Wandering in confinement 40

Last day of my confinement in France. Typical New York street photography… What is so special here ? Nothing. There are people and as I already said before, it is not very common in my wandering work. I am almost in the middle of the street, shooting a ordinary scene in an ordinary day in the city. But I have this wonderfully elegant vodka ad on the back of the truck , very well lit when the rest of the scene on the left in in the shade. I also have a great indication of what to look for with the Citysights bus. Just look slightly to the left and you have this perfect white bathing suit named Georgi. Then you have the two delivery guys. They seem to play together and the green and white packs full of alcohol a bit kind of tipsy come second to attract the attention. Last there is the old man on the left, crossing the avenue with the help of somebody, perfectly well lit by the sun as they are coming out of the shade. Sometimes I am lucky, I have a conjunction of things, perfect body, perfect quantity of alcohol, perfect people crossing that force me to action the camera.

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We had confusion in the former photograph although we knew we were seeing books. On this photograph, the confusion is also disturbing, but for another reason. We are obviously looking at an assembly of metal columns and although they are strictly aligned it all seems messy. Two things induce confusion : first there are two sorts of columns and I deliberately chose an angle that would be cheating with the alignment. Second, the shadows of the other columns interfere with the vertical patterns of the scene. For this I needed as much depth of field as possible so I had to close the diaphragm. The uniformity of color helped to confuse the eye. Oh, and I forgot to tell where this was. It was in front of the LACMA in Los Angeles, the huge museum of art of the city.

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The mythical City Light bookshop in San Francisco is a wonder for the eye. The perspective from the stairway leading to the lower level distorts the visual field. Lost in the thousands of books, it takes a while to understand what you are getting in. On this picture, you can see a kind of maze with no perpendicular alleys, and it seems like heavy seas, or the aftermath of an earthquake. The place is a formidable accumulation of human knowledge and, after the surprise of the disposition, it is a soothing feeling that takes you. You know you will find something to feed your brain. I likes this visual chaos that destroys the reality of its purpose. I should have cropped the upper part to hide the ceiling and give and even stranger feeling, but it would also have cut some of the sides to keep the standard ratio. Next time I will be bolder.

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Here there are forty six persons, so when I said that it has become impossible to photograph people anywhere I was wrong but… these people are all shot from the back, so no risk of complain. This is the beach of Carmel in California. Everyone is watching the sunset. I did not even try to catch it. Not that I came too late. I found the disposition of the crowd just right to give a feeling of depth. Perspective is everything in a photograph. I guess we could figure out the distance to the sea by mesearing the subject in the forefront and one with his feet in the water. It would be a very simple calculation assuming the two person chosen would have about the same height. I won’t bother. I would have to add another factor : the focal length of the lens. All this is not about mathematics, but merely about visual perception and satisfaction of the eye.

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It had just stopped raining. I was in Hong Kong, on a small island and we were looking for a restaurant. This one did not appeal to us. There did not seem to be anybody to serve, but somebody had left his laptop open and I could not read what page he or she was on. Was it Alibaba ? Facebook ? This little spot of blue light behind these transparent plastic shields were intriguing. I felt like in one of those spy movies staged in Asia, with a lot of mystery. Had the person been murdered or did she quickly escaped some major threat ? One more night picture. I do not seem able to avoid them in my editing. And I am still wondering if it is because of the ability of these cameras or if I am a night guy, prefering darkness and incertitudes to broad daylight.

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As a proof that there are exceptions to my rules, here is a scene with many people involved. But they are far away, and it is this bridge in Edinburgh that interests me here. The two busses are of course making the shot like a reversed scene, the content of the bus being in between the front and the back of the vehicles . At least that’s what I thought when I took the shot. It is again a very ordinary scene with a few disturbing factors. The bridge is not horizontal, but the lamp posts are vertical, so it is not the result of too fast a shutter pressing. And as I said before, the people are squeezed by a bus front on the left, and a bus back on the right. A good trick of the ordinary life.

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I don’t like to be watched. Eyes darting on me give me fear…usually. But this time, I did not mind so much. I was in Edinburgh ready to go down the stairs, very much aware of these faces looking down at me. I took my Leica to fight back. The 50mm was the right lens, it is a perfectly color shot of a black and white subject. In fact, there are very few people in my wandering pictures and there two reasons for that. First, it is becoming more and more difficult to take photos of people in the streets or anywhere if they don’t want to. And most people object to it. The law can be against you if you publish a photograph of someone that is recognizable and that did not sign a release. The second reason is that, my job consist mainly of portraits, assigned portraits, where the subject is perfectly conscious of being immobilized forever. So I do not like to do candid shots since it is much more interesting to have an understanding between the photographer and the subject..

