civilized ku # 3038 / single women / life in pictures ~ people, people everywhere

Le Club Chasse et Pêche (The Hunt and Fish Club) ~ Old Montreal, QC / CA • click to embiggen
single women ~ • click to embiggen
life in pictures ~ Queens / East Village / NYC, NY • click to embiggen

Right from the get go let me write that I am not a devotee of street photography. For the most part that is simply because it all looks sorta the same to me. For another part, it could be argued that I just simply have not made the time and effort to really "understand" it.

That is not to write that there are not notable exceptions to that feeling, there are. For instance I have Robert Frank's book, THE AMERICANS. However, as the photographer Ed Ruscha said (which sorta supports my feelings on the subject of street photograhy):

Seeing THE AMERICANS in a college bookshop was a stunning, ground-trembling experience for me. But I realized this man's achievement could not be mined or imitated in anyway, because he had already done it, sewn it up and gone home.

Although ... it must be noted that Frank was inspired by an early photographer's work, Walker Evans' American photographs (I have this book as well). While it could be said that Frank mined Evans' seeing / vision, Frank's work - "meaningless blur, grain, muddy exposures, drunken horizons and general sloppiness" as described in Popular Photograph magazine - stands in direct contrast to Evan's formal / precisely framed view camera work.

Over the years, many have tried to mine or imitate Frank's work but, iMo, only a very few have succeeded in creating the same impact and feeling elicited by that masterpiece of seeing.

All of that written, I nevertheless do practice what might be considered as a variant of the street photography genre. Which is to write, and as evidenced by the pictures in this entry, that I enjoy making pictures of people pictured unawares, i.e. - not aware that they are being pictured. A manner of picturing which is one of the hallmarks of the street photography genre.

My one primary deviation from the genre is that I do not confine my picturing to the street / outdoors. Outdoor, indoor, it's all the same to me. Which, I guess, is just another example of my picturing promiscuity.