Reworking Old Images

I've been reviewing my photo work going back to about five years ago, and discussing many of the b/w images with a photographer I greatly respect, and who first turned me onto the work of W. Eugene Smith. As a result of looking at that work I see that my first attempts at processing a few of them was a bit heavy handed. The first takes were processed with Nik's first iteration of Silver Efex Pro. After a few years of using and refining my technique with Silver Efex Pro 2 I wanted to try again.

The first image was taken on the subway. After examining the processed image I could see that I covered up quite a bit of detail in the shadow areas which got compressed into black:

After reworking the shot in SEP2 and paying more detailed attention to zones 1, 2, 3, and 4, I got a much more interesting and detailed image:

The same is pretty much true for this second image taken on West 14th Street:

Skin City, New York

When I first began traveling into New York, as a teenager in 1960, I took the bus from New Jersey into the Port Authority Bus Terminal on 41st Street and Eighth Avenue. The area around the bus terminal and Times Square fascinated me with it's seediness - drunks and drug addicts hung out on every corner, prostitutes flashed passers-by from recessed doorways, on every block of Eighth Avenue were two or three peep shows, massage parlors proliferated - the area had a lot of gritty character.

Then came Mayor Giuliani who initiated a major effort to 'revitalize' the theater district, to make it more tourist friendly. New retail stores, new theaters, new lighting. Most recently a stretch of Broadway from 47th Street to 41st Street was closed to vehicular traffic and converted into a pedestrian mall. Bleacher seats were erected over the TKTS booth, and the area is blanketed with cartoon characters pandering to the tourists to pose with their children for a small fee. The whole area is now like a giant carnival.

But bizarre characters are hard to keep subdued. For a while there was just one 'naked cowboy' who roamed the intersections on hot summer or frigid winter nights wearing tight jockey shorts, a cowboy hat and boots, and strumming a guitar. He must have done well because spin offs proliferate now - at times the 'naked cowboy' is a muscular black guy, and there are 'naked cowgirls' for guys to leer at. So there's still a glimmer of hope for the area.

It's not often that I post color images to my blog, but the subject cries out for it. Here's one of the original naked cowboys (white guy, in case you couldn't tell):

Some guys (for the life of me I don't understand why) find glamor in cellulite. Here's one set of cowgirls:

And yet another take on the 'naked cowgirl' theme. Trust me, you don't want her to drop the guitar:

      

And some performers forgo the guitar and just get as naked as they can. But it's not all body paintm (sigh). I checked as closely as I could (I hope you all appreciate the great pains I take on my readers' behalf):

Through the Viewfinder

No doubt about it, when I compose through the viewfinder I become much more involved in the scene I'm grabbing. I get a reaction from the subjects, and it's not always pleasant. But hey, if I wanted pleasant, nicey nice I'd sit in Starbucks with some friends and sip cappuccino.

The feelings about the interaction between this couple is so beautiful on the guy's face. Maybe I should have stayed around and photographed him strangling her.

I think this gentleman was giving me his mean nasty look, I get a lot of those.

I'm not sure about the statue in the window of this shot, I was thinking maybe Confucius (this being shot in Chinatown). The gentleman was just oozing peace and serenity.

Doctor Death and his Mistress

My walk route this past Sunday was one of my favorites - east across Canal street, up the Bowery, back west on Grand street and then through SoHo and the west Village. Lots of interesting characters even in this scorching weather we've been having.

I noticed this gentleman's shirt from a half block away, turned out he was very friendly and after asking how old I was he offered me his business card, he's a mortician.

He was heading for a meeting with is girlfriend - this beautiful lady who was for several years an assistant in his business. I can just imagine what the pillow talk is like.

Finally The Heat Broke ...... Sorta

It's tough for me to get out on the streets of New York when the temps go into the 90ºF range, and for the past week the heat index has been hovering around 104º. I get stir crazy sitting inside in air- conditioned comfort. So when I saw that the temp was going to be around 88º today, I grabbed my gear and headed into the Big Apple. The air wasn't what I'd call cool, just marginally tolerable. But I needed to be out to give my brain and fingers a workout.

I"ve been working really hard to not shoot from the hip. It's a technique with which I'm really comfortable and for a long time it was my default mode of shooting. In a pinch I'd still do it rather than lose the shot. When I was shooting film with my Leica M6 - 20 years ago - I hardly ever shot without composing the image in the viewfinder. Developing film was simply too much of a pain in the ass to take a chance on losing a shot, but with digital that became much less of an issue. BUT ....  I've come full circle in my thinking. I've been getting much better results that require mostly no cropping and are much more consistently in focus. And while before I would try to be as unobtrusive (read sneaky) as possible so as not to invade the scene, now I find I actually wait a half second after raising the camera before I click the shutter, just to see if I can elicit some kind of response. I'm not saying one way is better than the other, just different. Each has their use and place, and being able to shoot both ways is more tools in the arsenal.

Outside the Hog and Heifer on Washington Street in the Meatpacking district:

On Broadway in SoHo:

Now's Your Chance - Tell Me What You Think

In the process of reviewing my work I've distilled a set of images down to fourteen picks. I don't want to say anything about them or put them in any context, because I want your feedback about them, individually and/or as a group. Now's your chance, tell me what you think or feel about them.

Revisiting My Work

Recently I've been in touch with a photographer-friend who works as a photojournalist and we've had some very loooooong in-depth conversations about technique, content, and shooters we both admire. As a result I've been going through my Lightroom catalog and adding a substantial amount of organization and keywords to generate quite a few new series of images. I've been so involved with rethinking my work that this is the first chance I've had to write a blog for more than a week.

In the past I've blogged often about shooting 'street photography', and shooting from the hip. I've been rethinking these terms and their implications for my style. Neither now seems adequate to describe what I do or how I do it. I did an experiment one day this past week: when I went into NYC to shoot I promised myself I was going to pick the camera up to my eye for ever shot, no matter how fleeting the moment may have been. I was 98% successful - by that I mean my instinct for quick shooting without composing in the viewfinder took over only 2% of the time, not that 985 of my images were keepers. There's definitely an advantage to composing in the viewfinder (that's why they're there, eh?) And I'd like to pose the excuse that sometimes the moment is so fast there's no time to get the camera up, ergo shooting from the hip is justified. But .... the point of my exercise - which I'm still working on - is to have the camera so ready that I can get it to my eye quickly enough to catch those moments. I watched a video made of Garry Winogrand talking and shooting while walking in Los Angeles. I urge you to spend a few minutes with it here. His instincts and responses are very fast, and that takes practice.

Shooting with a very wide angle lens allows me to capture a whole scene unfolding, but also requires that I be in very close to the subject to be in the moment. So when I see someone of whom I want to make an image, I have to wait patiently for him to get close enough and be quick enough to grab a gesture that tells a story.

I saw this gentleman with the hat walking towards me on 59th street and as he got close he puffed out his cheeks and hoisted his pants just at the same moment the other gentleman in the white t-shirt walked in the opposite direction.

What can I say, I'm partial to hats. It's what attracted me to this person, along with is white outfit in stark contrast to his very dark skin. The dog yawning was the icing on the cake.