Racing Hoops, Salavan Province, Laos, 2005
Using sticks, three young boys race their hoops down the main street of a small village in rural Laos --the very same game that was played in America and Europe over 100 years ago. This, too, is a street photograph, a far cry from the urban chaos of Vientiane or Yangon. It is almost pastoral in comparison. The incongruity of watching three children rolling hoops down the middle of a village road in the 21st century brings two important human values to mind: tradition and nostalga. These kids may think they have invented this game, yet they are following a tradition that began on the other side of the world in the 18th and19th centuries. The golden light filtering through the trees on to this shady road adds to the nostalgic atmosphere.
31-JAN-2005
High Noon in Pakse, Laos, 2005
An image typical of urban Laos -- traffic made up largely of motorized rickshaws, motorbikes, and trucks. It is high noon in downtown Pakse. A street photograph such as this can give the viewer a sense of place. The incongruity of the huge billboard set amidst Buddhist graves, the prevalence of motorbikes, the web of utility lines, and the presence of the conical straw hats that symbolize Southeast Asia, all combine to present the flavor of Pakse as defined at a single corner along the town’s main street.
04-SEP-2004
Restauradores Station, Lisbon, Portugal, 2004
I try to keep my street photography as simple as possible, making sure that everything in the frame helps the picture work. I spent over a half hour working on this shot, shooting people passing through and by the great Moorish-style horseshoe arches which serve as the main entrance to Lisbon’s central commuter station. My goal was to use the doors as context, offering the viewer a sense of place. The spacing, attitude and body language of the passersby would tell my story, but I had no idea what my finished picture would look like beforehand. In street photography, you never do. I don’t control the image. I am an observer – I may build the stage, but the actors must play their own roles. Most of my early shots were just of people walking by – literal, cluttered snapshots. There were far too many people in the frame as well, so I had to wait until the crowds thinned out and the picture simplified itself.
I noticed the woman at left early on – she was not going anywhere. She was either waiting for someone, or she was a person in need of funds, because she often stopped to talk to people, most of whom walked right past her. She became my focal point and as the crowds gradually thinned out, fewer and fewer people engaged her in conversation. Folding her arms in on herself, she eventually aligned herself squarely in front of one of the two doors. When the man at right walked into my frame, I timed my shutter release to align him in front of the other door to create a study in contrasts. The two doors are identical mirrors of each other, but the two people are about as far apart in mood and manner as two people can be. She looks past him and he looks past her. She stands still and he is moving. He is big and she is small. There is an obvious difference in both gender and race as well. They do not acknowledge each other, and they take their environment for granted. They might as well be on different planets, yet these massive decorative doors, representing another era, link them forever within a moment of present time.
This is one of those images that leave the point of the story to each viewer to figure out. Some of you may see different things going on here than I did, and that is what street photography is all about. Effective street photography is not always not tidy or definitive. This image asks questions of the viewer, and each of you must answer for yourself. What does this picture express to you? Does it work? If so, why, and if not, why not? Please post your comments, pro or con.
24-AUG-2004
Souvenir of the street, Falmouth, England, 2004
This picture was relatively easy to make. I saw a young girl having a decorative braid made out of her own hair on a busy Falmouth street. Her expressive, innocent face speaks to us of the pleasure she takes in this adventure. I asked her and her dad, who was sitting nearby, if I could take pictures. They agreed and I spent about ten minutes working at fairly close range. At first she was self-conscious, but she gradually became lost her in own thoughts. I took many shots, and eventually moved in even closer to make the picture more intimate and build it around the hands. (Later I would crop to picture to make the hands come into the frame at upper left and lower right.) The hands coming from the top were doing the job, while the hand of the child was casually touching the small chain on her neck. Her red hair, freckles, and smooth skin contrast to the darker, larger mature hands that work briskly above her. The key to the picture, of course, is the incongruity of the cardboard disc attached to the side of her head. It functions as a symbolic wall between the skill of the adult and the innocence of the child. The braid itself is barely visible – to the child, it’s whole story. But the viewers of this picture will see a larger story than the braid. They will see the contrast between age and youth, commercial opportunity and childlike innocence.
