Buildings that Tell a Story – from Singapore to Balaton, Hungary

As a street photographer eager to capture people in their cultural setting and daily activities, it is rare that I find myself in a city where people do not seem to be “acting up”. But it happens, and in times like that I try to capture the environment through an angle that can tell a story about the people.

I suppose that can be street photography in reverse.

Two places I have been, more than once where I have had a tough time photographing people. One was Singapore, the one-city country where the pace of life is to “choreographed” for a photographer. Nothing unusual seems to happen in the streets! On one trip, I decided to take a few photos in Singapore’s Little India. The main artery is Serangoon Road which was built in the early 1800s and passes through Singapore's Little India. It also served as a highway between town and the Serangoon harbor in the northeast.

Again, nothing unusual happened on that extremely busy road that day. So, I decided to capture a feel of Little India through the door of a tailor’s shop. The wide-open diaphragm of my Nikon F lens was able to delineate the dress inside the dark room and at the same time gave a dreamy feel of the building’s outside through overexposure.

In some way, this is the quietest moment I have experienced on Serangoon Road!

My second challenging experience as a street photographer was in Balaton, Hungary. The lake is the largest freshwater lake in the Transdanubian region of Hungary and the largest lake in Central Europe. I stayed in a conference center which was part of the Soviet Politburo’s vacation destination a few decades ago. It was all concrete and square angles.

Yes, the lake is beautiful and the beaches full of people, but for me it was very asceptic. So, I looked around for a non-scripted angle and ended up with a photo of a building with character.

Of course, these two photos may not reflect what others have experienced in these environments, but they do testify to my moments in these two settings.

January28, 2018

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2018

Lisbon Daily Moments

Found a couple of negatives in my "forgotten filmstrips shoe box" and played with them in my darkroom this morning. They are from Lisbon and the first one may have a unique angle of view.

I took this one from my hotel room at the Alif Hotel. I have stayed a few times and liked the fact that it was close to the bull fighting arena, the Campo Pequeno. Actually in Portugal the bull fight is really not a fight for life as in Spain. It is called tourada and is an athletic challenge between the fighters and the bulls. But no bull is killed in the fight.

When I was looking out of my room window, I saw this man on the spiral stairs. The cloths hanging to dry, the stairs, the man smoking a cigarette and the overall feel of the building had simplicity and a mystery.

This second photo is also from Lisbon, but I do not recall the name of the neighborhood. This time the buildings are in full sun and the woman sitting on the chair always reminds me of the Mediterranean tradition of a neighborhood. Indeed, while Portugal is not on the Mediterranean sea (but the Atlantic ocean) it is in the Mediterranean region and historically has been influenced by Mediterranean cultures, food, lifestyle and yes, attitude.

That is in part why I have always felt “at home” in Portugal.

January20, 2018

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2018

Taipei As Few See It

I worked in Taiwan on various healthcare projects and academic endeavors for a decade. Like with many countries in South East Asia, I found cultural similarities but an identity in attitude that is very specific to each country and cities in those countries.

I know Taipei quite well as it was the focal city of my visits and work. If I have to say what comes to my mind as initial and overwhelming characteristic, I would say “busy”. Especially the streets. Especially at night. People, motorcycles and cars take every inch of navigable space and all in a delightful and peaceful harmony.

So, I decided to take a picture of Taipei that would be atypical. During my lunch break of a conference, I took my Mamiya 645 in search of such a shot. Street level photos always are about traffic and large numbers of people. So for this one I perched myself on one of the pedestrian bridges over the main artery waiting for that moment.

But what was I looking for?

It suddenly happened. For an unknown reason there was an open space in the traffic file! Not a small space, but there were no cars, scooters an people jamming the street. So I took a shot.

When I was printing it, I wanted to increase the surreal feeling even more. So I underexposed the photographic paper to a fraction of what I usually like. Indeed, my favorite exposure time is about 1.15 minute. In this case, I exposed it for only 20 seconds. It is not possible to do so with 35mm film, but 120mm captures amazing detail and can yield surprising prints.

