# 6616-20 / common places • common people ~ on the street, or not

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BEFORE ADDRESSING TIPS FOR PHOTOGRAPHING IN PUBLIC, I thought I would address the idea of what is street photography. It seems that the answer is open to question for some-the purists would say that it is pictures of people made while standing on an actual street using BW film in a camera with a wide-angle lens attached. Anything else is, well, quite simply, not street photography.

That definition is a little too tight-ass for me. Consider this from a more modern source:

Street photography at its essence means candid photography of humanity. A street photograph is a real moment….Street photography can be done anywhere and people do not have to be present in the photo….It is a way of connecting with the world and bringing back the moments that stand out. ...It can be likened to a visual form of poetry – while beauty and form are important aspects of street photography, great street photographs often have something going on beneath the surface….There are hints, feelings, ideas, stories, or questions…

That definition more closely aligns with my idea, re: street photography. However, I would suggest 2 other points; 1) color of BW, your choice-whatever works for your intent, 2) if people are not present in the picture, it should illustrate evidence of places / things that suggest a past or future human presence.

Re: tips for photographing in public. The first thing you should know is that I do not consider myself to be a street photographer. Rather, I am just a guy wandering around various streets around the world with a picture making device of some kind and my eye and sensibilities perpetually attuned to picture making possibilities. That written, I have managed to make quite a number of pictures that many would label as street photography. Be that as it may be, the fact remains that I have never consciously developed a street photography strategy.

On the other hand, I have relied upon simple common sense procedures. Assuming that one wishes to imitate the proverbial, somewhat inconspicuous fly on the wall, the operative word is “simple”, as in, keep it simple. It ain’t rocket science. Ya know what I mean? Say, like:

Simple # 1: Gear. A single, small, unimposing camera with small, unimposing WA lens. Preferably with standard metal trim cuz most people know that pros use black cameras.

Simple # 2: Clothing. No fashion statements or bright colors. If you can not blend in to the crowd, try not to stand out too much.

Simple # 3: Body language: Do not stand in any one spot too long. Act natural. Be casual. Look around, especially at things you have no intention of picturing. Ya know, cuz you are just a naturally curious sorta person.

Simple # 4: The act of making the picture. Point and shoot. Your picture making device must be set and ready to go. If you have to hesitate to make an adjustment, you risk alerting the subject and the decisive moment will probably be missed.

On an added note, in my experience, I have only one time ever been waved off by a subject while making a street photo. A simple shake of the head and a wave of the hand and that was it. Which leads me to believe that there is nothing to be anxious about when making street pictures. Especially so when one has mastered the art of being a fly on the wall.

An example: I am not small person - a reasonably fit 6’ 3” / 220 lbs with long (8 inches below my shoulder) very wavy light grey hair, most often seen wearing a black baseball cap with a bright KODAK logo on the front which nicely compliments my weirdly stylish eye wear. When out and about, it is SOP for me to hear, “Nice glasses.” or “I love your hair” - almost always uttered by women. All of which makes the following somewhat interesting….

….if you check out my single women gallery on the WORK page, none of those subjects ever knew I was photographing them. That despite the fact that 90% of the photographs were made relatively in close with a street photography “standard”, moderate WA lens. A prime example of discrete fly on the wall, point and shoot, and then disappear into the wind picture making.

# 6549 / people ~ less is more • happy, happy, joy, joy

immediately after the deed was done ~ (embiggenable)

OVER THE PAST 4 DAYS I MADE BUT 1 SINGLE PICTURE. That extraordinary feat of self-restraint was accomplished during our daughter’s 4 day wedding event. iMo, that single picture-1 single click of the iPhone “shutter”-was all that was needed to sum up the entire event.

# 6513-18 / common places • common things • people ~ an adirondack survey

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THE AN ADIRONDACK SURVEY PROJECT IS MOVING right along. Picture editing has yielded a 165 photographs body of work. 50 of those pictures have been selected for use in a 12x12 book. 20 of those selections will be printed for inclusion in a presentation folio for submission (+ the book) to galleries and art institutions.

