You can only photograph what’s there, I think we agree on that. Not what’s in your phantasy. Some photographers have photographed “scenes from their phantasies” that they had to construct before these could be photographed. And as a black and white film photographer I’m not even thinking of the “artistic” horrors of extreme photoshop manipulation… The constructing part – be it arranging people and things, or putting together things to suggest a non-existing reality – is in fact introducing another art form like performance or sculpture in its widest sense, then simply putting it on film. The photographer, in all his freedom [to quote William Klein: “anything goes”], nevertheless should realize this, so he isn’t fooled into believing such photography is the real “art photography”. The real “art” in photography is in my opinion in the elevation of the image from its purely representational “reality” level to a higher (non-anecdotal) symbolic function, which could be enigmatic or even of a metaphysical nature.
Looking at random street photography sites on the internet, it suddenly struck me that there is something of a tiny subcategory of pictures in which passers-by look very disturbed at the camera, and therefore at you, the onlooker. All of them seem irritated, or at least worried “what the hell is this for?” I don’t understand, are these uneasy pictures supposed to convey a deeper meaning (“look how worried people go through life”) or is the photographer merely showing us his “courage” (and in fact possible lack of respect and consideration for the other)? Personally I usually avoid these kind of looks, because I see no use for such images in the context of what I make, and I prefer not to upset people. Empathy and being able to read body language are essential. Shooting people no matter what I’m sure wasn’t what Garry Winogrand was thinking of when he said he “photographed things [read: people] to see what they would look like when photographed”. It’s proof of an unsettling egocentricity when the thing that interests you is to read the reaction on some stranger’s face to your brazenness. Apart from that, any filmist can take a whole film (for the digitalist: that’s 36 takes) in some 30 minutes in an average town center, if he dares photograph people at extremely short range in passing. But street photography is not for testing or proving courage, I hope.
It was on Dutch t.v., some artists had a great idea – their words – to get people out of their isolation. Those (old) people were given a digital camera and some instructions and then had to ask someone they did not know personally before, if they could take portraits of them. That way they would get into contact because “in order to make a good portrait you have to know a lot of personal details of your subject” (?? – O, really?). Also it seems odd to me that you need a camera as an excuse to start talking to someone. Hopefully this will not inspire people to start telling me their life stories when they encounter me on the streets with a camera.
“We are seeing a resurgence of black and white in documentary photojournalism now. [….] People are actually embracing black and white [photography] in a way that they haven’t for several years.”
MaryAnne Golon, World Press Photo Jury, 2009.
We have been mislead to believe that the important moments of our lives are only the highlights, the happy holidays, the birthday parties, another baby’s first steps in a sunny park. That’s what we’re supposed to be photographing. Others record the news of the day, the travels and landscapes, scenes to impress the world… Robert Frank showed us that we overlooked, all of the moments in-between, when nothing important seems to happen, which are nevertheless so meaningful since they make up the bulk of what we describe as “our days”. His melancholy imagery is like stuff from all of our gone dreams, vaguely remembered but loved. Nothing sad about that, it’s just the passing of things.
Why is it that we see so very few bad weather street shots? Does the sun always shine in your corner? It’s amazing what bad weather can add to your photography. Do go out sometime and take a safe camera. You don’t need an underwater or even an all-weather camera, my good old Nikon FM (mechanical) will do fine for me, for instance. See how people react to bad weather, don’t be satisfied by just photographing the weather itself. It can be really inspiring…
Just saw part 10 of the “The Road to Mecca” by Belgian t.v. documentary-maker Jan Leyers, in which he meets Saudi Arabian female (the first ever!) photographer Susan Baaghil, who asks to travel with the t.v. crew. We see her taking innocent shots of colorful windows in a street and a woman making ornaments on the market, who willingly poses: “shukran” . She has studied in the U.S.A., but prefers to adapt to certain rules at home. Her doubts about her own profession possibly being a sin according to her religion become clear when she tells that she checked with a scholar during her hadj to Mecca. The answer was that photography is permitted because you don’t create anything new, it is only a reflection. Of which we all take notice!…
In her office (entrance sign: “women only”) we saw that Susan Baaghil had taken the necessary precautions, all the large portraits of brides had their faces covered with business cards of the photographer! One funny aspect, when we saw her taking some more happy-go-lucky pictures of a family on the beach, she asked them to yell “Ali” instead of cheese.
When I was in Egypt, in 1989, towards the end of my 5 weeks journey I ran out of film. No problem, I thought, after all I was in Luxor which is a tourist center with a lot of shops. I went to a local photographer, who said that black and white was a long gone item in Egypt, no one had asked for it for years! I noticed that he cast a quick glance at my Nikons too see if maybe they were antique too… To my surprise none of the photographing tourists I had spoken to that day used Tri-X, let alone had some spare stuff to sell to me. The friendly Egyptian saw my disappointment, and said he could phone a family member who took official photographs for passports, and was bound to have some black and white film left. The only problem was that he lived in another town, I forget which, but if I paid a little extra for the trip if he could deliver them before tomorrow. At first I thought this was a clever con trick, but since he did not ask for a prepayment of the amount of money he asked – which was indeed reasonable – I agreed.