… When I look at this photo I wonder “is this a reflection of Taipei at noon?” And, as with any photo the answer is always “yes” because I cannot capture what is not there. I can only place reality on a two-by-two dimension. But what I can do is to capture that which many do not see or happens rarely.

Still, a rare event is part of reality.

January 16, 2018

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2018

Why Did She Look Back 15 Years Later?

It snowed on the mountain. On days like this I usually catch up with the much needed organization of my art studio. It is a place where nowadays sculpting, painting, photography and writing seem to co-exist, although without occasional cleaning it is easy to see a rabbit skin find its way to the painting area, or pieces of wood I collect from the desert pile up to make entire areas impassable.

So, I decided to clean a few shelves to store new materials. I came across a box of negatives and prints that I have been carrying with me now for a decade or more from state to state, and house to house.

It was time to dedicate a few hours to the content of the box.

.. Most of the negative strips have a sticker at the end such as “France 2009” or “Mexico”. But many do not. I eye-scanned the strips against a table lamp and recognized most of them. Then looked through the printed photos.

All of them are 8x10 and of course B&W. More importantly all of them are “seconds”, as I rarely throw away a print. I feel like my goal has always been to capture a moment, and even prints that are not technically or aesthetically as good as I like them, they still capture that moment.

So, out of many I recalled and recognized, I found a few that totally surprised me! Truly, I have no recollection of these shots, although I remember where and how they were taken because other shots from these days made it to my books, blogs and exhibits.

The most delightful ones were of street mimes from Barcelona. The prints were not well-done, but I saw potential in the negatives that I had not had taken time to explore 15 years ago.

So, got the negatives dusted and cleaned, loaded the strip on the tray on my 1950s Hansa enlarger, and decided to spend the morning printing.

Photo One: This was that barrio where the mimes were performing. I had no memories of this moment till I looked at the print. Clearly it was a typical afternoon when people were enjoying a glass of wine and a perfect place for mimes to show their talent.

Photo Two: This close up has bad lens aperture and speed, since the face of the woman on the forefront is washed out while the other one’s is too dark.  But the expression is there, and I decided to dodge and burn. After a few tries, I called it the “Spanish Yin and Yang”!

Photo Three: This one has a bad composition but I saw how the sequence had evolved (will explain in a minute.) A #4 filter under the enlarger lens gave better tonal distribution and contrast.

Now, about the sequence. The 4^th negative was a shot that has been appreciated by viewers around the world. It is the following:

So, now after 15 years I came to recall and realize how that street photography session took place. It seems that I walked around the barrio, took a close up, and waited for them to get into the full act of carrying umbrellas side by side.

… One question remains: in the last photo, did the woman on the left purposefully turn around to help me with the shot?

That, I will never know!

January 14, 2018

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2018

PS/ This is my 200^th entry on this blog and the first one of 2018….

Hats that Uncover What They Hide

I was looking out of my window which faces a mountain chain in Prescott. The crown jewel of that chain is Granite Mountain which is 2,325 km in altitude. Sunsets are very colourful behind that mountain chain but sometimes sunrises are too.

On this morning, there was a large cloud upon the mountain. Actually it looked like a soft cover or a hat. I grabbed my camera, put the old Nikkor –P 180mm tele-lens on it and clicked. 

A second or so later the shape of the cloud changed. And a few minutes later it was gone.

It is all about timing. Interestingly, over the years photography has also taught me to follow that undeniable paradigm by making the most of any moment in my life. I know that, like that cloud, if not capture to the fullest at that moment, it will pass and never be the same.

But one has to also be patient to “click”, on a shutter or emotionally, when the moment is just right. Not only right. For example, I often take photos of wildlife in our backyard. I have not been able to capture the mountain lion (cougar) on film yet, but deer are much more curious and friendly. So, there were two fawns looking for food. I knew I had one chance to click as the sound of a 1969 Nikon’s slapping curtain scares them. So I waited. At some point I anticipated the positioning between the two fawns hoping to have a visual illusion.

Here is that illusion:

So, after printing the Granite mountain shots, I thought of hats. I suppose that is the first thing that comes to mind, especially when the hat is tilted to show mood or attitude. And I thought of a few hat shots I had taken.

This is a traditional head cover. A lot of history there and no real attitude. It belongs to a time, and a place, that we still see around the globe.

