I guess I felt just as Joseph Nicéphore Niépce could have felt after processing what’s been determined as the first-ever permanently fixed photograph (below). The year, 1827. Taken with a camera obscura from a second floor window. That’s 197 years! It was called heliography. A precursor to “photography.” A term first used by John Herschel in 1839.
Would you consider there to be a difference in visualization between his photograph taken from a window and the one I took outdoors at a playground? Are both, or neither “street photography?”
I didn’t know of Niépce when I made the exposure on one of the first rolls of film I ever loaded into my first-ever camera purchase (from a friend). A Ricoh TLS401 with 50mm Rikenon. I don’t recall there being a photography genre in which to categorize what it was I was doing. It’s not even something I was thinking about during those years. I was “photographing.”
Sharing one’s creativity was a regional phenomena that moved slowly through each region. Radio, regional. Television, regional. Newspapers, regional. Magazines/Periodicals, monthly. Museum exhibits, quarterly to yearly. There was no Internet.
Years later, I’m continuing. This time with a large format camera. It felt natural using it in the streets of the city—albeit slower. I didn’t wonder about the efficacy of it, just concentrating on the outcome. Playgrounds are always fun and happy places to go. Within practical or economic limits, there was no place I wouldn’t go to get an interesting photograph.
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In that vein, taking the large format camera to the annual Thanksgiving Day Parade was one of those places. I used a rather large tripod on this over-crowded sidewalk. I don’t recall seeing any side-eyes staring at me. Understanding that the large format photography’s process was/is slower. Also, that the visual effects achieved would be different than using a small hand-held camera.
Thinking back, I’m not sure that I would have placed what I was doing into any photography genre. It was just photographing life as is.
In reviewing many of the photographs I shot in the early days, they show a deep interest in experimentation and challenge. Photographing at night with slow speed film. Working in crowded situations with cumbersome equipment. Experimenting with aspects of time in photographs. Experimenting with both color and black & white. I never stopped photographing with either throughout my career.
In 2015, a major shift happened to my photographic style aging back to 1999. Driven by a technical change. I switched from medium format film cameras as my primary to a full frame digital. This switch altered the approach I was used to applying up to that point. In part, it changed from slow-paced to a quicker pace, being more nimble in responding to what I was seeing, and with more energy.
I’m not sure what number of people with cameras would contemplate before and after photographs over an extended periods of time. The dedication needed to execute the return trips is not as simple as it may seem. The timeframe between these photographs above is twenty-nine years. I had not planned it, but took it into account when I passed this building one last time.
I recall who and what put me on the path to walking the streets of the city. Looking and seeing the moments that make up the great human oasis of life. Back then, my influences were my first photo teacher. Later, the experiences at my art & design high school, and college.
Somewhere in these intervening years, I succumbed to the use of the term “street photography” as a genre where all these photographs could be categorized.
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Nice to cross paths! (https://neilscott.substack.com/p/nicephore-niepce)
As an aside, I wonder if the less processed, metal plate version of Niepce should be popularised.
I live this set of photographs. I imagine each time you go out there is something different that will surprise you. Beautiful work.