While in street photography one does not have the luxury to take time and frame a shot, it is often possible to find a background you want to have for your story. Then it is a question of patience, luck and quick clicking to freeze a story with that background. I have chosen a few shots from here and there to show what all this means for me.
This was a band in Paris, under the Tour Eiffel. There was enough movement among the players, and a background of steel, horizontal and vertical. I developed the picture at a slightly warmer temperature to give additional grain and fuzziness to the movement.
Atop the Table Mountain in Cape town, South Africa, a tourist was taking a picture of her travel companion. The clothing lines were smooth and appropriate for a B&W shot. But the background was just perfect for texture and contrast. The story would have been lost if they were facing the ocean. I still wonder, however, if she was smiling.
This one from Porto, Portugal. I liked the graffiti and the lines of the setting (horizontal, vertical, strait, curves, smooth, rough, etc). I stayed there for a long while waiting for someone to walk into the picture with a story. But that day no one walked by. So, I took a picture of the background to remind me that there was no story in that picture! It is said that a street photographer follows the same strategies as a hunter, and that often comes back home empty handed.
Sometimes simple lines capture a 3-D feeling most appropriately. This one from Prague, Czech Republic. I think the story would have been different if the priest had a straight posture like the soldier, as everything else is in cold squares, rectangles and vertical lines.
A simple gathering of teenage girls is most un-telling for a picture. But when they look at their shoes with different body languages, it makes it worthwhile to frame. A waist-level camera, in this case a Mamiya 645 1000s, can be very helpful for such quick shots. This one from Baltimore, Maryland.
I liked the brick wall, the arch and the columns as background to the art-deco shape of the bench. Yet, I needed a subject in front of them! This was in Taipei, at the National Taiwan University campus. I passed by that spot a few times, between classes during the afternoon, but could not get a picture. Just as I was about to leave for the day, this woman walked slowly toward the bench. It was a clear day but she had an umbrella- so I had to wait and see what she was up to. She took her shoes off, parked the umbrella just so, and assumed an visibly uncomfortable posture for a person in need of rest. I then realized that the bench had very short backs, and only on each side. The symmetrical lines of her posture were in perfect harmony with the background. Sometimes art-deco may not lead to comfort!
Finally a picture from Vienna, Austria. A night shot with a 1948 Canon B-II rangefinder and a 50mm 1.9 Serenar collapsible lens, wide open. One can guess what the man may be thinking, but the expression on the woman's face remains enigmatic. The wide-open lens gave the softness and very shallow depth-of-field to the background making it more fantasy-like.
December 24, 2013
©Vahé Kazandjian, 2013
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