The Guitarist

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The Guitarist, Pike Place Market, Seattle

Every city has a special place for photography. Seattle has many, and spectacular natural scenery to boot. Yet one of the best places for a photographer to lurk in Seattle day or night is the Pike Place Market. The market itself is almost too much of a good thing, and it can be difficult to isolate a single subject among the crowds of visitors.

I saw this busker setting up in a quiet corner outside a flower shop near the Market, and caught his image with my Ensign 16-20 on XP-2. I then thanked him with a dollar in his guitar case, which I try to do with all of the street musicians who are my subjects.

Processing in Photoshop was a challenge because of the extended tonal range in the original scan. The walkway to the right of the busker was in shadow, requiring that the darker values  be raised to bring out detail. The lightest values of the hat and books, as well as the miniature toilet for contributions, were an equal challenge in the opposite direction, and there is some loss of detail in these areas. However, the overall image is nicely balanced and the final print balances these competing elements fairly well.

This image appeared in the Fall 2010 issue of Canadian Camera magazine.

The Barista

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This image is an example of the importance of seizing the opportunity, not being bashful, and connecting with your subject.  On a day with our daughter in Denver, we stopped for coffee in a quaint neighborhood south of the Denver Art Museum.  My wife’s caffeine levels were dangerously low, and a small coffeeshop caught our eyes.  A cozy place, it was filled with retired couples reading papers, yuppies in jeans absorbed in laptops, and students doing homework.

The most interesting feature, however, was the barista – a young Latina woman with silky black hair and a fascinating array of tattoos whose patterns linked her with her Aztec ancestors.  After she served us with rich, flavorful coffee – obviously from a local specialty roastery – I complimented her on her tattoos and asked if I could photograph her.  She kindly assented, and I slid in beside her as she prepared the next brew, catching her against the backdrop of the espresso machine and the wine rack.

This image was taken at f/2.8 and 35mm equivalent focal length on my Canon digital camera, which was all that I had with me at the moment.  With the low light and close quarters, this shot would have been difficult with a vintage Bessa or Ensign, with a 50mm equivalent lens, a maximum aperture of f/3.8 (remember the limiting effect of the shutter mechanism around the lens), and the inability to change film speeds.  The image still suffers slightly in sharpness due to the slow shutter speed I was forced to use under these challenging conditions, but it is a good example of what one can capture if one is always ready.

First Annual Mid-Island Photo Expo

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Mid-Island Photo Expo, Ladysmith Waterfront Gallery

Through A Vintage Lens is at the Mid-Island Photo Expo at the Waterfront Gallery in Ladysmith on Vancouver Island this month.  “Tulips, Water Tower Place” and “Mission San Jose” won a place in the exhibit, which is to become an annual event.

With My Entries to the Mid-Island Photo Expo

The venue, managed by the Ladysmith and District Arts Council, is a large gallery with high-quality lighting located in a renovated warehouse near Ladysmith’s waterfront.   The quality of the entries underlines the sophistication of Vancouver Island’s artistic community.  Including such well-known Vancouver Island artists as Neil Fatin, the breadth and quality of the images is impressive.  I am honored to be included.

I was delighted to discover that I have been invited back to talk about fine art photography with vintage cameras.

The Street Preacher

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The Street Preacher, Westlake Center, Seattle

When it comes to street photography, I think that the key word is – Wander!  Fill your pockets with film, put your tripod over your shoulder, choose what you think will be an interesting part of town, and just wander the streets. Keep your eyes open, and look for interesting shop windows and street people. Peer down alleys. Look for squares, public markets, and quaint streets where buskers may hang out. Is a mechanic under a car? Could that barista or hot dog vendor make an interesting image? Look for people doing their jobs. Walk streets you’ve walked before – you may see a new image you missed last time.

Being prepared to change exposure on a manual camera is important. Usually, I find two predominant exposure environments under any lighting conditions: full light on the street and sidewalk, and shade under buildings and awnings. The exposure difference is usually about two stops. With ISO 200-400 film, I try to set the shutter speed to the inverse of the focal length of the lens (1/100 second for the 100 mm lenses typically used with 120 6x9cm images). Often, on our typically overcast Pacific Northwest days, I have to push the shutter speed to 1/50 or 1/25 second and brace the camera carefully . Since black and white images seem to look best with maximum depth of field, I try to avoid using the lens wide open if at all possible. I will typically choose the most functional shutter speed, then open or close the lens by two stops as I encounter subjects on the sidewalk or beneath buildings and shift from light to shade.

This preacher was giving his illustrated lecture in Westlake Center in downtown Seattle, attended by a semicircle of onlookers. I snapped his image as unobtrusively as possible from the periphery of the crowd on Kodak VC-160 with my Ensign 16-20.

This image appeared in the Fall 2010 edition of Canadian Camera magazine.

