Street Photography from a Dog's Perspective

September started with festive weeks in Baltimore. Tall ships came to the harbor from different oceans and the streets filled a million visitors for music, foods of the world, and fireworks at night. It is the Centennial Celebration week of the Star s Spangled Banner, remembering the victory of the Battle of Baltimore, when the British failed in their attack on Fort McHenry in 1814, and Francis Scott Key wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner”.  With all these people everywhere, I was certain that I will have a grand time with my camera.

But I did not. Somehow I was unable to find interesting people in a million-strong crowd! They all seemed to just walk, incessantly take pictures with their digital gizmos, and do nothing unusual! After walking in the crowd for a couple of hours, I decided that it was not my day for pictures.

On the way back, I saw a dog and his friend sitting on a 4 meter tall wall at the board of the ocean waters. Perhaps they had also given up walking in that ocean of people. Instinctively I took a picture. Then I realized that the dog was at a higher elevation than I was looking down at me. And a thought crossed my mind: 

 How does the world look to this dog when he is on the ground walking among a million people? That makes for two million legs!  What does he see? Clearly not the faces of people. How does he interpret all these feet and legs he walks through?

Aha! I had a theme now—I planned to go out the next day and take pictures of peoples’ legs. It would be a dog’s perspective. And I wondered:  if I can train my dog to use a camera, what will be in his frames?

That idea made me smile, almost laugh. What a couple we would make if my dog and I hang a 1948 Rolleiflex from our necks and go out to take pictures!

… The next day was rainy but warm. I covered my camera under a small umbrella and went out to discover a dog’s perspective in street photography.

For starters, I needed a small crowd. I looked around for a while to realize how boring it is to look at peoples’ legs and feet. Sure, aesthetically some legs are more attractive than others, but in the street, everyone seemed to stand in a most boring way. So I decided to start with such a picture. 

What would a dog think about such a crowd? Maybe a smaller group will be more interesting? I was totally shocked to realize that if I point my lens to legs in a group, they all seem so banal, so pedestrian! Clearly, I did not have the appreciation of a dog’s perspective and I needed to first see the faces of these people.

Ok, what about a depth of field challenge? If a single person is the focus point, does that give the dog a different perspective? Do dogs have a selective focusing capability like my 1970 Nikkor 105 mm lens? Or do they see everything equally focused? 

And then, I caught that second all of us hope to capture when holding a camera: the man in this couple lifted a leg! Ha, I was laughing when I clicked hoping that later on when I develop the film, I will be rewarded with the intended shot. And I was. “Now”, I said to myself “a dog will fully understand what this man is about to do!” 

Finally, I needed a dog picture to bring things to a normal perspective and routine. But not just a picture of a dog, rather a dog next to legs. And I found it. 

… Silly project? Perhaps. But I have to admit that I had more laughs with this excursion into a million people-strong crowds than I had in previous projects. And, I learned that at the level of a dog’s eyes, human legs are boring!

September 13, 2014

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014