More Street



When we think about street photography we conjure gritty urban scenes of which there are pretty much none here.  The key in street photography, it seems to me, is that some context is provided by the setting, the backdrop.  A story may unfold in the "decisive moment" as in the first image where Jean Luc prepares to enter heaven's door beyond which his life as a monk begins.  Or a lonely hooded soul slumps toward the "vielle ville" as his peers across the beach enjoy a laugh and a smoke.  There's palpable isolation.

A couple of these are portraits that don't have precise environmental context but the subject's attire and ethnicity provide ample texture and sense of place.

 

Street

Last week I talked about street photography.  It’s something very much on my mind so I’ve been sifting through hundreds, nay thousands of images that fall into the category.  Street photographs are the ones that unveil the candid, un-posed, slice of life moments in the human ballet.  At least that's the premise.

There seem to be two schools of thought in the wonderful world of street photography.  One involves a fly on the wall philosophy where the photographer is unseen and theoretically can capture a truly candid moment.  In the other the photographer is known to the subject and may be very engaged in the scene even to the point of choreographing the dance of life. There's one of those here.

 

 

Shy fellow that I am I fall into the former category most of the time.  Responses of my victims when I am recognized vary greatly, from hostility to a warm embrace.  In this series are examples of total disdain, of disinterest and “take my picture, please.”

My program isn't letting me post all the images I intended and I don't know if that's a glitch, operator error or a real limitation of the template.  In any event,  you're getting about half of the photographs I planned.  Is that a sigh of relief or are you just glad to hear from me ?

 

 

 

High Desert Hues

Truth be told I spent the morning assembling a host of street photographs, the kind embodied by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank and many others.  The task proved so daunting that I've bagged it for now and am going with a couple of Autumn shots using motion blur as an artistic device.  The golden hues of fall seem to lend themselves to this kind of abstraction.

Street Photography to follow.

 

Night Music

Nocturnes are on my mind.  I am, after all, a light sleeper.  Anyway it's a theme I want to pursue.  In light, or perhaps dark of that, here are a couple of glitsy glimmers in the dark of night.  The first is Austin's Congress Street bridge and the second is parking lot lights at a Denver Barnes and Noble. Technicolor dreams.

Snippets

The images herein are connected in some kind of midcoast Maine mindmeld. I just loved writing that. They're a hodge podge of sweet moments in a two day two step, can't help myself, from foggy South Thomaston to placid Castine and the good ship Guildive.  The ice cream truck just closed for the season.  The shiny apples just steps from the sea.  The abstract of shadow on clapboards and the nineteenth century brickfront in downtown Rockland.  All part of a tapestry from magical Maine.

 

Riverside

Despite two gorgeous days on the Maine coast with fellow photographer John Snyder I’m going with more Cambridge shots for this post.  As I said last time, I’ve trod the paths that line both sides of the Charles River many times; once on a leg of a triathlon.  The paths are well used treasures.  At about 7:30am a mish-mosh of humanity welcomes the day with a walk, run, ride or sail with the Boston skyline and the famed Citgo sign at Kenmore Square in the distance. 

Gotta say I love Boston and Cambridge.  Boston is often compared to San Francisco in shear usability.  I totally get that.  You can walk across both cities.  They both have populations of 600,000 give or take.  Each has a rich sense of history and a youthful vibe.  Oceans don't hurt. They score big on the Richter scale of hipness.  And both are bastions of foodiedom. 

Geezer alert.

Edifice Complex

The sights and sounds stimulated me out of my shorts.  Kendall Square, MIT, the Charles River and the Boston skyline from Cambridgeside served up a big load of New England whoopee.  What a rube.  A couple of early morning runs along the river amid the hordes of other runners and bicyclists recalled dozens of earlier efforts long along these very paths starting in the seventies. 

Fact is that in 600 plus photographs over two days I am left with too many themes for a single post.  Oh, the embarrassment of riches.  There’s the Charles River and associated subjects. Or Kendall Square and the MIT’s hallowed halls of academia. The great city of Boston seen from Cambridge is always a crowd favorite.  Decisions.  Decisions.

Ultimately the thing that rocked my world was the space age architecture of MIT’s newest structures.  As you can see they don’t look real but appear like an artist’s renderings of a future world colony on the planet Albon.

Yankee Homecoming

There’s a visit to New England on the horizon.  It was home for most of thirty years so there’s still a palpable tug at the heartstrings when the places, people and events that defined young adulthood, middle age and, ahem, senior citizen-ness loom so large.  They say that the childhood years are the formative ones but the ones starting with 3 and 6 make a pretty big impression as far as I’m concerned.

There’s a fair amount of excitement around the old hacienda as we anticipate revisiting old haunts and good friends.  Thoughts of the great northeast as fall approaches prompt this sampler of images that say New England to me.  

Mirror mirror on the wall

It's no surprise that the previous week's post often spawns the next one.  In this case, Cris Pulos's portrait received several positive emails to which I had to disclose that the subject was less than ecstatic about the image.  In fact, I had posted the aforementioned picture months ago but deleted the offending effort precisely because he didn't like it.  In short, it did not comport with the subject's vision of himself.  The tension between what the camera captures and what the human imagines is not new.  Indeed, disertations have been written on less.

Juma's mug, above, falls in this dubious category.  It drew a heavy yawn at best.  Still it works for me and I am, after all, the final arbiter of good taste and the general wonderfullness of what I publish.

Trading Places

Long ago and far away my friend and fellow photographer Cris Pulos and I traded portrait sessions.  I set this one aside.  With his trademark Greek fisherman's cap Cris is full of craggy charm and has a decided twinkle in his eyes.  A playful quality.

It could be a vintage photograph taken on Santorini in 1949 or under my portal last year.  Seems to me that black and white portraits can be timeless.  Some of Edward S. Curtis's images taken near the turn of the last century are still remarkably contemporary.

No Parking

Salida, Colorado lies along the Arkansas River hence the illegally parked kayaks in this downtown alley.  Well, not really.  Like Taos, Salida has about 5,500 residents, an active outdoor lifestyle and a thriving art community that seems to be gaining momentum.  It lives in a so-called "Banana Belt" with moderate temperatures year round.  It's a sweet little spot with an uber cool vibe. One of my faves.

Kayaks to me are among the most appealing forms around.  They're in the heady company of acoustical guitars, road bicycles, champagne flutes and vintage wooden sailing vessels to name a few.

This public service announcement is brought to you a day early for the first time ever.  Gonna hit the macadam for some dark o'clock photo ops tommorow morning.