And, the ink is flowing. Printing-on my Epson wide-format (24 inch) printer-of the folio photographs is a work-in-progress. A reduced size-10x10-“proof” book is being printed. That book is being produced by the same POD book printing source using all the same specs that the “final” 12x12 book will employ. The proof book will give an opportunity to check on each photo for reproduction accuracy and to get a feel for the editing sequencing. If necessary, modifications-color, brightness, vibrancy, et al-to individual photos can be made prior to final printing. And, it is possible that a few photos might be edited out and substitutions made.

All part of the final fine tuning cuz it all has to feel just “right”.

# 6469-78 / people • places • things ~ instant satisfaction

me on a hot day photo shoot ~ (embiggenable)

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IF, AT THE TIME OF MY ENTRY INTO THE picture making life, the Photo Gods had called me aside and declared that I could proceed but only if I limited my picture making to Polaroid materials, I probably would have declined and stuck to sketching. However, if the Gods had set forth the same condition in 1972-the year the SX-70 camera / Time Zero film was introduced-I would have been happy to agree.

That written, lest you think that I would have been stuck with just the SX-70 camera and film, the fact was that, by 1972, I had Polaroid film backs for all of my “real” cameras-35mm, 120, 4x5, and (by 1973) 8x10 cameras. ASIDE the 4x5 Polaroid Type 55 film produced a seriously nice 4x5 instant BW print and a best-I-ever-used 4x5 negative. END ASIDE

My use of Polaroid professional films was primarily for my commercial picture making activities. Even though I did use the SX-70 / Time Zero tandem to make pictures for commercial clients, they were my go-to picture making tools for my personal picture making pursuits. And, using it as such was a pure joy. Especially due to the fact that passing around an actual print just moments after the picture was made is surefire crowd-pleaser if ever there was one. The SX-70 camera is the most fun camera I ever owned.

While I am on the subject of Polaroid, I can honestly write that if those same Photo Gods were to limit me to owning only 1 photo book-a book of pictures, not writing-that book would be THE POLAROID BOOK ~ Selections from the Polaroid Collection of Photography.

The Polaroid Collection of Photography is comprised of over 23,000 Polaroid pictures from over 2,000 photographers. The book features approximately 300 pictures made with a wide variety of Polaroid cameras and film. Each picture is accompanied by the artist’s name. The book Index has small icons of each picture with artist name, picture title, date made, and film type. The reproduction and production values are outstanding.

My only-one-photo-book-stranded-on-a-desert-island choice of this book is based upon the fact that; 1) the photos display a wide-ranging approach, aka: vision wise, employed in the making of pictures, 2) most of the pictures could be labeled as straight photography, 3) there is not a single word of art-speak anywhere to be read, and, 4) I could view the pictures in this book in a 1-picture-day manner until the end of time and never, ever come close to being bored.

The book is highly recommended and for those who might need (picture making wise) a kick in the butt, a knock upside the head, or a broom to clear out the cobwebs.

# 6438-42 / decay • common places • people ~ stumbling down a dead end street

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Established artists sometimes find a "comfortable" style that brings them success in the moment .… And they find themselves repeating the same basic work for decades and decades …. They seem unaware that they are stumbling down a dead end street …. Their real impetus going forward should be re-invention and an embrace of their vision of now …. A new format. A new color palette. An unusual angle. But the core of the original vision stays the same …. But art doesn't really work that way for the vast majority of artists.” ~ by an unnamed idiot

AS MENTIONED IN A RECENT ENTRY I WROTE that the plethora of bad advice from “experts”, re: picture making, is akin to all the hay you encounter when looking for a pin in a hay stack. The pin in this case being good advice.

The perpetrator of today’s bad advice example is advancing the idea that an artist’s vision can be sloughed off like yesterday’s clothing and a new suit of clothes-”re-invented” by the dictates of what’s happening now-can be manufactured whole cloth. This notion is so far off the mark, re; vision (which by, BTW, is not a “comfortablestyle) that it’s difficult to know where to start. However ….

…. let’s just start with a re-fresher course, re: an artist’s vision. An artist’s vision is the bedrock on which all of his/her art is created. It is deeply personal. ASIDE It can not be “invented” therefore it can not be “re-invented” END ASIDE Rather, it reflects who a person is, what he/she believes, and how he/she sees-literally and figuratively-the world. iMo, it is often innate, waiting to be discovered and, ultimately understood. And, wait for it (this will piss off a lot of people)…it cannot be taught.

