Light Reading

I do look a lot at other blogs, if for no other reason than to try to figure out how they manage to post so often.  A couple caught my attention today as they addressed things I have either blogged on or referenced vaguely before.

Photography Talk has an entry on the "Six Most Annoying Trends in Photography" that I pretty much agree with.  I must admit I blanched a bit when I got to Number 6: "Professional Know-It-Alls," but was relieved when I found I hardly fell into their definition, which involved those who live by rigid rules. 

Meanwhile, Japan Camera Hunter (an oddly named blog these days, as it has expanded into a rather interesting spot for thoughts on street and film -- as opposed to digital -- photography) has a piece titled "Why your phone is not your friend."  The hed caught my eye, and again I feared that it was something it is not. 

Lately, on my other blog -- or "phlog," as I like to call it, as it centers more on my pictures -- I have been forced to admit that, though Leica is in its name ("The Guy with the Leica") I've not been able to process the film I've been shooting in my Leicas.  It's a money thing that's been going on for some two years now, and frankly I choose not to blog about that merely because I think it would come across as whining.  That's neither here nor there.  My point is (and, as Ellen Degeneres would say, "I do have one") that I've had to substitute pictures I've shot with digital Nikons and, more often, my iPhone.

This was not shot with a Leica.

from The Gut with the Leica "phlog"

When I first broke down and posted the iPhone pics, I did it under the "camera you have" rule (as in: "The best camera is the one you have with you"), but I've got to say as I've returned to them, they're not that bad.  Maybe, I feared, I was missing something.  Nope.  Japan Camera Hunter is merely afraid that, with one's head down on the little smartphone screen, one is missing the real world passing by. 

Finally, here's another from the endlessly fascinating PetaPixel site, "Five Painless Steps for Getting Rid of the Fear of Street Photography Once and for All."  Again, I'm not sure that it's directly on the mark implied by the title (which is a real mouthful -- don't they have copy editors over there?)  It will only take a minute to read, but I can save you even that by saying it comes down to two things: Engage with people to stop being afraid of them; most people like having their picture made.  Still, worth the minute to get all the thoughts and encouragement in between.

Amongst those thoughts was an interesting take on the famous Robert Capa quote, "If your photos aren't good enough, you're not close enough."  The author, Oliver Duong, thinks Capa has been generally misunderstood by having his words taken far too literally.

"What Capa meant was to get closer to your work, to what you are doing," Duong writes.  "If your photographs aren’t good enough, you are not connected enough. How does that help in regards to fear and street photography? It tells you that you do not have to get physically close to your subject as the sole goal."  Frankly that sounds more like Cornel than Robert to me, but I've been very wrong about things like that before.  (Remind to tell you my embarrassing story about "Stonewall" Jackson someday.)

I think his point is valid -- I once read that Henri Cartier-Bresson complained about having to use his 35mm instead of 50mm lens too much when he shot in the US -- but I think Capa is misunderstood on a much more literal level.  Many new photographers are afraid to get right into the midst of the action, and so they produce pictures that reflect their distant, stand-offish attitude.  A better picture brings across the feel and swirl of events, and usually that requires the photographer to get right in on top of them.

Also, let's remember Capa was primarily known as a war photographer (though I'd bet war pictures only make up about a third or a quarter of his work).  An AP photographer once told me he covered war with a 20mm and a 300mm lens, as the action was either right next to you or really far away, and I noticed pictures of another photographer friend, Frank Johnston, when he covered Vietnam, inevitably showed him with only two camera bodies: a Leica with something wide angle (a 28?) and a Nikon F with the immortal 105.

Look at all those great war photographs.  I'll bet you can count the ones shot with a long lens on one hand.

Frank Johnston shooting for UPI in Danang in 1967.

From UPI

Also, when I called it up, there were some intriguing titles at the bottom, like "Joel Meyerowitz Says He Despises Bruce Gilden's Attitude, Calls Him a Bully."

