IMPACT OF PHOTOGRAPHS
This post was actually written after tomorrow’s post as I try to puzzle out the differences between conceptual photography and realistic photography.
But to get ready for tomorrow ‘s post I first want to figure out why I photograph and I will do it by responding to some of the photographs I took, mainly of people, in New York two weeks ago, and the way that I took them. First of all I will talk about my method, which I have mentioned before in posts. All of these photographs and almost all of the photographs I have made in the past five years have been made with a succession of iPhones. I have two reasons for using the latest iPhone available each year. The first is because the quality of the photographs has gotten better and better with each new iPhone with the lates iPhone 14 pro taking very good low light photographs and taking high resolution photographs in RAW mode. Both of these camera functions depends upon artificial intelligence in a form of computational photography which depends upon instant processing through the very capable computer in an iPhone. Up until digital photography came along cameras depended upon high quality and very expensive lenses to focus light on sensitive film which registered the image through a chemical process. An iPhone makes up for having a cheap, low quality plastic lens which focus light on a highly sensitive but tiny sensor by manipulating the process of catching the image in countless but instant ways, sometimes by combining a number of very rapid shots into one but also by sharpening the photographs through algorithms that I don’t understand. And then after the photograph is processed in the camera I can process it further on my iPad by sliding a number of sliders in processes that I can see as I slide the sliders, but don’t understand. For me it is entirely a visceral process but for the computer it is all 1’s and 0’s. So this advanced computational photography is one reason I use an iPhone.
The second reason depends on the first. The iPhone is not only small and unobtrusive, but today everyone has a cell phone, often in their hands which they use for a wide variety of purposes, usually not for photography. Mobile phones are everywhere and no on notices them any more. They are noticeable if you take photographs by holding your arm out and framing the photograph on the screen and then using your other hand to touch the shutter release. But I don’t do that. I shoot photographs from my waist, often when appearing to look in another direction and I click the shutter remotely from a device in my pocket. Because the latest RAW photographs are high resolution they are easy to crop and all I have to do is to get the person or object I am photographing in some corner of the shot which I will crop down to later. I aim, but not very well, and often miss. But I am almost never noticed.
So that is the long explanation of how I photograph. My camera is always in my hand. I decide what touches me and photograph instantly without thinking in a fraction of a second and move on. This means that I can photograph anyone or anything without revealing that I am doing so. Of course, with a garden or a tree or any object that doesn’t mind me taking it’s photograph I can frame on the screen and be deliberate. But with people I don’t ask and don’t reveal what I am doing and because I can catch a person as they come around the corner, instantly, I can photograph anyone anywhere without causing anyone to be uncomfortable.
So as I describe why I have decided without having time to think to take these photographs remember that this is my method. Something touches me and I shoot. If something really touches me I shoot five times in a row. I mostly don’t get good photographs but because I am only hoping to get one out of twenty this satisfies me. But besides being able to photograph anything I like instantly there is one more advantage of this form of photography. I am never going to get a pasted on smile. I am always going to get a candid shot. Often this will result in photographing a frown or a listless look, but since facial expressions flit by so fast it is impossible to be able to see the most lively expression in advance or even to be sure that the person won’t blink. So shooting five or six very quick shots gives me the best chance, by chance, of getting a lively photograph. So remember that almost all of these shots are chance photographs, simply good luck. I do have larger, expensive telephoto lens cameras, that I use for graduations and soccer games. But they are too big and obtrusive for street photography and I almost never use them. So now I’ll look at a few photographs of New York taken this way.
I think what touched me when I took this photograph upwards from the hip was the two women in the lower right and the American flag in the background, the flag more than the women. But when I look at it now, after cropping everything else out, it is the particular look on the girl’s face on the left that touches me and the piled up hair of the woman to the right as well as the flag background. But I can’t put my finger on what induced me to shoot the photograph or even what touches me now. It is certainly not an idea and there is no meaning. All there is is a twinge or a jolt, something touches me.
Why this photograph touches me is even harder to explain. The man is in conversation with someone whom I cropped out. Again the background pleases me. But it is mostly the odd expression on his face and the way he is leaning that touches me and I have no explanation why. This is certainly just a twinge shot.
This woman was just riding by. I must have taken 50 photographs of people riding by. I wasn’t struck by her when I took the photograph, I don’t think. She was just one more rider with an identifying vest. But afterward when I cropped everything else out I was struck by all her baggage, by the fact that she was barely moving because one foot is on the ground, because she looks like a person who never bicycles and because of the expression on her face which indicates to me that she is worn out and just trucking along. There is certainly no meaning to this photograph, it just makes me smile.
I was touched by the beauty of these two girls, especially the one on the right. The expression of the other girl was pure chance. I almost missed them, they were down in one corner of a much larger photograph and either because of their movement or mine the photograph is fuzzy. It was an instant shot without thinking and fuzzy, but it touched me then and touches me now. There is no meaning here either.
She rented a room with Tony and LeeAnn and had just shown us a two minute animated cartoon movie that it had taken her two months to make and she was describing how she made it. Again I was shooting from the phone held idly on the table without her knowledge. But what touches me is the expression on her face and her gesturing which makes one hand out of focus. It is that expression that touched me intensely then and even more intensely now.
He is just a kid on a scooter, but kids doing most anything touch me. He is observing something or thinking of something and that expression touches me. That is all there is to the photo but I like it.
Among all these people milling around in the park here are five people doing some sort of exercise. I have no idea what they are doing or how they are connected through gender or nationality or age. They are quite serious and to me faintly comic. They make me smile.
I like the expression on his face, his sleek bag, his smooth leotards against a white background. His presence knocks me out. I don’t know why and don’t care.
Something twinged and I took the photograph. What touched me in the brief instant that I walked by him was, I think, the expression on his face, his hat, the wire rimmed glasses and his beard. It was his presence that touched me.
I think I was touched by his sticking up hair, his fancy jacket, his knobby interesting face, the can in front of him and that he was in motion, reaching for something. I wasn’t thinking of anything, I just fired away when touched and now I’m glad I did.
I was touched by the colors of the kimonos and cropped everything else out. I could have taken time to shoot deliberately but I didn’t, I was touched then shot and moved on.
Often what touches me is someone else’s art work or decorated window of some other creation. My photograph is simply a record of and response to someone else’s creative imagination. I am not being an artist, someone else is, and I want to carry their creative response with me. Again I was trailing along behind Susie and didn’t have time to think or break stride. I just fired away when touched.
He was playing very difficult classical music beautifully. Video would have caught the music. But in a still photo his muscular presence and expression on his face touched me and the background, which takes up 2/3’s of the photograph, is also alive. I was very aware intuitively that the background enhanced the photograph so in that sense was deliberate.
I was touched by his double chin and expression on his face, his big belly and his suspenders without being conscious of any of them at the time. He simple knocked me out. I did deliberately center him in the arch in the background.
Somehow this family scene in a restaurant as I walked by touched me. In retrospect I think it was the yellows in the hair of the mother and son, the outfit of the server and the yellow lamp with the brown background that touched me But at the time I was just aware that something about the family scene knocked me out. I wasn’t being deliberate at all.
So this is how and why I photograph, instant shots on the run with no foresight and no purpose and no meaning. Every shot was the result of a jolt or a twinge, done in an instant. Tomorrow I will contrast this way of photographing with the conceptual art of Sarah Sze at the Guggenheim museum.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 