Can photography be taught? If this means the history and techniques of the medium, I think it can…if, however, teaching photography means bringing students to find their own individual vision, I think it is impossible … As for studio courses in ‘seeing’ … I was never tempted to take one … Arrogantly, I believed right from the start that I could see." ~ Robert Adams

Nevertheless, it can be learned. That is, learned from a fair amount of picture making experience. Picture making which centers around just picturing what you see, not what you have been told is a good picture, and beginning to recognize how you see. And, once learned it is my belief that it can not be un-learned anymore than you un-learn how to breathe.

Of course, once one’s vision is identified, one will apparently-according to our idiot expert-be doomed to unknowingly stumbling down a dead end street for decades and decades, all the while repeating the same “basic” work. What shame.

And, here’s a clue for our clueless expert … discovering, understanding, and refining one’s vision and being grounded by it for the duration of one’s art making life is, quite actually, the way art works for a vast majority of artists.

PS bringing one’s bedrock vision to bear on a wide variety of referents is quite different than bringing “A new format. A new color palette. An unusual angle.”, aka: a “comfortable” new style to bear on one’s picture making.

# 6423-37 / comon places • common things • still life • people ~ meaninng schmeaning

Quality butcher ~ Scotland (embiggenable)

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Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy.” ~ Susan Sontag

IN MY LAST ENTRY I PROCLAIMED THAT, re: the medium of photography and its apparatus, it’s the same as it ever was. I believe that to be true albeit with one notable exception; the Major League Division of the Fine Art Photography World. To wit…

Over the past decade or two, fine art photo galleries and art institutions have been taken over-I would venture to write”hijacked”-by the Academic Lunatic Fringe. That is, at the directorial level graduate degrees-MAs /MFAs-are the norm and, consequently, the work being exhibited or acquired adheres to the ALF dictum of meaning trumps visual content. Or, in other words, what a picture means is much more important than what a picture depicts. Concept is the thing, which quite frankly is to be expected of academia, aka: the home of ideas.

The unfortunate (iMo) results are two-fold; 1) most ALF pictures are, to my eye and sensibilities, visual flops, and, 2) the pictures are always accompanied by a bloviating art speak explanation, re: what the pictures mean. The explanations are, iMo, virtually indispensable inasmuch as the pictures, in and of themselves, are rarely self-explanatory. In fact, after being told by a picture maker exactly what his/her pictures are about, I rarely see in his/her pictures whatever it is the maker is trying to express.

University presses [ed. +fine art photo book publishers] increasingly hold to the policy that requires books of pictures to incorporate “substantial” texts…. layering together pictures with the photographer’s words, [ed. or more likely an academic’s essay] but also sandwiching the concoction between slabs of social—scientific balloon bread. ~ Robert Adams

To be completely honest, I should make it clear that my dislike, re: this sad state of photographic affairs, is predicated upon a very selfish desire to be visually engaged when viewing photographs on a gallery / art institution (or even online) wall. That is, as opposed to pictures of the self-pyschoanalyzing, navel gazing “investigations” by some so-called lens-based artist’s obsession with the “intersection” of some aspect of a social-scientific balloon bread concept and his/her inner self/life.

# 6377-79 / street • people • places ~ a bit of history

Ryuku Isalnds, Okinawa, Japan ~ c. 1967 (embiggenable)

Ryuku Isalnds, Okinawa, Japan ~ c. 1967 (embiggenable)

Ryuku Isalnds, Okinawa, Japan ~ c. 1967 (embiggenable)

1966-68 I LIVED IN JAPAN, A LIFE EVENT that changed / shaped my life inasmuch as it was the place (and culture) in which I discovered the medium of photography and its (Eastern) apparatus….

BACKGROUND:….In early 1966 I gave up on college and by June of that year I was swept up by Uncle Sam in the troop build-up for the Vietnam War. As luck and a spin of the wheel would have it, after basic training I was sent to supply clerk training-not infantry training!-after which I was sent to Okinawa, Japan-not Vietnam!