 This one has an attitude. It is also traditional to the South and South West of the US. Yet, I felt that this artist, while carving a horse out of wood, wanted to isolate himself from the surroundings. So it is an attitude of shielding.

 Well, this one has nothing to do with the hat but the posture of the artist. In the viewer of my camera I saw a bull charging this woman. The hat is really secondary here.

In this case, that hat is a sign of importance and rank. Nothing to do with covering your head or protecting it. The contrast in rank with the men surrounding this sword-carrying leader is what I wanted to get. Although, when I looked at the printed photo, I realized that he may not be a very expert in holding a sword while putting it back in the scabbard. I doubt it that one should hold it by the blade!

This woman and her hat were in perfect upright posture. But I took this photo because of the street lamp – I am not sure they are supposed to be bent like that…

 I like the harmony of this photo. In my mind that is the perfect head cover shape that man could have warn. A cowboy hat would have just destroyed the flow of the lines!

Finally, there is this photo. Everything in this man’s posture and surrounding is unassuming. But it is his candor, written on the cardboard he is holding that tells you his attitude.

Sometimes, a hat is much more than a cover.

December 23, 2017

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017

Cowboy Painter Joe Beeler Statue in Sedona, Arizona

A friend gave me his 1970s Olympus OM-1 because it belongs to a different time. Few people can find film, and even fewer places would develop them.

I suppose I belong to a past time that has not yet passed for me. Working in my darkroom provides the same excitement as it did almost 50 years ago. When the picture starts taking shape in the developing tray, it is still magic.

So, I wanted to try the camera. I have 6 OM-1s in my collection and all have traveled the globe with me and carry scars from each trip. This one has been kept almost intact giving the feel of using a new camera.

On a sunny Friday, went to Sedona, Arizona to wander around the city getting ready for Christmas. Many were taking pictures of the red rock formations, the Christmas decorations, and of dogs dressed in holiday garments. Being a strictly Black & White film user, red rocks are always monochrome for me, Christmas decorations seem to be non-creative, and dogs wearing silly hats, well, kind of silly. 

So, wanted to find that street photography moment for which B&W photos give a special character.

On the main street of Sedona, there is a bronze statue of a local cowboy painter Joe Beeler. It is slightly larger than life and faces the mountain and red rock formations. It is a perfect tribute to the environment and its cowboy heritage. The statue has probably been photographed a million times, but when I was walking by there was a man in a cowboy hat sitting behind it reading a book.

I immediately saw the scene in B&W, and decided to find an angle that would make the man as “bronze-like” as the statue. In order to prove that he was a living soul, wanted to find an indicator while respecting the identity of the book reader.

At that very moment he turned around to show his white beard, and that was what I needed.

Technical details: I used a 50 mm Zuiko lens opened to f11. Since I use slow film, the speed was set to 1/125 second. With such small f-stop all corners of the frame will be in focus. So, to give the printed photo a bit of blur and movement I used a 1950’s Russian Jupiter -3 camera lens instead of an enlarger lens. My enlarger is from the 1950s as well and it has a Leica 39 mm lens mount so I can use camera lenses from that era instead of enlarger lenses. While an enlarger lens is flat-field (meaning it will not distort the photo when printed) using a camera lens provides distortions outside the center of the frame. Used as such each camera lens has its own distortion characteristics. The Jupiter lens not only distorts but also gives a swirling feel to the distorted areas. Only one other lens I have, the coveted 1948 Carl Zeiss Jenna 7,5 cm Biotar f1.5 gives such swirl to the actual photo! See the tree in the left upper quadrant for Jupiter’s effect.

Now my two “statues” were surrounded by movement!

December 9, 2017

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017

Washington, DC

Healthcare is again at the center of debates in Washington, DC. I wanted to capture a description of the moment with symbolism rather than through photos of rallies or marches.

Here is my take. It was on the National Mall in Washington, DC when I saw this woman in a wheelchair with her dog wrapped in a blanket, on her knees. In the back you can see the almost symbolic and blurred Washington Monument.

She is looking at the Monument, as millions of other citizens are.

November 30, 2017

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017