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I like the mess of this view. The Rialto Bridge is not the main subject anymore. It is there, but just part of a complex geometry of broken lines in an accumulation of subjects deliberately conflicting. The vaporetto in the center is too dark to be prevalent, the people on the right are not sharp yet very present. In fact what attracts most the eye is the illuminated wall of the boat station that is definitely not so interesting. Maybe the cabin window of the vaporetto on which I am is the subject because to me it remains mysterious, half reflecting the outside, half showing through the building on the Grand Canal. The composition was what made me press the shutter.

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Another weird jump of the mind. From catching the rain on a digital camera to what ? I really don’t know why I thought of this picture after showing the drops of rain falling in Scotland. Here we are in Venice, walking around at the Biennale. I try to go there every two years, my necessary shot of Venice elixir. These big black cushions placed outside for the visitors to rest just gave me a feeling of quietness, not that I would have been ready to lie on them. I was passing through and took a burst of pictures at different distances, carefully avoiding the people who walked by in front of me. I liked the dégradé of shadows on the wall, which seemed to close on the resting visitors.

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On this rather boring shot, I was photographing the rain. I was leaving by ferry the Island of Butte in Scotland, and it suddenly started pouring. I could see the rain drops and I thought it might be seen by the camera. David Hockney said that photography cannot capture the rain. I understand what he means, but he is not entirely right. If you look carefully here, you can see very fine white spots and these are the raindrops. The very high definition of the new captors with an appropriate choice of depth of field allowed this recording. It surprised me, it was the first time I got the actual drops, most of the time rain is captured by the reflections of the wet ground, that heavy clouds, the hazy atmosphere. Here you can see what is “behind” the curtain of drops and thanks to the depth of field, the backgrounds remains sharp. So it may not be as conclusive as to totally contradict what David Hockney asserts, but we have the rain itself recorded. And it does give a strange effect.

Wandering in confinement 30

Thirtieth day of lock-down…Frustration dictates revolution. So I decided to invert the sky. Since I have been obsessed by sky pictures recently, I wanted to twist the fate. And I am back in Venice, looking down from the window of our rented flat on the canal below. Deconstruction of the urban landscape and of course the sky is below, and it is only a small part of the frame. We are in a city and, like most photographs taken in a town, buildings take a larger part than the clouds. This is the accurate expression of this my irrational anger towards this paralyzing situation. I had to use a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the water of the canal.

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This is what happens when you do not want to split the frame exactly in the middle on a landscape picture. Does it become a sky picture instead of a land picture ? This is the countryside in Northern England as I was driving back from Scotland. So here, the sky seems more important than the landscape. But if you look at the old paintings, it is often the same. There are details on the ground, but the clouds take over. If you look a little more carefully, you discover the shadows of the clouds on the fields and this probably what was most important for me. The perspective of the fields and the scattered green spots also give a kind of mirror effect of the overall sky. There is a predominance of horizontal lines on the ground and in the sky. A kind of correspondance between their and the ground that seems a miracle of nature. I used the longer focal length of my zoom which does not compress the perspective but avoids the wide angle effect that would have reduced the details of this rich countryside too much.

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From brick walls to a stone wall. About 1900 years ago, the Roman Emperor Hadrian built this wall to protect the Southern part of the British Island from invasion. This wall is roughly the border of Scotland. I think I saw it on the perfect day with a rich, heavy sky, the kind that cameras appreciate. I had a problem on this photograph, the composition is cut right in the middle and it disturbs me. But what could I do ? I wanted the clouds as much as I wanted the stones. If I favored the sky, the wall would have been sacrificed. So I had to bargain which ended up with a fifty/fifty use of the frame. The only thing that could have saved me was a wider angle lens. I did not have it with me on this day. When confronted to a landscape, it is wise to have a large choice of focal lengths. Next time may be…

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Since I showed some perspective effects in Istanbul, why not expose another one much further North, in Glasgow, Scotland ? I have rarely seen such a desolate cul de sac. What strikes immediately are the red dustbins at the far end. Here we are in the typical industrial architecture of the early 20th century. A period where there was no humanity in the design of buildings, just pragmatism. But the effect of oppression is striking. The green stain on the bottom left is a sign of humidity. The impression of going nowhere struck a nerve when I passed by. In fact, I quite like the sensation, it seems designed specifically for the photographer. The wide angle lens enhanced the feeling but there I used a wider lens than my usual 35mm, just to get an effect of depth.

