Size Matters and Other Tales From the Street

So yesterday I once again head to the 3rd St. Promanade in Santa

Monica with my RZ, 180mm, meter, and several rolls of 100 and 400

Ilford Delta. After the fantastic day last Saturday, I was looking

foward to getting some good shots in. What a let down! There was

nothing going on. There was about half the crowd there was last week.

There was a Farmers Market, but I arrived just as most sellers were

closing shop. I passed on one shot of a man stretching while bracing

himself against a tree. He was pulling one leg behind him with one

hand on the tree for balance. I thought he looked like a sculpture in

a garden with the palm trees in the background. However, to get a

shot I would have had to have gotten pretty close and I just got cold

feet. He was somewhat overweight, and was only wearing shorts and

shoes. I didn't think he'd like having his picture taken in such a

pose. I suppose many of the bodybuilder types down the path in Venice

wouldn't mind, but in beauty obsessed LA, most people are quite

camera shy.

I also was told by a street performer not to take a picture because

my camera was too big. Huh? He was laughing when he said this, so I'm

not sure if he was serious or not. I was reminded of my father who

just last year or so was in a public government run botanical garden

taking pictures when a obnoxious security guard told him he couldn't

take pictures because his camera was too big. He was using a 35mm

slr. My father photographed here numerous times before but this guard

just seemed to have an attitude. Hmmm...are there size restrictions

regarding when one can use a camera or not? I suppose if one uses

anything other then a small point and shoot, people think you work

for a magazine or something which means the real issue at hand is

money. Sure enough, the guitar player I was looking at through my

view finder said that I must be rich to have a camera like mine. I

laughed too and told him I was rich before I bought it. In reality,

I'm a checker in a market. He probably makes more then I do lol! I

didn't take shot after all, mainly because there wasn't anything

unusual about the scene.

Another street perfomer didn't mind my taking pictures, but he wanted

my word that my camera was not video.

So all in all, not much to get excited about. Next Sat. I may hit the

downtown area of LA, especially Olvera St. and China Town right next

to it.

Anybody else have any recent outings to write about?

Cheers,

Marc

Sure sounds like something that could roll on Ira Glass' "This American Life"

Makes one puzzle over the whole concept of "Street"

You're a good writer, thanks for the account. I don't have one because I don't do "Street" and I haven't been able to figure out why except that it feels creepy.

Or Andrei Codrescu...

I like your story.

I'm not lacking in discretion, but when people tell me I can't do

something, like photograph on the street in certain instances....

I've been known to tell them where they can stick it...

.... particularly when it doesn't involve them, they can take a flying

hike. ;)

I went to three locations last Saturday in order to fill my two rolls of film.

I started off at an organic farmer's market where I didn't make myself particularly useful despite the location being a "target rich environment." I chickened out on the chance to get a shot of lots of kids climbing over a cow restraining grid of some sort-- perfectly innocent photograph and from where I was standing it would have made quite a nice enlargement but the parents around those kids looked upon my stubble-coated chin, poor fashion sense and intimidating SLR with concern.

Once I figured that these people were there to graze at the produce I became more confident but I cannot specifically recall what I shot there other than one stall keeper telling me that shooting pictures without her explicit permission was rude. So, having bagged about two frames of her with a customer-- one with the direct eye contact I so admire in pictures-- I asked her permission. She refused. Whatever...

So I then went down to the Vietnamese quarter of town and got a few abstractions but my favourite is a portrait of a Vietnamese woman selling her cottage-produced sweet cakes on the roadside. It's not a common sight here in Australia.

Then went to the city centre and found a cigarette-smoking man feeding about 200 pigeons. I knew that the inevitable was about to happen-- those pigeons were going to take off sooner or later the minute someone decided to set them off.

You know what? It happened while I was chatting on my mobile phone; the biggest evacuation since Dunkirk and I stood there, watching. I managed to catch the last of it but the decisive moment had passed. I had to soothe my dissapointment with a shot of a tourist photographing the remaining pigeons purched on the side of a building.

I am aware that my tale is rambling and all over the place but that's what street is like to me when I do it-- I walk quite a few kilometres all over the place and chance upon all sorts of things.

Hi Michael,

Ya know it's funny how the lady at the farmers market stall said you were rude for taking her picture. There is a billboard here in LA that says more or less "You are photographed hundreds of times a day. Is your hair perfect?" Something like that. The billboard refers to the many times we are on camera in stores, banks, and well just about every we go these days.

