Hard on the heels of
their post about Civil War photography, the
New York Review of Books adds
an incredible reflection on the practice of shooting photographs in the city. Bruce Davidson describes one moment on the train:
He sat down across the aisle from me, gave me a hard look, and said in a
low, penetrating voice, “Take my picture, and I’m going to break your
camera.” I quickly said, “I don’t take pictures without people’s
permission, and I always send them prints.” I reached into my jacket
pocket for my portfolio, walked over to him, and slowly leafed through
the sample photographs while sitting on the edge of my seat. After
looking, he paused for a moment, then turned to me and said, “Okay, take
my picture.” I went back to my seat and began to photograph, taking a
few frames. Then I wrote down his address. He left, disappearing along
the platform as the train gained speed. A couple of weeks later I sent
him some prints of our encounter together, but the post office returned
them with a red stamp on the envelope that said: RETURNED TO SENDER—MOVED—LEFT NO ADDRESS.
What made it so resonant for me was the fact that I'm struggling with some of the same issues that Davidson raises, but particularly this question of taking photographs of people.
When is it ok to take photographs of another? (My answer, at the moment, is mostly obvious in
not often taking photographs of faces.) Davidson's stance is not for everyone, but I think it's the right one for me; I've now lost count of the number of times I've found myself frustrated with tourists coming to Turkey and taking photographs. Photographs can both establish a kind of intimacy and be a kind of violation - always tied up in questions of access, mobility, power, relative status. It's for that reason that I found the ending of the story so moving:
At the next station I was met by the police, who escorted me to the
station house where I answered questions and filled out papers. Later,
two detectives in an unmarked police car drove me through the
neighborhood. As we cruised through the sweltering streets, people
sitting on tenement stoops looked at us in a suspicious way that told me
this had happened here before. Sitting in the backseat of the police
car, I was no longer the heroic hunter stalking dangerous prey, but just
another pathetic mugging victim. The detectives took me back to the
subway stop, and I decided to continue my journey to Far Rockaway and
Broad Channel, to the ocean. Here the train crosses the bay on tracks
just a few feet above the water, like a racing sailboat. Moving across
the inlet, it flushes marsh birds and passes pleasure yachts heading for
the open sea. The sun was now low in the sky. Young people returning
from the beaches along Far Rockaway began to fill the train. They all
looked like muggers to me, but slowly I began to make contact with them
as I took pictures during the long journey home.
Find the whole essay
here.
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