04-SEP-2004
Lost in time, Lisbon, Portugal, 2004
I shot this scene from the top of Lisbon's famous, if somewhat battered, Elevador de Santa Justa. The iron elevator was built about 100 years ago by one of A.G. Eiffel's apprentices. From my perch high over Lisbon, I used a telephoto converter lens to focus on a decorative motif set squarely into the middle of an intersection a few blocks away. I shot picture after picture of people walking through that intersection. Finally, I was able to get the proper spacing and interaction that would tell a story. In this cropped shot, I isolate eight people walking either to or from that decorative square in the middle of the intersection. I frame the scene between two signs and three vintage streetlights. Seven of these people seem to know exactly where they going. One, however, does not. He incongruously stands on the decorative pavement with his hands to his hips, wondering which way to turn. Needless to say, I could see him but he could not see me. I felt sorry for this guy and can empathize with him -- it’s easy to get lost in time in the 200 year old streets of Lisbon – they can often start and stop without notice, disappear into plazas, and climb around hills, all of which makes it one of the most intriguing walking cities in the world.
26-AUG-2004
Guy watching, Dublin, Ireland, 2004
Waiting and watching pays off in street photography. As I was walking through a very busy Dublin intersection during the lunch hour, I noticed many people standing back against their office buildings chatting with each other and watching the crowds flow past.
I was able to work unnoticed for two reasons. First, these women were intent on people watching, and although I was close enough to hear them chat, I was not close enough for them to notice me. And secondly, because I use a fixed lens digicam for most of my pictures, instead of a digital single lens reflex, I don’t have to hold my camera up in front of my face to look through the viewfinder. Instead, I can flip my LCD viewing screen up, and lower the camera to down my waist to shoot. I set the LCD at right angles to the camera so that I could face away from these women, even though my camera’s lens was aimed directly at them. I photographed them in this manner for more than five minutes, and they never noticed me. Being virtually invisible is a major advantage in street photography.
I concentrated on the interplay between the two women, using the other people in the frame as context. When the woman in white made a humorous comment about a man in the distance, and the lady in blue assumed a look of cool appraisal while taking a draw on her cigarette, I was able to capture the interplay of expression I was looking for. I was also fortunate to get at least four men into the picture – and no other women were visible. Surrounded by men as they laughed and smoked, what else could these women be talking about but guys?
30-AUG-2004
Shadow game, St. Malo, France, 2004
Vantage point is everything in street photography. Sometimes we can shoot close in, while other times we must back away. Every now and then we can find a spot where we won’t be seen at all, such as from high up on the ramparts that enclose the ancient city of St. Malo, France. While shooting down from on St. Malo’s lovely beaches, I noticed this quartet enjoying a friendly competition. Then I looked again at the scene, and from this particular angle, their shadows incongruously become players as well. Four become eight, and the ball the lady is tossing is suspended in the air. Yet the ball in the air also looks very much like the one sitting on the ground. The only way we can know if her ball is in flight is because is because the ball on the ground casts a small shadow, while the ball in the air does not. Although this is technically a beach and not a street shot, there really is no difference. Both are about the inter-relationship of people in public spaces, and both are about the meaning of moments captured in forever in time.
Shadows are always fascinating in street photography, because they become symbolic extensions of the people who cast them. In this case, the four shadows seem to become part of a game.
I am more conscious than ever about the role of shadows in my street photography, because of what I’ve learned from pbase photographer Jen Zhou’s street imagery. Click on the thumbnail at the bottom to see Jen’s shot of a pacing Shanghai cab driver.
It continues to haunt me – I see it now whenever I am looking down at a scene from above on a sunny day, and it causes me to find meanings in my images that I might not have even considered before seeing Jen’s shot. My own Shadow Game was inspired by Jen’s taxi driver image, which I first saw only a few days before I left for Europe. While I did not copy her concept, I was certainly aware of it as I shot. There really are no new ideas in photography. There are only new ways to express old ideas.
26-AUG-2004
Street crowd, Dublin, Ireland, 2004
Perhaps the greatest barrier to effective street photography is the mess that crowds can make out of a picture. Street crowds will invariably fragment composition, pulling the eye all over the place, and diluting any meaning that individual people might project. Street photographers must find ways to neutralize the cluttering effect that crowds bring to pictures. One way, of course, is to move in and isolate the actions and interactions of particular people within the crowd. Another way to “clean up” clutter in crowd scenes is to somehow use abstraction to simplify the image and give the crowd a sense of unity instead of fragmentation. This is what I do in this photograph of street crowd surging along a Dublin street. I abstract the scene by taking a vantage point shooting into the sun, instead of shooting with the sun behind me. Using my spot meter, I exposed for the pavement. If I did not use the spot meter, the camera might well have severely over-exposed the sidewalk, creating glare and spoiling the picture. By using the spot meter on the brightest part of the picture, everything else gets darker. This under-exposed crowd of people becomes a massive series of silhouettes. Some leave their shadows behind them, others chase shadows, and even shadows chase shadows. The image becomes nightmarish, a surrealistic abstraction symbolizing toil and struggle. I shot this particular scene over and over until enough space opened up in the crowd to allow the shadows to cleanly fall into place. In fact, I was so conscious of play of the shadows in this picture that I focused on them, and not on the people. (See my comments regarding this point under my picture “Shadow Play, St. Malo” elsewhere in this gallery.)
