ybiberman's photostream  

I am a psychologist.
As such I am mainly interested in people,
and their emotions;
especially their more disphoric ones--
the ways the human experience is expressed on people's faces.

As I see it,
as a psychologist you are trained to wait patiently for the other,
until (s)he is willing to share his world with you;
and then your aim is to explore with him,
his soul, as it is,
with its strengths and weaknesses,
without being offensive or defensive,
but with empathy to who she is.
As much as I can, I try to use these skills when I take photos.

I like Jerusalem, as a place where different people meet.
Sometimes, I don't like the ways in which they meet.

I would like to thank 'Ian BC North / Ian' for his generous gift of a pro account.
Many thanks Ian!

Sometimes I am being asked:
Do your subjects know you are taking their photos?

The answer is that I do not ask their permission to take their pictures.
Needless to say, none of my photos are being directed in any sense.
Some of them notice when I do so, some of them do not.
Many times the place is crowded, and they have other things to carry about.

But, the issue has moral aspects I cannot deny:
Many of my subjects would not like me to take their photos,
if I would have asked them-- they are traditional, religious, suspicious, etc.
Yet, I do take it...
I am afraid there is only little I can say to my defense:
I can say that I do it from positive motives; that I use the photos with all the honor I can do.
All in all, I feel I 'sin' in a sense.

I can add that nowadays everybody carries a camera, so it is almost
impossible to run away from cameras, therefore many people give up. This makes my life easier, but only a bit less immoral.



In a few rare cases, especially at the Ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods
of Jerusalem I had to leave a place quickly when people were shouting
at me; but this is the exception rather than the norm.

You might have heard the Hebrew term 'HUTZPA'.
Many Israelis like it, or are proud of it.
I am not.
Yet, I assume you may call my photography an act of HUTZPA.

(I am 50 years old.)







P.S.
I want to add a few words concerning EXPLORE :
Many tend to despise it.
I do not, for the simple reason: It creates activity.
(according to my experience, places like 200-300 double
the number of views)
Not many of my photos were explored,
yet, as i have some programming experience i think i may
speculate a few things about it:
1. it is obvious that it is composed by a computer program,
that cannot evaluate aesthetic qualities,
but can only measure countable indexes like:
views, comments, favs, galleries the photo
were added to, number of people that marked you as
contact after the photo was posted, number of groups
the photo was invited to, etc.
The rational is simple: a lot of (countable) activity means
many found the photo interesting (not necessarily beautiful)
2. If your average views is, say, 30 and suddenly your photo
gets 60 views then it is totally different than if your average
views is 1000 and 'suddenly' you get 1030 views.
Therefore, not the absolute number is the crucial,
but the relative one. The absolute number of views is
affected much more by the photographer than by the photo,
3. comments, favs etc. by contacts should count less than by
'strangers'; as your contacts may be 'obliged' to you,
and 'strangers' do not.
4. If you commented on many photos recently then probably
some of the people 'commented back' on your photo;
so this should also decrease your score. (Similar to
posting the photo to many groups.)
5. I know of people that on a few successive days had
photos on the first ten places of the explore. (I guess
partially it was because they 'rode on the wave').
In any case, they were not blocked from inclusion.
6. If you got long comments then maybe people find your
photo interesting or stimulating (as opposed to, if you got
comments like 'stunning'); so long comments should
increase your score.
7. I would not be surprised if the formula includes some
random factor (e.g., the program samples the posted
photos and doesn't evaluate all of them).

I want to stress that these are my hypotheses about the
algorithm. I have no 'inside information' neither too much
experience.
could be that i am talking nonsense :O