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First StepsI took my first picture at the age of seven on my father's Rolleiflex. He's waving, with the Eiffel tower leaning like the tower of Pisa in the background. Getting things straight with everything moving backwards on the ground glass was a challenge. My first camera was a Kodak Brownie, maybe when I was ten.Photography really grabbed my attention at age 15 when, as a sophomore, I went away to school. The photo—my photo!—appeared in the developer tray, and I was hooked. I bought a Pentax H3v SLR with a 50 mm lens by mail order from New York, which I still have, though it's not in working order. (My father's Rolleiflex, however, which he bought new in 1937, still works.) There were no faculty advisers in the photo lab, so the newcomers learned whatever they could, however they could, from whomever they could. We developed survival skills, not technical knowledge. We bought our own paper, most of our film; and the school paid for the chemicals. We learned to work with what we had and to be resourceful, yet we really didn't know what we were doing. Our prints were in the developer tray and out into the stop bath before they got too dark. We weren't going to waste precious photo paper doing tests. And we did this from negatives that had survived development in reused chemicals and being stored like limp spaghetti in the large cardboard box through which we rummaged each time we needed a picture. The one excellent element was the huge Besseler motorized 4x5 enlarger. I shot for the school paper and, in my senior year, for the yearbook: endless rolls of bulk-loaded film at games and school events with school-life shots mixed in. I still have some negatives from my senior year, mostly candid shots of seniors for the yearbook. A few times some of us went to Santa Barbara or to the rural coast north of there with our cameras. Once in a while, we took a good photo. From then on, I kept my camera close at hand as I lived in Maine, Chicago, Los Angeles and New Mexico, sometimes shooting a lot, sometimes not. Paris, starting in 1973, was my most intense photographic period. Moving to California in 1980, I left my camera on a shelf until we traveled to Egypt in 1989. The results of that trip were encouraging. I started taking pictures again in the early 90s. InfluencesMy influences include all the usual suspects, but I remember especially well a big pile of WW II and after-war Life magazines under the coffee table at my godfather's house at Greenfield Ranch. During numerous Sunday teas in the late fifties and early sixties, while the adults talked about whatever grown-ups talk about, I drank cups of tea with lots of milk and sugar and leafed through those pages looking at the black & white images of an already distant past.I have recently discovered a few names to describe what I do: "street photography" (though I'm often not in the street), "straight photography" or even "urban photography" (and I'm not always in the city). In any case, this kind of work demands a lot of walking. There are similar photographers on the Web (Links), most working in black & white and with available light. One calls himself a "photographe humaniste", and that appeals to me. Equipment and Format ChoicesI started early using a wide-angle lens and remain attracted to it. It makes me get in close. I can't pick off the subject like a telescopic sniper. Up close, I make better contact with the subject, and I might, sometimes and if only for a moment, make contact with the person. I bought a used Nikkormat FT in 1978 with Nikon 28 mm ƒ/2 lens, which I have used since then to shoot almost everything. It's heavy and noisy, but the lens is sharp and fast. While one camera, one lens means living with some restrictions, it dovetails with another school of thought: one film, available light, full-frame, no cropping.Advice on the Web encourages would-be street photographers to take lots of pictures, hoping something will result. I don't agree. At first, my limited means taught me to ration my shots. But even now, I only hit the shutter button when think I see a viable picture. That doesn't mean I don't take chances. I have rarely printed any size other than 5x7". Maybe at first it was to save paper. With my early processing and printing skills, I probably didn't want to enlarge on my defects either. I still prefer the format, though I print it on larger paper (8 X 10" or 11 X 14"). It puts the viewer in a similar relationship to the photos as the 28 mm lens puts me to my subjects. For two years ending in 1977, I had the weekend use of a darkroom at an ad agency. Finally, I became a good printer. Still, it took a full day and a bunch of paper to produce just five presentable prints from a given negative. That was the last time I got to use a darkroom. After that, I simply developed the negatives and stored them away, and then I simply stopped taking pictures. I started up again in 1989 using a professional photo lab to develop the film and print the contact sheets. I then filed them away with the previous ones. When digital technology came along, I finally got my own darkroom, sort of. I am fully converted to the idea of digital printing, but I will continue to shoot on film, especially as a black & white photographer. I scan the negatives into Adobe Photoshop 7 using a Canon CanoScan FS 2710 scanner at 2,700 dpi. Digital processing gives me better control of the printing process. I find details in the shadows, a gleam in people’s eyes. I get to print some negatives that are more marginal. Photoshop allows me to be much more selective in how, using adjustment layers with feathered edges, I can adjust differently for light levels, contrast and brightness in different areas of the image. The same goes for dodging and burning. I can take out scratches, water spots, dust and crud. In this manner, I produce the print the way I want it, and I can print a second one later without starting all over again. All in all, though, I don’t trust digital. Files get corrupted. They can get orphaned by changes in software or storage media. The environment is unstable. I am grateful I can always go back to the original negative. Getting the PictureFinding the elements of what I look for in a picture is now a trained instinct, but certain rules apply. I try to find a structure in what I am shooting. I have certain habits and ideas about where to place the subject, and I try to anticipate the subject’s gesture or movement. Shoot for the shadows.Of course, I prefer that the light not be against me. I pre-set the aperture to the ambient light, most often by aiming the camera at the sidewalk, and I pre-focus the lens. Make sure the film is advanced. Sometimes having someone else such as a friend or another photographer along for the walk puts people more at ease—you look less like a surveillance officer or just plain nuts. I try to make it obvious that I’m taking pictures to give fair warning and again to put the subject at ease. Still, I also shoot from the hip and seize opportunities when they look good. Sometimes I just stand there and let the subject come to me, or I ask permission to take the picture. After, if I am noticed, I nod my head and say thank you. On occasion, if I can get an address, I’ll send a copy of the photo if it’s any good. I take about one roll per month.
Elements I look for in a PictureLight A photo, well-focused and correctly exposed with all five of these elements would be nice. Most photos have only a few of these qualities, and a photo can be strong enough to get by with only one of them. Also: simplify, idealize, dramatize and seek richness in the image. Next StepsI continue to use the same camera and to pursue the same type of photography. It is ingrained in me, and now I have more time to do it. Some days finding pictures is easy, others I don’t see a thing.Showing my photos is a relatively new experience. Now thanks to the Web, I look forward to sharing them with a wider audience, interacting with other street photographers and discussing this type of work with those who find it interesting.
Photos become more meaningful as they age because they represent a time and a place that will never exist again. There is hardly any photo from the nineteenth century that isn’t interesting today. It was such a discovery for me, starting several years ago, to go back through these images that I hadn’t looked at in a long time, such as those of Paris in the 1970s. I realize they are a gift I made in the past to my then-future self, and I am grateful to receive it today. In similar fashion, I hope the photos I take now will serve in the future.
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