Representing Cities

Most of my photographs are an attempt to grapple with the question of

how one can represent the distinctive history / culture of one city:

in my case, Venice. In trying to think about this, I have obviously

been drawn to the work of other photographers who have tried to say

something about the city they inhabited or were interested in: Atget

(Paris), Brassai, Willy Ronis, Robert Doisneau (also all Paris),

Weegee (New York), Josef Sudek (Prague), etc. Sorry if the list of

names is offputting to those who don't know them all - you can

substitute your own examples. In all cases, though, we are talking

about the perspective of an inhaitant, which is what distinguishes the

work of these photographers from journalists on assignment doing

travel photography. I'm interested in how other contributers to PN

have tried to engage or represent particular aspects of the city that

interests them without resorting to cliched shots of landmarks, etc.

 

Some photographers have tried to find a match between form and the

'content' of a particular city's culture. E.g. William Klein's 'Life

is Good and Good for You in New York' mimics a tabloid layout, with

deliberately 'cheap' reproduction quality, following Weegee's example

in part.

Have you come up with analogous solutions?

One of mine is to represent the experience of walking a particular

itinerary by showing my Venice shots border to border with no gap, and

with 'directions' underneath indicating the approximate time it takes

to walk from one location to the next, and the compass direction.

 

If you're not interested in form, then just talk about the content of

your images.

I live in Prague. I tend to take a lot of photographs. I try not to pre-edit too much. My initial sense is very often, wow I'll bet that photograph has been taken a hundred times, when in reality it hasn't. I mean, I haven't taken this photograph, so by definition what I am about to do is going to be different. A corrollary of that definition is that every photograph I take is inherently a failure to say any true thing about whatever place I am trying to portray. Photographs are too small and the world is too big and complicated. I can only really say, This is what I saw on Tuesday through my viewfinder. As such, I am always trying to be extremely (to the point of alienation perhaps) honest about my relationship with a place in which I reside but am not truly a resident. While I certainly talk to and interact with Czechs on a daily basis and am therefore part of the global demand for Czechs to think outside of themselves, the Czechs have a whole history and culture that has occured and will continue to occur with or without me. My photographs matter nary a whit, whether I shoot them or not, except as tools I use to decipher/decode/whatever my relationship with my surroundings. I find, therefore, that my process has become sort of a topography of my daily existence, a production that will only achieve some level of interest to other people beyond a mere self-involved photographic diary (I went here & I saw that & click click click) when it somehow manages to become what Roland Barthes describes as "a labor at whose end it is indeed possible that the Journal thus kept no longer resembles a Journal at all." For me, that just means taking a lot of photographs on a daily basis and then (wholly screw what a lot of work) editing it down to some sense of the thing - sort of the W.E. Smith Pittsburgh Project approach I suppose. Sort of shooting until the negative (no pun intended) shape of the place is revealed through a density of images.

 

How I present that eventual product is a conceptual aspect I haven't really considered too much, though some images have found their way into a manuscript I have been working on for the last year. I have already published a book of poetry & now have a subsequent manuscript, so this work is part of my third and I am just trying to shake things up and keep it fresh. Whether those photographs make it into the final draft or not depends on a lot of things, not least of which is the willingness of a publisher to spend the money on reproductions. Avoiding the whole "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy" situation is a big concern. I mean, poetry + photography = 100% crap really really easily.

have you looked at Basilico's work in Italy. One thing he talks of if the exploring of a place in a multiplicity of glances

Interesting question, let me put an inverse spin. I live in Orange County south of Los Angeles, CA, USA. I've been grappling with how to express, what I percieve is largely a lack of visual interest, lack of history or culture. There's a few pockets of intersest due to communities changing from the impact of immigration, but all and all I often see it as a desert of bedroom communities and strip malls, the Wal Mart effect. So I'm trying to figure out how to basically capture the banality in a visually intersting style. Not sure how to approach it and it may take a dedicated serial montage of somekind to make the statement. Then again, I'm still enamored of the formalistic aspects of a photograph, and have not limited myself to any particular shooting style, in fact I have none except that style which asserts itself in the pictures themselves. I certainly am not in control of the process. But I'm hoping something will emerge that I can glom on to.

Here's my just-completed take on Moscow:

 

<a href=http://beeflowers.com/megastructure> <b> megastructure </b> </a>

Bee Flowers,<br>

I'm unhappy my slow modem connection does not do justice to your presentation; what I can see is wonderful. I'm looking forward to the book!<br>   

For the record, public housing doesn't have such a great history in the U.S. either. In the late '60s I was a caseworker in the Marcus Garvey project in Brooklyn. The highrise apartments built in the previous decade were in the process of being demolished and the area looked not unlike post-war Hiroshima. Some nice little duplexes were installed in the neighborhood, but I don't think many of the previous apartment dwellers got to occupy them. I'm sorry I didn't spend my time there photographicly documenting the process rather than trying to fix the unfixable.