Within 2-3 hours of my arrival, I encountered yet another bit of good luck (although I did not fully appreciate it at the time); in its infinite wisdom, the US Army-noting some drafting experience on my civilian record-told me to forget all that supply clerk stuff cuz I was gonna be a draftsman assigned to a command headquarters company. A company which was barracked in a little enclave positioned 8 miles from the main base, a place which was, for all intents and purposes, out of the sight and mind of command oversight. A situation which was finagled by the company commander who was just killing time while waiting to be discharged.

As a result of that situation, and the fact that most of the company’s ranks were working in a wide a variety of tasks and different locations, we were not subject to typical military rituals. We basically had 8-5 / 5 days a week jobs and, as long has you showed up to work and did your job, we were free do just about anything we desired. In fact, quite a number of our ranks lived “downtown”, shacked-up with a local “sweetheart”.

Re: Photography: Finding myself in a foreign country / culture, it made sense to buy a camera. And, duh, there were camera stores galore, seemingly on every street corner. So, I got me a Petri fixed lens rangefinder camera and within a couple weeks I was processing all my film, color transparency and bw, and making bw prints in the well equipped recreational base photo lab. Photography wise, I was off and running….

….fast forward to early-1967 - by this time, after learning I could go home, get married, return to Okinawa with my (then) wife and live off-base (with a housing and food allowance), my army life became even more 8-5 / 5 days a week job like. Life was sweet and I was making lots of pictures until…

….I had entered 3 pictures (in 3 different categories) in US Army’s worldwide photo competition. All 3 won in their category and continued to move on up the competition ladder until they reached the top, aka” final, level where my run came to an end. Having only been making pictures for about 6 months, I was pretty pleased with myself and started to think that, maybe, just maybe, there might be a future for me in this picture making thing. Little did I know…

…a few weeks later-after collecting my winning booty from the theater commanding general in a big tadoo-as I was sitting at my drafting table, word filtered down the chain of command that the Command Information Office photographer was rotating back to the States and there was no replacement in sight. I immediately raised my hand and said, “I’ll do it.” and, due my recent photo competition success, I became an “official” US Army photographer.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

All of that written, I must write that I took to making pictures like a duck to water. Ya know, like, I don’t need no stinkin’ training (my lack of education hasn’t hurt me none cuz I can read see the writing pictures on the wall). It all seemed to just come “naturally.” How else, do you explain the fact that, within a little over 6 months from picking up a camera for the first time, I was making my living, so to write, making pictures? Not to mention how ironic it was to have traveled half way around the world, after growing up in Rochester, NY within sight of KODAK headquarters, to discover the joy photography.

Ain’t life strange.

# 6366-68 / discursive promiscuity ~ any where, any place, any thing

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AS I MOVE ALONG WITH THE PHILOSOPHY PROJECT /BOOK, I am still trying to come to grips with what the book should be about. During that mental wrestling contest, the only “philosophy” I have come up with, re: why people make pictures, is quite simple (albeit very broad in scope):

Any time, any place, any thing (especially your face). Everyone photographs cuz they like what they see.

No matter under which genre banner a photographer might be toiling- decorative art, fine art, or no art at all-the ubiquitous snapshooters who are simply, without artistic intentions, recording the goings on in their life-I believe it is safe to write that they all like (and photograph) what they see.

Of course, what a photographers “sees” can have a literal and/or a transformative meaning inasmuch as those photographers working under the decorative art banner, along with the ubiquitous snapshooter, are relentlessly and unabashedly wedded to the actual referent depicted in their photographs. Whereas, those toiling under the fine art banner are much more inclined to “see” (and photograph) something that goes beyond the literal visual characteristics of their depicted referent. Thereby causing a change in how the viewer perceives, within the photographer’s chosen framing-and “organization” of line, shape, color, tone, and space-the depicted referent.

All of that written, with either a literal or a transformative picture making intent, I think it safe to write that photographers like what they see cuz, whatever they see or however they see it, they most definitely like it for its potential as fodder for the making of a good picture.

on my way back from the grocery store ~ (embiggenable) - I definitely liked what I saw