Review: Dark Light (2009) and Everybody Street (2013)

I went out yesterday determined to start shooting portraits and came home with everything but.  I can't seem to find the courage to ask strangers to model.  I can't because I don't see myself giving that permission to a stranger asking the same.  I know there are people who wouldn't mind, who might be happy for the attention, or just curious about me or the situation.  It's getting to them through all those likely to say no that seems daunting.  It seems denial is one of my fears.  How to get over it?  I guess just to get out there and do it.

After returning home I tried fortifying myself with a couple of films.  Dark Light is 30-min HBO short about the most unlikely photographers, those with little or no sight.  Two of the photographers featured grew up sighted and gradually lost most or all of their vision in adulthood.  Their practice seems to be a means of coming to grips with loss, of in fact denying loss at all.  The third photographer was born blind and seems to practice more out of curiosity and exploration of the world.  He seemed genuinely more happy than the other two, who though they produced great work seemed tense, anxious, and fearful.

Everybody Street is a 90-minute review of New York street photography featuring interviews with living practitioners, as well as reminiscences of some of those past.  What struck me most was the difference in approaches between Jamel Shabbazz, who always asked permission from his subjects, and Bruce Gilden, whose practice involves ambushing strangers, not only with a camera but often with a handheld strobe.  I could not personally do what Gilden does, and he himself acknowledges the world would be a worse place if there were more like him.  The results, though, are obvious - many of Shabazz's images appear vernacular, as if taken by the very people who are their subjects.  Gilden's are more electric and idosyncratic.

Other take-aways ES:

Myerowitz remarks that a good street photographer is someone able to read - and represent - the culture.  This would seem to require some degree of distancing, of establishing oneself in a position from which to observe.  Boogie notes that when you're behind the camera you are no longer a participant, that the camera is a device for distancing the photographer.   There seem to be two impulses pulling against each other here - distance and engagement.  This seems to be what I'm wrestling with in my own practice, which seems to favor the observer more than the participant.

Bruce Davidson found that using a large format camera lent his practice gravitis, which was not so important to him - he could get the shot with something smaller - but for his subjects, whom he felt were more inclined to take him seriously when working a serious camera.  Maybe I need to do the same, to carry to the big dslr as a means of convincing subjects that I'm not just a bothersome tourist.

Finally, there was Jill Freedman's description of the camera as a tool for freezing time.   More than just the ability to capture a slice, it seems to me the practice of photography provides a powerful sense of overcoming the limits of time, of preserving, of conferring a sense of longevity, if not immortality.

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