarolta,
Another stunning shot from you. What grabbed my eye right away was the color orange: on the wall, on the table, on the bottle, on the plate (!), in the guy's hair, and on the book cover!
The pages of the book also rhyme with the pattern on the sofa.
Great shot,
Raluca

banyanman (7797) 2006-06-24 12:49

Hi Sarolta. In my view this is one of your best posts to TE. There is not much to add to what has already been said above, except to say that personally I prefer the colour version because the red/orange wall makes this just 'shout' - and the splashes of red/orange in other parts of the image complement this. The B&W version is good too though - I found it interesting that in the B&W version my eye was immediately drawn to the young man's face, whereas in the colour version I find my eye is darting all over the place trying to absorb everything in the image. Cheers . . . David