This is a neat thread, and a welcome relief from rather one-dimensional street photos. Regarding the issue of form and content it might be worthwhile looking at <a href="http://www.davidperrystudio.com/News.htm"><u>Bordertown</u></a> by Barry Gifford and David Pery. The authors attempted to portray life on the U.S.-Mexican border with a combination of photos, text and Mexican tabloid vignettes. For me, it was a failure and a betrayal of Perry's photo work, but a noble effort never-the-less.<br>    There are a lot of compelling photos in your folders, but I'm having trouble synthesizing it along the lines you suggest in your bio statement and in your posting. It seems like the addition of a few words would help along the process for those of us who have not had the pleasure of visiting Venice.

Bee - amazing stuff. Fantastic

 

if ypu don't put it on SP I'll "out" you...

 

tim

Thanks, Mike. Regarding the original question I can say that I did indeed try to adapt the formal aspects of the pictures to the boxy, and unadorned, nature of the subject matter. The somewhat basic nature of the color used is also intended to be keeping with the monochrome-ish nature of the city. I'm not naturally inclined to making boxy pictures, so perhaps some of these intentions come through clearer in the web design than in the pictures.

 

 

Tim, being outed is soooo sweet! :-)<div></div>

The Prague photos sound interesting - but none are posted! I can't get to Bee's photos on the link from this internet cafe, but will try to look at them asap (I'm busy printing at the Australian Centre for Photography darkrooms).

I know Basilico - indeed, I prefer him to the much higher profile Struth, but I think it would be fair to say that he photographs everywhere in the same way, rather than attempting to meld form and content to say something about specific places. Having said that, I think his shots of Rome and Milan are richer and more insightful than those of Berlin, etc., because he clearly has a stronger connection with the places (more on this below).

I don't want to go on about my Venice shots here - but just to clear up any confusion about the relation between my bio. statement and this post, my photos were originally intended (and still are) as an odd sort of accompaniment to a history book. I write about Venetian history for my day job. But I'm now also trying to think about how I might use the images separately from that project, and 'reinvent' them as a commentary upon Venice as a modern city, but a city where the dialogue between present and past is much more complicated and more visible (audible? mixed metaphor) than in many other places. Actually, Basilico's shots of Rome, which cut cross-sections through scenes containing buildings from many different epochs, have influenced me a lot here, though I tend to get in closer than he does.

 

Any of our New York street photographers want to chip in here?

Haven't gotten to that point yet, basically. It could be easy, on the one hand, because of the breadth and availability that this place has to offer. But it could also be a real challenge, I feel like, as it's something that for me is most likely to happen (if it does ever happen) in the outer boroughs of the city (Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens), where I feel a lot of the old New York (read: what was once Manhattan, what Manhattan once could claim) native culture and ethnic enclaves up and went, if they didn't just settle out there to begin with. Another challenge is to establish trust and presence and to be accepted into these oft-marginalized smaller communities, where outsiders wielding cameras can understandably be perceived to be a threat. <p> Manhattan, where I live and do most of my snapping (an aside and an admission: at this point in my photographic life I'm feeling particularly lazy and lacking in initiative, which is why I stay close to home when I decide to snap, as it's easiest/most convenient), in its current state, is really rather uninteresting from a subject/content point-of-view, with the exception of a few concentrated pockets or neighborhoods (e.g., Washington Heights in upper, upper Manhattan). <p> So really, I guess at this point I'm shooting primarily for form and composition, and not much else. I will still seek out subjects or areas that don't totally put me to sleep (e.g., the working class, people of color), which is why I'll rarely shoot out-of-towners in, say, Times Square, or old money New Yorkers on the Upper East Side, or stroller-pushing yuppies on the West Side. But really, Mike has it right when he says there are mainly one-dimensional street photographs here. Because that's what I feel like I'm primarily contributing.

burnt-out already, Drew? <g>

I think it's important to stop thinking about "Street Photography," which is a limiting descriptor and unnecessary constraint. The idea that shooting random people, surreptitiously, on the street has more than marginal documentary value is strange. Of course, wandering the streets, looking for interesting individuals or communities to photograph in an engaged and meaningful way, is not generally what is called "Street Photography" here on PN.

