It has been a very cold January on the East Coast of the United
States. My old cameras cannot freeze and thaw without damage, nor can the 60
year old lenses. So, I have not taken many pictures this month especially since
there are very few people in the streets and they are all bundled up!
But I keep on getting feedback from around the world, which
is wonderful. Among the messages I got
last there was one question that I found challenging. It read, in part: “…and,
if you were to describe a picture of daily life, without photographic glamour,
how would it look?”
Hmm. While I do not think that there is glamour in my
photography, I do indeed choose pictures that are technically with minimal
faults and perhaps this selection bias does not truly represent what I had seen
and taken pictures of. It is a fair question.
However, the reason why there is selection bias is often not
a thematic bias but a choice by necessity.
Indeed, I have miles of developed negative strips that have either been
damaged by chemicals during development, or where the pictures did not come out
as I hoped they would. I do not usually print them, although I do have some “defective”
negatives that I have printed because they remind me of a special moment and
place.
So, the question I got made me wonder if I could make a
collage out of these rejected pictures to show what I saw and why I took the
picture, even if the quality of the shots ended up being poor. So here are a
few of those.
The first one is from São Paulo. I saw the man walk toward old-fashion public phones and I could readily compose an anachronistic picture
in my mind- a picture which could have been taken 50 years ago. What I needed was for him to make the call by turning
sideways. But it was not what he had in
mind. Still it is the type of waiting a street photographer often does: I had a
picture in mind but all the pieces did not come together.
The second one is from Paris. A very chique Japanese tourist
caught my eye. I wanted the contrast between her impeccably coordinated attire
and shoulder bag with the old buildings, a tourist with his suitcase, and taxi drivers. Just before I clicked
she got something stuck to her shoe and she did a very “common” act of checking
it. Not only it spoiled the picture, but I also got an uneven gradation from my
lens right over her bag. Nevertheless, it is a moment from everyone’s daily
life, even if they do not have the style of this young woman.
The third one is from Madrid. A street band in traditional
attire was playing and I wanted to get an angle to the violin by focusing on it
and blurring the background. Well, the player moved incessantly as he was in
his “zone” while playing. And I did not get that steady moment for the shot I
had planned.
The fourth one is from Vienna. A Turkish belly-dancer was
performing in the street and she was quite photogenic. Still, I needed more
than the dancer. So, I placed myself in front of her to include the crowd as
the backdrop. She did not like it, and gave me a bad look… I caught that look but not the composition I wanted...
Finally, there are moments when a human is not needed for street photography. I was on an island in the Adriatic Sea off the coast of
Croatia, and the scenery was quite monotonous. Sure, the ocean was great, but I
am not a landscape photographer. At times I felt that the ocean was like a
fence… And then I saw this donkey that looked at me in a way that I could
almost understand! Yes, the fence, the ocean, the lonesome tree in the back….
January 29, 2014
© Vahé Kazandjian, 2014
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