11,745. RUDIMENTS, pt. 679

RUDIMENTS, pt. 679
(real street-life theater)
The photographer Garry

Winogrand once said

something that I thought

was eminently sensible,

especially in light of the

way all those fancy photo

people with all their expensive

equipment go on and on

about their skill and their

eye, sensitivity, exposure,

etc. He said, 'A photograph

is what something looks like

to a camera.' (Winogrand

died in 1984, at the age of

56, leaving an entire body

of street-work behind). He

used high-speed black and

white film, mostly, and his

'hyperkinetic' shots of people

catch them, usually, at their

moment of unaware selves, or

'wary-too-late' selves. In

photographs of his pedestrians

and street-life people, everything

is a bit unrestrained, and a bit

haphazard. I was the same way,

all along my walks and work,

my eye itself acted as what

the camera saw (through). I

composed everything at that

instant. And I still do. Mostly

I leave people out. Mostly, I

say, because I do like the act

of photographing people  -  it

has to be quick and surreptitious.

People these days gt angered

easily  -  I never know why.

For some reason, (and I've

heard this) people right away

assume you are going to

photo them and  -  in the same

vein of old, when 'people' felt

you were stealing their soul by

taking their picture, do some

dreadful 'theft' thing with it;

like plaster it all over the

Internet. Sometimes. Maybe

they're right, but we now live

in a sort of post-consciousness

age when that sort of thing is

no longer kept controlled. The

new motto should be, 'Somewhere,

everyone is!' Kind of grand, no?

-

For much of my time I never

had money for a camera. Then,

when I finally did, my own

slow progress became thwarted

again by the costs of prints and

processing. So for the longest

time I mostly stayed with black

and white, often developing my

own matter in a closet with a

home-processing darkroom kit.

In the same vein, without money

for an enlarger, contact prints

began to be unsatisfying. That

small size was useless. So, as

soon as I could, I rolled over

into cheap send-away processing

and prints, then color, and,

finally, thank the Lord, digital.

I don't care about the rest; one

can argue the pros and cons

of digital versus the older

style of film photo-taking,

and I no longer care. To me,

the photo is the thing, and not

the hows and whys or the

means of getting it. That's

for debaters and elitists. I

never built my life around

that stuff, and I'm not about

to do so now. I'm too close

to my own vivid end now

anyway. I admit there were

some years (pretty dumb)

when I would pontificate, to

co-workers and others, of

some better 'aesthetic' purity

available with the b&w idea,

some sort of high-toned

rhetoric contingent on

nothing at all. Shame on me.

-

 A lot of all that was the usual

high-toned talk which you get

used to running in that crowd.

Like hanging out with Marxists,

or some strange cabal of small-

time revolutionaries; each stance

or position taken or uttered has

some ideological underpinning

and a point to be made, more

about the finer points of one's

own personal acumen than

about any issue at hand. It's

all a fake show and tell.

Unless you were, maybe

Berenice Abbott or Edward

Steichen, or Alfred Steiglitz,

none of that should matter.

The modern world already

owns you.

-

Numerous times, funny to bring

up, I'd see college kids all done

up in their faked-out military

garb (It was a bigger thing back

then, 1978 and into the 80's) to

take on the 'attributes' of being

a Sandanista, or some weird

South and Central American

'populist' woodcutter streetfighter,

proclaiming all their libertad

and equalidad and solidarity

stuff; all that crap while wearing

their boots and cammo, and

beret too, and these kids that I'd

see were ever rolling their r's

and all that just to sound authentic.

'Nicarrrauga', 'Sandanista,' all said

perfectly and with the exact

locution due. It was all so funny.

mainly because most of the time

they were either at Tower Records

to buy their Clash album (titled

'Sandanista') or Barnes & Noble,

or outside either. There was also,

about this time, in the base of

the Flatiron Building, a Maoist

Chinese bookstore called 'China

Books'  -  I used to love that place

and frequent it myself, often  - 

where you could get all sorts of

really cool Chinese pins and

clips, hats and clothing, lighters,

books, pens, etc., all with Mao

China red-stars and logos. I had

fun there, but can't admit to ever

having taken it too seriously.

-

In viewing the larger picture, after

a period of time, I decided that the

crux of all this was the basis for

our sham ideas of Democracy.

All of this junk was so open and

inconsequential that I was sure

it was a false effort put forth

and allowed by the authorities

over us. All they ever had to

do, for these sorts of punkheads,

was provide the 'apparent' outlet

for the games and play-actings of

opposition and revolt to take

place as a shadow-theater, so to

speak, and that would be enough

for these student types to feel

they were actually participating

in a form of political theater.

No one thought, a minute or a

second, about what was up. They

were as duped as any camposino

they cavorting at defending. Life

was nasty enough for any one

of those people; the last thing

they needed was play-acting

Americano college-toddlers

to be 'adding' something to

their cause. Try photographing

that some day, as a real

street-life theater, and see

what it gets you now....

See how it looks to the

camera.