Street Music

The Stride, Madrid, 2014

Street photography it seems to me is candid imagery that freezes a moment in time. The more memorable the better. Usually, it involves people, but that may not be essential. And it may have been posed if you can't tell. It’s safe to say that many if not most of the best-known photographs in the 200-year life of photography are a street photography or photojournalism. Think of Eddie Adam’s wrenching image of the Viet Cong prisoner being executed on the streets of Saigon in 1968 or Nick Ut’s chilling photograph of the young girl escaping her village that had just been napalmed by a Viet Nam Air Force Skyraider. There are thousands of unforgettable photographs that capture history in the making.

Trabajadores, Antigua, Guatemala, 2008

Bicycles, Munich Altstadt, 2006

Rough Rider, San Miguel de Allende, 2008

Street photographs need not be drenched in terror and guilt. I think of Elliot Erwitt’s heartful and humorous scenes on the avenues of New York. Erwitt photographed the funny and the absurd till the age of 95, He left us last year. I had the honor of sharing wall space with his work in a group show in Durango, Colorado a dozen years ago. He’s a guy I wish I had met. His humanity was evident.

All this blather arises from a flurry of organizational activity that had me poring over hundreds of my street photographs since 2006. I am trying to complete my Street Photography portfolio which is threadbare. And the sorting and selecting is far from finished. For the most part I remember the place and circumstance of every image. I literally recall the time, the angle of the sun and where I was standing when I made the photograph. It’s a gift that transports me to Barcelona, Munich or Madrid for a second time,

In the absence of new work, I will dole these out over the course of, say, 52 weeks. I tend to inflate.