 

Lauren Greenfield's "Fast Forward" is a dazzling portrait of Los Angeles, but none of it would be considered street photography. It achieves what you could never do in stealth mode, and most people in LA--the ones who define the urban space--aren't walking around on the street.

 

Bruce Davidson's "East 100 Street" and "Subway" reveal a great deal about some aspects of New York. Eugene Richard's "Cocaine True, Concaine Blue" tells you all you need to know about crack epidemic in NY and Philadelphia in the early 90s. These books are documentary photography at its finest.

 

 

The question really is a journalistic one, not a photography one. If you as a writer were trying to capture the distinctive history and culture of a particular city, you would come at from a variety of angles. You would schedule interviews with noteworthy people, you would talk to shopkeepers and people in bars, you would go into people's homes from different economic and cultural backgrounds. You might cover some special events and celebrations, politics, sports. You would write something about the physical space, architecture, etc.

 

You get the idea. Photography can accomplish all this is remarkable ways. If the task is to get hold of some aspect of a city's history and culture, you have to be creative in your thinking about it and follow the threads wherever they lead.

This is a really good question and one that I've been trying to reconcile myself for some time. I'm chiming in as someone who routinely shoots on the streets of NYC and there's several things that come to mind.

 

First, I frequent the 'tourist spots', which, these days, is pretty much all of Manhattan and find them to be full of whimsical scenes. Being a born and bred middle American (but having lived in NY for a while), it's interesting to observe these types out of their element and gawking. People watching par excellance.

 

Second is the solitude and isolation of city life. Despite being jammed together New York is a lonely place and I think this is very observable in people's unguarded moments. Particulary when they're on that long-ass commute...

 

Third are found objects, dead pigeons, a discarded glove with only the middle finger sticking up, a piece of red cloth...

 

Where does all this lead and what does it say about NY? Hmmm...I guess it comes down to interaction in a city that forces you to acknowlege it and how you deal with life outside your own cozy nest. Best part for me is the recipe is applicable to any place.<div></div>

<i><blockquote> Lauren Greenfield's "Fast Forward" is a dazzling portrait of Los Angeles,

but none of it would be considered street photography. </blockquote> </i><p>

 

None of it? <p>

 

Revisit the book.

Well, now I'm feeling bad about having made that crack about "one-dimensional" street shots. The truth is I really like street photography, and I even attempt it myself occasionally. However, a steady diet of individual street shots can be hard to digest over time. I think maybe this is more a problem of how we have conceptualized this forum rather than with street stuff per se. If I had to look at The Decisive Moment every day of my life, I think I would very likely get tired of HCB rather quickly, but that really has little to do with his accomplishment. Still, I do crave a bit more depth. I think that there is probably nothing wrong with taking a bunch of street shots and organizing them in some way that was not originally part of the idea in shooting them. It is just another creative process, and it can yield good or poor results depending on the editing (and possibly writing) talents of the person doing the assembly. The W/NW threads address this issue to some extent, but success is rather a matter of chance.

<i>The idea that shooting random people, surreptitiously, on the street has more than marginal documentary value is strange</i><p>

 

This statement is wrong. It's dead wrong. It's only right in that "marginal" is incorrect. Remove that word, and it's even more dead wrong.<p>

 

It's proven wrong by Moriyama's Shinjuku, by Klein's New York, by Ohkura's Tokyo, by Bravo's Mexico City, by von Graffenreid's Algeria. It's probably proven wrong by Garcia Rodero's Spain and Scianna's Sicily, but I don't know enough about the actual shooting by them. For each one of these photographers, there's probably tens or hundreds more. What's immediately evident to anyone that's seen the work, it's documentary, yet it's also exactly what the quote lays out above.<p>

 

If the comment were strictly about photographers on photo.net, it's true, with one possible exception. grant's work in the Dominican Republic is also exactly what the quote above lays out, and it's the most definitive documentary work on the Dominican Republic that's ever been done. Since his return to the US, his work in Brooklyn will, if published together, be defining documentary work on that place at the beginning of the 21st century.<p>

 

However, that shouldn't dismiss the other street work that appears here. For some, it's part of something different, not documentary. There is no requirement that street photography form a document of a place, and for some people, it's about other thematic, and possibly documentary, topics. I have very specific things I want to convey with my photography, in several areas, and I pursue them no matter where I shoot. It was a mark of my success that, at an opening, someone who didn't know me said "You find the same subjects wherever you go." For others here, there are other things they pursue with their <i>shooting random people, surreptitiously, on the street</i>. But that still has nothing to do with the fact that people do <i>shoot... random people, surreptitiously, on the street</i> and produce documentary work.