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Perspective can become a gimmick, and I admit that here, on this photograph, it is. But it conveys the atmosphere of this crossing of the Bosphore on a ferry. It was certainly not the rush hour but it gave me an idea of what ordinary life in Istanbul can be. And the lines of the benches guiding you to the view of the opposite shore was too tempting. I had a very wide angle, an 18 mm Leica M lens and I wanted to try it on my new Nikon Z7. Crossing equipment with the use of an adapter is a very interesting exercise and it does its job.

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These tombs in Istanbul were impressive but I did not feel like taking any picture because, although beautiful, it was a factual illustration of of our short passage on earth. Also, this is the typical place where tourists cannot refrain from taking their smartphones out and recording the scene. But something happened, and I was there luckily. There was no-one in the place except suddenly this woman who elegantly pulled out her phone and shot the ceiling. She looked like she was dancing so graceful was her way of moving. She is like the detail so appreciated by the art historian Daniel Arasse. You don’t notice her at first until your eye catches her and then it becomes the most important thing in the frame. I am glad I had my camera ready, despite my inclination not to use it in this shrine.

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Istanbul, may 2019. Switzerland is bonded to Istanbul in my mind because I first went there invited by a Swiss friend for whom I was making a film. So at least there is a logic to going back to the Turkish cultural capital. I was using a new fast 50mm lens, so I slightly restricted my usual field of view. I like the 50mm as much as the 35mm focal length. For many people, the difference is too small, but most don’t realize it since nowadays zooms are more common than prime lenses and just a tiny twist on the ring drives you from 50mm to 35. But for old school guys, who started using camera in the early 1960’s, prime lenses are a way of thinking. Of course, with what used to be named a standard lens, the 50mm, you eliminate things in the frame, which can get quite handy. For me this focal length is mainly good for portrait, contrary to many who prefer longer local lengths. I like sharpness… and depth of field. That is why I prefer these lenses for portrait. I want to see where the people are situated.

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You can travel in time when you see this kind of sky. I reminds me of a 19th Century romantic painting. It was taken at dusk, in Switzerland, on the Léman, from the window of my hotel in Vevey. It may look like a tainted black and white effect but that is how it was. The end of the lake was far away and I had to use a telephoto lens to crush the perspective and blend the values of the sky melting with the fog of the clouded valley. There is just a white band of reflection to mark the limit of the lake. For once, the contrast is within a short bandwidth, matching the compression of the perspective. Needless to say I did not think of all this when I actioned the shutter. It was a quick draw. At this time of the day, light changes very quickly.

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When I started this virtual wandering, I was restless, jumping from one part of the World to the other and now I have slowed the pace, another brain mechanism that escapes me. Third picture taken in the Tcheque Republic, this café, in the center of Prague was nearly empty. I did not dare to go in, I did not know if it was soon closing time so I took the picture through the window. A week later, most of the European countries were locked down due to the nasty virus, may be that was why it was so desolate. I imagined the piano player in his black tuxedo, the tables full of smoking people, like a movie scene. Here, it looked more like a piano show room after business time. Once again, I was in awe of the dynamic range. The lighting fittings are detailed, and they are a large part of this shot for me. But the shadow behind the piano still shows some details.

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For once, not a night picture ! I got out of a train in this remote Bohemian village, about 60 kilometers from Prague. That was the nearest train station from where I had to go, but yet quite a distance away. And there was no taxi waiting. Nothing. I was lost in the middle of an unknown country, not speaking the language. This street corner reminded me of a Marquet painting. He often chose plain views a little bit like that, sometimes industrial areas, sometimes river banks, and he managed to give these places a poetic life. Marquet, for an unknown reason, makes me dream. And there I was in front of a street corner, with nothing particular but an interesting harmony of colors. I had a zoom lens and it was for once, perfect to slightly adjust the frame. It can never be a Marquet painting, photography will always be “dryer” than a painting…