Henri Cartier-Bresson: Terrorist?

A random thought ...

So lately, mostly because of 9/11, there have been a spate of unpleasant encounters between police and security guards and photographers, like this one, or this, or perhaps more generally this.  Usually, they have reminded me of my first trips to the old Soviet Union, when we were warned that photographing such harmless locations as airports or train stations or even major road intersections could result in an unpleasant encounter with the militia, as such locations were considered strategically important.  We all laughed.  But now, it's not unusual for Americans and Brits to have these problems.

When today, for some reason, Henri Cartier-Bresson's iconic 1932 photo, Dernier de la Gare Saint Lazare, popped into my head.  You know the one, the picture that everyone shows when they talk about the Decisive Moment.  In it, a man hangs suspended in mid-jump over a puddle ... not too high, not too low.  It's the perfect fraction of a second.

It's also a picture of a train station, shot between the bars of the fence surrounding it.  What would have happened to Cartier-Bresson today?

Then again, we already know what would have happened to him last year in Boston ...

Meanwhile, In America...

Okay, I know I'm no Robert Frank. (Makes me think of The Online Photographer's immortal comment about how to shoot with a Leica. He said, when suggesting using a 35 mm lens, "I know Cartier-Bresson's favorite lens was a 50. You're not Cartier-Bresson." I can't find the link, but this is the start of the thread...) But I'm still stuck on my concept of "Meanwhile, In America ..." -- a modern, more upbeat version of Robert Frank's The Americans. So now you must suffer through more pictures of the sort I would do for that project...

Here we see the talent and producer (Kim Pinckney, the one holding the papers, is the producer) of WDBJ's weekday morning news show, Mornin'. (Yes, absent the G -- it amuses me.) They are looking at the ratings. They're number one.

Inside a Roanoke, Virginia, firehouse, shortly before it was closed and replaced with a new, more modern facility nearby. The stairs lead from the garage-like area where the fire trucks are kept to the living quarters for the firemen.

Jefferson Street, downtown (it always amuses me to say "downtown" in a town of 7,000) Lexington, Virginia.

The owner of Roanoke's Putt-Putt golf course, during a tournament involving both amateur and professional players. Yes, professional Putt-Putt golfers. Really. There's a tournament circuit, just like Tiger Woods plays, but with giant gorillas and giraffes and windmills and stuff. That's not why he's laughing; he was once a pro himself.

The president of Roanoke's Tea Party, shortly after I interviewed him for WDBJ7 at a July 4 rally in Elmwood Park. As I've mentioned before, I think the Tea Party movement is something to be respected and attended to, not ignored and dismissed. I still haven't grasped what it is -- and I asked him for the opportunity to talk some more in hopes of getting closer -- but I sense a geological force (not a "shift," as I think it taps into something quintessentially American, whatever that might mean) that the Tea Party represents.

I think there is a really important article, or story, or book maybe, to be done about this -- one that isn't snide or superior or disdainful. Something not written in the tone of an educated elite regarding the boobocracy as if they were animals in the zoo. Something not written by today's H.L. Menckens.

I had read about George Plimpton's fascination with fireworks a long time ago, but it stuck with me. I saw my opportunity this July 4, and convinced the station to let me cover the setup for Lexington's fireworks. I was surprised; just two guys, a lot of wood planks, some PVC tubes for mortars, and boxes and boxes of explosives shipped all the way from China. (That was a somewhat scary thought, I've got to say, when I learned it. There must be shipping containers full of high explosives [!] on the Pacific as I write.)

The guy in charge, shown here, just started when a friend suggested he help out on a show. His day job is as a barber. He's going to beautician school now, to expand his business.

Pray and Play, and effort by a black evangelical church to occupy youth in a poorer neighborhood in Roanoke. I ended up covering it when the minister called the newsroom one Saturday seeing if we were interested.