I also don't like to shoot children. Despite the wonderful photos that can result from shooting kids just being kids, I just don't feel comfortable with it. I think it would bring on too much suspicion. I certainly don't blame parents either. I don't have kids myself, but I have a neice and nephew I love beyond words and it would just devistate me if anything bad happened to them. So I just simply don't bother shooting strangers children.

If I may offer a suggestion why not dress up a notch when you go out shooting? I tend to dress up a little more the most in my everyday life, so when I hit the street it's no different. Since the weather here is getting warmer, I've been wearing linen trousers, light cotton long sleeve shirts (I roll the sleeves up a little) shined shoes, and a clean shaven face. I think it really makes a difference. People really react to how others are dressed although it's mostly subconcious.

Good Luck,

marc

More than anything else, it's how you act that matters. Normal is what works. If you're uptight, nervous, appear to be hiding something... it'll make the people you're trying to photograph uncomfortable with you.

The thing is, it helps to have some initial success with your photos so that you're at least somewhat clear in your own mind what it is you're trying to do. Then you'll be more confident, and that will tend to put people at ease. Sometimes you're just going to encounter cranky people. In that case just move on. That shouldn't happen too often though. If someone is telling you you're being rude, depending on the situation, you might laugh it off and try to explain to them that you're camera is harmless. Again, just be a normal person. Share something in common. Smiles and waves and casual attitude can go a long way.

I like using my beat-up Mamiya Universal for street shooting, because people seem to take

less umbrage to a oddball old camera than a bright shiny new one (and it certainly never

makes them think I'm rich...), and 6x9 vs. 6x7 more than makes up for any advantage your

more modern lenses may have.

I also intentionally dress down, not up--I want to look like a harmless hippy artsy-fartsy

type. Clean, but a little funky. People tend to get their hackles up when they think

someone better off is taking advantage of them--they seem to imagine street

photography makes money, ha, ha, ha. Adjustments up should be made for wealthy

neighborhoods--you don't want to seem completely out of place either.

Re: children--I'd never look through a viewfinder at kid, but that's not to say I haven't shot

some from the waist. It's sad that so much of the neat street photography of kids from

past decades is now mostly off-limits.

My experience is that Chinatown rent-a-cops will be agressive in enforcing their incorrect

interpretation of L.A.'s film permit law.

<b>The stranger the place, the better for me</b>

<p>I've made the experience that I cannot shoot in my neighborhood. I always have a camera on me when I go out (an Olympus Stylus Epic), sometimes carrying my SLR gear through the nearby streets, just to come home without a single shot. I really love my neighborhood, and I'd like to document the developments, the people, but something keeps me from doing it. For example, there's a playground surrounded by a small park. When the weather is fine, the playground is full of children (including my own), but the park benches are crowded with boozers and junkies. So I thought I should talk to these people and take pictures of them to document the scenery, but never dared to do so.</p>

<p>On the other hand, there were occasions when I was in another city that I simply "exploded" as a street photographer -- once in Cheb, Czech Republic, where I took some great photos of people selling carps for the Christmas dinner. At another occasion, I found myself surrounded by screaming children wanting to be photographed in a Roma (gypsy) neighborhood in Sofia, Bulgaria (although I have to add that at the end of the afternoon in the neighborhood, I decided to go as some people started to look at me quite unfriendly.</p>

<p>Have you got an idea of how to overcome that block to shoot in the neighborhood? What is your experience?</p>

Ulrich, shooting in your own neighborhood should be quite simple as

long as you and your neighbors are on familiar territory. I presume you do not live in the US, correct? Much has been written in recent times about the general decline of communities in the US. By this I mean how isolated we are becoming. Most people do not know who their

neighbors are or if they do, they rarely talk to them.

You also mentioned a park where there are boozers and junkies around. Forgive me while I step up on my soapbox but my first order of business if I were you would be to rally up my neighbors and go to the police station and demand that they clean the park up. I can't imagine what kind of lowlife would hang around a place where kids are playing strung out on who-knows-what. Do I need to mention that the presence of such individuals usually results in crimes of other natures as well? My advice to you is to get your elected officials to clean up the riffraff. Then maybe you'll feel more comfortable photographing in your neighborhood.

Regards,

Marc