You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘street’ tag.
Click for larger image
I think it is natural to wonder – I hope that it is natural to wonder – what it will be like when I am much older than I am now. Will I still be engaged with people or will I have withdrawn and become a complete loner. Will I be able to function or will I be bedridden. Will I be able to continue doing the things I love. Will I be able to still think.
I am much older than I used to be and so far so good. I can only hope that the future holds something remotely similar.
As is always the case, there comes a time to leave. I have shown a number of street images from Las Vegas, and my parting shot is that of Garfield and Winnie the Pooh, down on their luck, hoping for a break in a bottle. To be fair, I also saw Mickey Mouse, the Mario Brothers, Snow White, and numerous others in the same condition. We all have our good times and our bad.
Click for larger image
I do not pretend to know what is going on in Las Vegas, which is part of the attraction. I enjoy shooting on the street and making up stories about those I take pictures of, but in this place that is way too easy.
At one point two women tries to convince me, since I had a camera and they were wearing police outfits, that they should take pictures of me being arrested. I almost understand that.
These women were dressed as .. perhaps cat women, but as it was a little chilly, one was wearing a coat – somewhat lost the effect. Perhaps next time.
Click for larger image
We have heard it before – every picture tells a story, and a picture is worth a thousand words. This is one such picture, taken on the streets of Las Vegas. The thousand word story is oftentimes best imagined. This is the direction I took with my project, The Extras, where I created a story for each of the images I presented, and I am thinking of adding this to that mix. One wonders of the events that may have led up to this moment, as well as the aftermath.
This image is in the same catagory as the diptych I offered with my previous entry, Two Thousand Words (thus the similar wording above). In this particular case the man was helping the woman with her jacket, but why ruin a good story with the facts?
Click for larger image
Las Vegas is a pretty cool place. I have no use for the casinos, but the mass of people make for an enjoyable time shooting on the streets. The bane of the streets, however, are what I refer to as flickers. I am guessing that there is a local term used to describe these people, but I refer to them as flickers because they flick cards in your path in the hopes that you will take them. The cards are advertisements for local strip joints and have pictures of nudes with strategically placed stars over specific parts of their bodies.
Initially their presence is amusing, but very quickly becomes Vegas’ version of street spam, something that 99.9% of the people do not want, but have to go out of their way to ignore. There are times when half a dozen flickers will stand in a line. flipping the cards so that they make a snapping noise, and even though one might ignore the first three, the second three are just as insistent that you take their card.
Of course, ignoring them does not necessarily mean that you will not end up with a card. I was walking behind a couple who had been shopping. A flicker offered a card to the man, and when he ignored the request a card was dropped into his shopping bag as he passed.
Spam works, which is why it is such a problem. My guess is that there may be a discount offered on the card, so that the proprietor can see that the person’s presence in their strip club might be due to the fact that he took a card. I did not count the number of flickers along the strip – I think that the number may vary with the time of night – but my guess would be a couple hundred around 10pm, so they are ubiquitous.
The sad thing is that I am sure that this is the only work many of these people are able to get, certainly this is not a career path. I wish these people well with the understanding that in other circumstances they would be performing more interesting work.
I have gone through my Portland pictures one more time and presented several here that I liked. Looking at the trove of other negatives seeking recognition (New York City, Braddock, Las Vegas) it is time to divert my attention elsewhere. So with this image I offer my goodbyes to Portland, a place I certainly hope I have another opportunity to visit.
While in Portland I wandered the streets looking at people. However, there are some things that will really get my attention, like light. Obviously, light is the most important element in photography, so it is always in mind when considering an image, but sometimes the way light is presented just takes over the scene. This happens when the sun is low and reflects from the windows of a building onto another building, as was the case here.
There are numerous ways to shoot street photography and a while back I started to put together a list of things that I do. Most street photographers do a good bit of walking, but I like to combine that with staying in one area and waiting for the picture to come to me. Broadway is one of those places where there are so many scenes that planting oneself in a single place will yield numerous opportunities, and as I was wandering the area I noticed a photographer who was doing just that. I watched him as his eyes slowly scanned the area and was ready when he raised his camera to take a picture. As fortune would have it, there was a very clear path not only to him, but also his subject.
This was taken using my Nikon TI35 with Fomapan 400 film.
Okay, I have already offered two other pictures with the same subject, so why a third one? Well, to tell the truth, I liked it and it appears to nicely capture the activity of the day. I have experienced this type of scene in New York City, and just really enjoyed going from table to table to watch the progress of the games. You will notice that the pair in the foreground are not playing with a clock. I always found this to be the most difficult way to play. Without a clock I feel pressured into making a move because of an artificial deadline, but with a clock when I see that my position is lost, I can move quickly in the hopes of running out my opponent’s clock.
There are a number of ways to shoot street photography. Oftentimes I wander about the streets looking for something interesting, occasionally I follow someone, and at times I stay in one spot, waiting for the picture to present itself. In this particular instance all three were at play. I had been wandering throughout Portland, Oregon taking pictures of interesting things when I stopped to take pictures of chess players (see previous post). I learned long ago that after taking a picture it was often advantageous to turn around to see if there were possibilities behind me, and in this case I saw a man in an open area appearing to be either somewhat lost or looking for something. I followed him visually, waiting in the same spot until I felt that the surrounding elements worked, then took the picture. He reminded me of someone who had been caught in time and placed somewhere randomly, waiting to get his bearings before moving on.
By the way, the police were both heading over to a couple of apparently homeless men who were sleeping. To their credit they asked the men if they were okay, then went about their business. In my short time there (about a week), this city appeared to be accepting of many different ways. One can tell that the Tea Party has not taken root in this area as the trolley throughout the city was without cost, allowing people the opportunity to leave their cars at home and encouraging them to ride their bikes (wide bike lanes, trolleys with large hooks on which to hang bikes, etc.). I believe that this would be a great place to live, though I certainly would feel left out to some extent because I would refuse to get a tattoo.