04-SEP-2004
The Sentry and the Girl, Lisbon, Portugal 2004
Children are more likely subjects for expressive images than most adults because of their uninhibited body language. I had been photographing a stern Lisbon sentry, saber rigidly held over his right shoulder and getting little more than a picture of a stern sentry. I may have been producing an effective environmental portrait, but it was certainly not street photography. A young girl who most likely lived in the neighborhood walked over to watch me work. She was more interested watching me move around with my camera than she was in looking at the sentry, who for her was already “part of the furniture.” I immediately saw a street photograph in my head – the contrasts between the rigidity of military behavior and the spontaneous informality of a child. I moved well away from the sentry, looked down into my flipped up LCD display at waist level, and turned my lens on the girl, while facing well away from her. She had no idea what I was shooting. She crossed her legs, touched her fingers together and began to softly sing to herself. I was able to make this picture, contrasting the leg positions, arm positions, costumes, size, age, race, gender, and attitudes of these two people. Because the girl is closer to the camera, she is much larger than the guard, and free to do whatever she wants. The sentry, on the other hand, must stand at the door to his box, a slave to duty.
25-AUG-2004
Running the hill, Kinsale, Ireland, 2004
This street scene places a premium on the hilly environment of Kinsale itself, and uses the person as context. I was fascinated with the colorful streets of this small Irish fishing village, built on steep hills. I found a particularly striking color contrast – a green house hard by an orange house, each with tidy white trim. But to shoot the street scene as just a street scene is not what I do. I needed to express an idea, and waited for it to come. It did. Only minutes after taking up a camera position on the other side of the street, a youngster in a powder blue sweatshirt came running down the hill at a breakneck pace. Using a wideangle lens to stretch the scene (I would stretch it to appear even wider later by cropping off some of the top as well as the bottom.) The digital shutter delay on my Canon G5 camera is significant, so I knew I had to press the shutter button when the kid reached the window in order to place her just a step away from the orange structure. Because of a heavy overcast, the shutter speed was too slow to stop her swift action. Instead the child is an abstracted blur, which is all the more effective for my intentions. My concept was simply a child “running the hill” against the backdrop of the traditional pastel colors of Kinsale’s houses. The slanted street and the angled building foundations gave me that hill, and the blurred child is all about the run.
26-AUG-2004
Lunchtime, Dublin, Ireland, 2004
Streets invariably have signs. This set of steps leading down to a Dublin street certainly had one. I always am looking for stories based on incongruities involving people and signs, and I found one here. These Dubliners apparently do not read signs. And if they did, they show little interest in complying. Three of the four are eating lunch. (The other looks at his photos. Maybe he’s a tourist, so we’ll excuse him.) I designed this image around the rhythmic flow of the ornate railing and the well-worn steps they use instead of chairs. I was particularly interested in the way they used their hands and held their legs. Not only are they breaking local rules by sitting here, but these 21st century people are also eating their lunch on 18th century steps. I have layered one incongruity upon another, and these folks never looked up.
02-SEP-2004
The Big Hug, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 2004
Europe is full of ancient streets and steps that run through arches. I spent a lot of time shooting people walking through such arches, because the shadows they cast do a great job of framing people within the frame, as well as providing abstraction with heavily shadowed areas. I stood outside of this arch and repeatedly photographed abstracted people as they moved towards me through the shadows, as well as people heading into the arch, illuminated by the sun on their backs. I never counted on three people to suddenly stop before they entered this arch and hug each other. But I was ready for it when it happened. At first, we see only two people in the hug, and then notice a gray leg way down there in the middle of it, so there must a third person, right? Meanwhile, four other people come down the steps at the other end of the shadowed arch to complete the story. Tunnels and arches are passages, much as life, and people come and go, both together and apart, within them. Was this a lucky shot? Some say that all effective street photography is a matter of luck -- just being in the right place at the right time. But I have always claimed that luck, as someone once said, is “the residue of design.” It is not surprising that effective street photographers seem to have more luck than ineffective street photographers. And that’s because they work harder at it. They are patient, and are willing to work the odds – taking shot after shot after shot in a particular place, hoping that just one of them might work out for them. This one worked for me.