As promised I was contacted late that night at my hotel by the good man who proudly produced 5 or 6 refilled plastic cartridges with black and white film of mysterious origin. I was both glad that he had gone through all the hassle for me (for the little extra money) and disappointed by the fact that it was not sealed and packaged film (and so little of it) with no proper name and a date on it. After thanking and paying the man I inspected the material closer. The cassettes had probably had a long and fulfilling life of endless refilling because the felt entrance looked as worn, flattened and dirty as the hotel entrance carpet. After all I did not dare put them in the one Nikon body that had survived the desert sand storm of a few days back. So I rationed the few remaining Tri-X’s I had left…
It’s July 1988, Paris is hot, very hot and tourists have taken over the town. The Parisians have left for the coast or their country house and the wooden panels are fastened in front of the shop windows. I’m glad I have found a cheap room in the Hôtel d’Alsace Lorraine, 14 rue des Canettes that my friend Peter, the African Art dealer from Amsterdam has mentioned to me. It is situated in a very old building in one of the streets of the rive gauche that leads up to the monumental Place Saint Sulpice, where I like to sit in the shadow of the trees. Going up the stairs of the old hotel I noticed the framed newspaper clipping, telling that the concierge of this hotel used to be Madame Céleste Albaret, the gouvernante of Marcel Proust. The whole place breathes history; I already bumped my head very hard on one of its mediaeval oak beams which runs right through the middle of my small room, which is entresol, halfway two floors, the toilet is nondescript with a door made of planks with holes. In the sunny morning I wake up to the unfamiliar noises of a Paris street. I make a good start of the day and take a few pictures of my bed: the pushed-back blankets are the rolling waves of a restless sea and the old faded wallpaper has a repeating pattern of a sky with hovering seagulls…
Back in Holland I visit my friend Ed van der Elsken, who likes to hear about my trip to Paris. He inquires about my photography and asks where I stayed. He reacts very surprised when I tell him about the Hôtel d’Alsace Lorraine. He urges me to describe the room. “But that’s Vali’s room!” he exclaims, and his light blue eyes stare at me, “Tom, that’s incredible, that’s the room where she lived 30 years ago! She always had the curtains drawn and lived in a dream world, addicted to opium, only came out at night during that period… What a coincidence… and you never knew?…” When I tell him about the photograph I took in that room with the imaginary dreamtime seascape he seems almost moved, says he wants to see it soon, “bring it next time”. In his book “Elsken:PARIS 1950-1954” (Libroport Co. Ldt., Tokyo, 1985) Ed, the Dutch photographer, quotes Vali telling how madame Céleste watched over her like a mother during that vulnerable time. She proudly said to a visitor “You are going up to see the strange one, my favorite jewel.”
I titled the picture “Sea of dreams (for Vali Myers)” You can have a look at some of my Paris photographs from that period at http://www.tomstappers.com . The photograph “Sea of dreams (for Vali Myers)” can be seen at http://www.photogalaxy.com/photo/tomstappers/2/?m=0.0.0.tomstappers.az
Ed promised to introduce me to Vali, but I only saw her at his funeral in the old church of Edam and standing at his grave afterwards, in thoughts. She was smaller than I had imagined her, fiery hair, tattoos, quiet, unapproachable, almost shy. It was such a sad day, I did not talk to her. One look – all. There’s a photograph of her on my wall that I often look at in passing.
There it was after all – suddenly this afternoon the Google Street View car crossed my way, thoughtlessly adding my image to the world inventory on the internet. I was very close to home in Voorburg, Netherlands, but I will be almost unrecognizable, since (untypically) I had no camera with me… It was a strange moment being registered for the world to see by a traveling set of cameras on top of a car, without the conscious intervention of a human. (I noticed myself mentally checking what I would look like.) In fact its haphazard machine-generated definiteness and the prospect of a long-time unwilled worldwide visibility is quite a different experience from gracefully moving through the field of a surveillance camera which is by its nature more ephemeral. I’m not so much thinking of the privacy implications; a lot is already being said about it, both false and true. What really interests me – apart from the personal experience – is the suggestion of absolute objectivity, which is nonsense, come to think of it: you will see no traffic jam, because the Google car can’t get through, busy streets may be empty at certain hours or during the holidays, there will be no parades or demonstrations, no dirt roads or tracks, no twilight, no nights, no bad weather even! And most unreal, all these blurred texts and faces; it must be said: fascinating, but so unsatisfactory an image of an incomplete world. Keep taking those photographs yourself, put your soul in your images, it does take you to do it.