The Other Story in Street Photography - NYU
My absolute most favorite place to shoot street photography is NYC. My son and his wife live in the city, so I usually visit three to four times a year. Of course, that was not the case last year. I am on my own during the day, which gives me lots of time to walk around and do my photography thing. Sometimes I go out for eight or more hours, but if I only have a couple of hours, I will wander through NYU to go to Washington Square. It is just a couple of blocks away from where I stay.
There is always something interesting going on. One day I passed three people, who were not spring chickens but also definitely not homeless, sitting on folding chairs in the street at a corner. Here is what I wanted to do: pass them, turn around, drop to a low position and get the picture. Here is what I did: I moved on.
Every time I go out, I have to come to grips with several barriers to doing what I dearly want to do. First and foremost, if I am not traveling, I only go out and shoot, at most, once a week. I do not find shooting street photography at all like the proverbial riding of a bike. The longer I have been away from shooting, the longer time is takes for me to get back into being able to successfully shoot. I do not want to use dear time in NYC re-learning how to take street photography. The second issue is mobility. I promise you, I exercise a lot, but when I consider dropping to a low position to get a particular viewing angle, I have to also consider whether I can get back up. I am addressing that issue by getting on the floor and back up, with a camera in tow, three times every day. Finally, I am not the bravest street photographer in town. That is something I can and do work on.
This particular day was one of my arrival days. I was out practicing, with fairly mediocre results. I made up my mind that I could not go home until I faced my fear of being intrusive. I really wanted to go home. I passed up a couple of opportunities to take picture of NYU students being students, which I find charming in my old age. I was literally going to have to turn around and walk the block again when I saw this young woman studying. I could also see there was going to be interesting some interesting street reflections. I coached myself. She was inside and I was outside. I could stop and take the most intrusive picture in the world with no fall out. And so, I did it. I stopped and turned toward her, took the picture and continued towards home.
I know that a lot of street photographers do not want to have cars in their pictures. In this case, I think the car is an asset. The reflection of the car’s window frames her face. The nearness of the car gives context to her being in a city. The hub cap lines up perfectly with the red chair inside of the building, which gives the composition an odd pop of geometry. All in all, I was rewarded for my bravery. And I got to go home.