A gospel rap group, associated with the church, was also there. I gave them my card, and I hope they call. That would be a good story, I think.

This is Josh Harvey, a friend, playing organ for a wedding in Lee Chapel on the Washington and Lee University campus in Lexington. A nice picture of a nice guy.

All of the pictures have been shot with a Leica M3. For some I used a 34mm Leica Summicron, some a Zeiss 21 mm Biogon. Most were shot on Tri-X, though Josh's is on Plus-X, and I shot one roll of Fuji B&W film because it was in the fridge. (I'm working my way slowly through everything in the fridge, as I can't afford to buy new film. I'm also now out of negative sheets.)

NOTE: Keep checking back. On my first upload of these pictures, it's ten o'clock at night and I don't have all the data -- like names and dates -- in front of me. I plan to keep updating these entries as I get the chance.

Also, check back on previous entries. I've been adding pictures as I get them processed and scanned.

Meanwhile, In America...

The 50s were, I think, a Golden Age in photography, particularly "Street Photography." (Actually, I could make an argument for most any decade since the art and science of photography began over 100 years ago; it really depends on what subset you're discussing.) Giants like Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank walked the earth. Needless to say, I sit in awe.

However, I found much of the work from that time disquieting and downbeat. Frank's legendary book, The Americans, for example, can leave one profoundly uncertain about America and American culture. This is not to say I think these pictures untrue (or even anything less than genius), but I have often thought that it would be interesting to do a counterpoint, showing in much the same style and method an upbeat vision of America, capturing the optimism, energy, generosity and general positive attitude, even in the face of less than positive circumstances.

Frank did The Americans with a Guggenheim grant; perhaps some generous foundation would like to support my idea...

I often thought of it including pictures like the one above, shot at the Comicon at the Salem, Virginia, Civic Center a while back. I was covering it for WDBJ, and took a moment at the end of my TV shooting to grab a couple of frames with the Leica. Luckily, these two guys were just by the door as I slipped out.

This is my daughter, Janey, having unexpectedly ... and unwillingly ... fallen asleep one afternoon.

However, I find some of my pictures tend to wander into the less than upbeat anyhow. Take, for example, the one below...

I actually stopped and parked at a gas station (out of frame, to the right) and stood in the road to get this as I headed home from work. I had to; it just summarized too well for me the recent spate of snow and ice we've endured. The first grand storm infamously shut down 81 for two days.

On a more scenic note, this is the parish house of St. Patrick Catholic Church in Lexington.

And, though it's difficult to see on the small display size, on the church's door, tucked into the Advent wreath to the right, a handmade cardboard sign warns of "ICE!"

In a more disquieting form of humor, the Three Kings await their moment inside the parish house. We at St. Patrick's are sticklers for accuracy, and so the kings don't appear at the church's outdoor creche until their appropriate time, in January.

Here, a celebrant in period garb enters Lee Chapel on the Washington and Lee University campus for ceremonies marking Robert E. Lee's birth. Lee, of course, was president of the university from the end of the Civil War until his death in 1870, and he is buried in a crypt in the chapel's lower level. Groups gather every January to mark his birthday and that of Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson (also buried in Lexington, in the nearby graveyard).

However, the university has become rather sensitive in modern times about an over-emphasis on Lee's defense of the Confederacy and its accompanying slavery -- particularly emphasized by the uncomfortable proximity of Lee and Jackson's birthdays to that of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. -- so Confederate flags are not allowed to be brought into the chapel for the events. Participants tidily roll them up before entering, setting them aside like this one or stowing them away in their cars.

And finally, a view out the window of a local store, Pumpkinseeds, looking past the old county courthouse (hidden out of sight on left) and down Main Street. Pumpkinseeds is a particular favorite of ours, offering often wry and clever products like the shopping bag shown at right.

So, meanwhile, in America, we do seem to be getting along well enough. Despite some disagreements about politics and religion, we do find a way and manage. I think that's what I meant to say...