"You would schedule interviews with noteworthy people, you would talk to shopkeepers and people in bars, you would go into people's homes from different economic and cultural backgrounds. You might cover some special events and celebrations, politics, sports. You would write something about the physical space, architecture, etc".

 

Except that - with the significant exception of the last item on this list - I deliberately avoided doing any of these things. I also (with one or two significant exceptions) deliberately avoided any shot that contained a recognizable landmark. Why? Precisely to avoid falling into all the usual photo-essay cliches, and cliches can be as much to do with structure and form as with content. Of course, I am starting from a position of basic familiarity, which hopefully makes a difference.

 

"I have very specific things I want to convey with my photography, in several areas, and I pursue them no matter where I shoot. It was a mark of my success that, at an opening, someone who didn't know me said "You find the same subjects wherever you go." "

Much as I admire Klein, I find it problematic that he repeated the style of his New York photos in his books on Tokyo and Rome and Moscow (it fits better in the former than the latter two - and maybe he changed the layout? I've only seen excerpts from the later books). Of course, all these books contain many wonderful shots - and one might even argue(as Jeff implies) that the consistency of style is sign of strength of vision - but it also requires a peculiar insensitivity and willingness to ride roughshod over nuances. Maybe that insensitivity is - in a peculiar way - one of the thins that distinguishes a great photographer like Klein from a mediocre one like me. Of course, it's photography can be about lots of different things other than 'a sense of place' (whatever that might mean in practice) and I can think of numerous bodies of work where location is patently irrelevant - Lee Friedlander's for example. However, I find that I can't really photograph away from Venice, because I can't explain to myself why the images matter, i.e. ultimately I have no real commitment to photography per se beyond its usefulness in allowing me to ask questions about specific subjects / places. But that's just me.

"grant's work in the Dominican Republic is also exactly what the quote above lays out, and it's the most definitive documentary work on the Dominican Republic that's ever been done. Since his return to the US, his work in Brooklyn will, if published together, be defining documentary work on that place at the beginning of the 21st century."

 

This is just too much . . .

Maybe you haven't seen it.

 

And your response to the rest of my comments, was, well, telling.

I have seen some of Grant's work and admire it very much. I genuinely hope he is recognized for it and that it carries him to whatever professional opportunities he cares to undertake.

 

But how can anyone, with any shred of intellectual honesty, say that one guy's work will set a standard for documentary for the new century? This is mere puffery--and detracts from whatever Grant will legitimately accomplish.

 

As for the rest of your comments, Jeff, I have a different opinion, which I don't need to repeat. We can disagree without rehashing. I happen to think very little of street photography--if that means conducting surveillance of strangers on the street--and believe it offers very little in the way of documentary value. Certainly it is one tool for a documentarian, but it is just one, and I think a small one. That's all.

<i>believe it offers very little in the way of documentary value</i><P>

 

I gave very specific examples which show this to be untrue. "Belief" is one thing, facts are another.<p>

 

If you look at the work that grant did in the Dominican Republic, it's easy to see what he can do in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn stuff isn't online, but will be at some point.

Yeah, Jeff. I have my beliefs and you have yours. I'm glad to know that your beliefs have coalesced into facts.

"believe it offers very little in the way of documentary value"

 

As time goes on I seem to have more and more trouble with the idea of documentary photography actually existing - especially with regard to cities, urban/suburban, place etc.

 

I find most of the best "documentary" photography in this area seems to be by photographers who aren't documentarians - Struth, Evans, Gursky, Cohen, Sternfeld, Shore, Bechers, James, Friedlander, Esser, and so on.

 

Documentary photography inevitably involves a point of view and yet we still try and insist that we are attempting to undertake some form of objective study using a medium that conveys reality, rather than acknowledging what we are doing is more often than not entirely subjective and personal using tools which can, at best, capture appearances.

 

I find myself much more interested by the work of those who have abandoned what is really the pretence of "documentary" than those who haven't.

 

A good example is Greenfield's work - on the surface I find it appealing, yet ultimately there seems to be an inherent unease within the project - it is a personal ("artistic") exploration masquerading as a "factual" or "truthful" documentary work.

 

"The idea that shooting random people, surreptitiously, on the street has more than marginal documentary value is strange."

 

I'd add that in one sense it's strange to group street and documentary together on this forum (if you happen to concede that "documentary" is a possibility) because there really is little in common between the two. Street photography has to be one of the most subjective forms of photography, with little in common with documentary other than an adoption of certain styles.

Tim, I think the problem you describe occurs only because you see documentary photography as being objective. I'd submit that many documentary photographers don't view their work as objective.