The Photographer As Predator

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The Question

Let’s face it – every artist is a predator.   Writers use their childhoods, their mothers, their life experiences (Tennessee Williams and the sordid South, Hemingway and the Spanish Civil War).  Painters use atrocities (Picasso and Guernica) and their mistresses.  We all take from our surroundings and companions to feed our art.  Often, the result is beautiful and restorative.  Sometimes the relationship is symbiotic; consider Alfred Steiglitz’ erotic images of Georgia O’Keefe that built her career.  And often it’s downright parasitic – let’s not even talk about the National Enquirer and the paparazzi.

When I’m out on the street with my camera, I often see people in terms of images – and I’m hunting.  No jungle cat with an empty belly could be more alert for its prey.  The temptation is always to shoot someone – anyone – who would make a dramatic image.  This is the essential moral dilemma of the photographer: how far are we willing to go to make a statement?

Much has been written about this dilemma.  I think that this question was best summed up by Ruth Fremson, a photographer for the New York Times, who has see much suffering through her lens:

“I don’t set out to exploit another person’s suffering in order to make art,” she said. “I set out to tell a story, to explain a situation, to enhance viewers’ understanding of the world around us.

“The way a photojournalist can drive home the severity of a situation, for readers to fully understand them, is to make the most compelling image possible from an event — an image that will make someone stop for a moment, take it in and give the situation some thought.

“A photojournalist who has mastered the visual tools of composition, the use of light and color and the ability to capture the ‘decisive moment,’ will be able to produce a photo so compelling that it can be described as beautiful — or perhaps even as art — even if the subject matter is one of pain and suffering.

“Interestingly, museums around the world are filled with art that depicts human suffering, often based on real events in history…”

This does not keep artists’ work from generating controversy, however. Consider Shelby Lee Adams’ images of the the inhabitants of the “hollers” of rural Appalachia. His images are powerful and exquisitely printed, yet critics charge that “…his photography exploits the poverty and disempowerment in Appalachia and reproduces negative stereotypes…” (Wade,2009).

Berthie on Bed, Shelby Lee Adams, 1996

My impression is that those who do not want such images shown are ashamed of these people, and consider them ignorant hillbillies.  Yet are they not saying more about themselves and their own ignorance than about their less financially-blessed neighbors?  I have lived and worked in Appalachia, and know something of the dignity of the Appalachian people, their deep sense of family, their adherence to Christian values, and the incredible richness of their culture.  Those dwellers in the hollers who live in poverty and lack education have created a wealth of music, song, and crafts that is unique in the American experience. Those same black-lunged miners who peer out from Shelby Lee Adams’ portraits can be virtuosos at the bluegrass and miners’ laments that express their ability to survive and triumph over oppression.

Dewey Henson and Banjo, Shelby Lee Adams, 2010

Creativity and richness of experience more often spring from hardship, adversity, and suffering than from a comfortable life and a steady paycheck. Consider the black experience in the United States – what people could have been more repressed and downtrodden, yet they gave us the blues, jazz, rap, and rock and roll? Who, viewing the images of slave quarters and, later, slums and housing projects, would have predicted that America would become known by the music created from this legacy of poverty and degradation?

I struggle with these questions every day that I am on the street with my camera, and constantly try to balance my art with my sense of my subjects’ dignity.  Yet even in this process, often the most rewarding part of the experience is the connection with the people in my pictures.  I met this gentleman sitting in a doorway on Seattle’s Broadway, itself a rich palette of street cafes, college students, and many who spend their days on the streets.  Many of the individuals one meets on benches and doorways are obviously in pain, and if I photograph them, it is from a distance and in a manner that preserves their anonymity.  But many, if one stops to visit, are delightful and original.  This gentleman gave me a quick smile as I stopped to talk, happily agreed to have his picture taken, and even offered me a choice of messages on his sign!  I was late for a meeting, and unfortunately, could not stop to visit with him.

This image was taken with the Ensign 16-20 on Kodak VC-160, and appeared in the Fall 2010 issue of Canadian Camera magazine.

References:

Adams, Shelby Lee, Blogspot blog. http://shelby-lee-adams.blogspot.com/.

Documentary Films, “The True Meaning of Pictures.” http://www.docurama.com/docurama/true-meaning-of-pictures-the/.

Estrin, James.  LENS- Photography, Video and Visual Journalism: Forum – Suffering and Art.  http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/16/forum/.

Johannes, A-M.  News Media’s Depiction of Human Suffering.  http://amjohannes.wikidot.com/news-media-s-depiction-of-human-suffering.

Reinhardt, M. et al.  “Beautiful Suffering: Photography and the Traffic in Pain.”  University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Wade, L. Online posting, “Sociological Images” blog, “Art and Representation”, Jan. 17, 2009. http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2009/01/17/art-and-representation/.