Ed Yourdon
Six random women, June 2015
Note: I chose this as my "photo of the day" for Jul 28, 2015. It was an easy choice, since this is the only photo that I've uploaded to Flickr today ... duh.
*******************************************************************************
I'm traveling this week, and I have no idea if I'll be able to access the Internet in a civilized way (there may not even be any oxygen or electricity where I'm going) ... so I'm only uploading one photo a day while I'm gone.
I hope to return to the Center of the Universe within a few days ...
I don't really have any editorial comment about this photo, and was prepared to skip right over it initially -- indeed, wondering why I had even bothered to snap the image.
And then it occurred to me: precisely because it looks so ordinary and commonplace today (late June of 2015), it's likely to look unusual, bizarre, or downright unimaginable a decade from now. Or a century from now. As such, perhaps it will serve some minor purpose, so that people can look at it and mutter to themselves, "Is that really what people looked like back in those primitive times?"
Yes, they're all relatively young, and they're all reasonably attractive (okay, maybe very attractive) ... but that's pretty normal here in New York City. Or maybe that's just what I'm accustomed to seeing every day, so I take it for granted that they're attractive.
Perhaps it will seem odd that half of the women in this photo are doing something with, or to, or on their smartphones ... but in 2015, one might well have expected all of them to be fondling their phones.
Maybe it's significant that four of the six are wearing sunglasses ... maybe, a decade from now, we'll all have contact lenses that provide appropriate degrees of shade.
Maybe it's significant that they're all wearing sandals or sneakers ... but at least none of them are barefoot.
Most likely, I suspect, the overall style of dress will be considered outrageous to a new generation of fashionable young people. It was summertime when the photo was taken, so you would think that the presence of short dresses would not seem that outrageous ... but who knows?
And the hair-styles: note that all of the women have long-ish hair. It's not down to their waist, but at least three of them are wearing a ponytail, and none of them have an elaborate pile of hair curled up and around their heads.
I would be curious to see if anything else about this group strikes the average Flickr viewers as good, bad, indifferent -- or "permanent" versus "transient."
*********************************
This is the continuation of a photo-project that I began in the summer of 2008 (which you can see in this Flickr set), and continued throughout 2009-2014 (as shown in this Flickr set, this Flickr set, this Flickr set, this Flickr set, this Flickr set)), this Flickr set)), and this Flickr set)): a random collection of "interesting" people in a broad stretch of the Upper West Side of Manhattan -- between 72nd Street and 104th Street, especially along Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue. These are the people in my neighborhood, aka "peeps in the 'hood."
As I indicated when I first started this project six years ago, I don't like to intrude on people's privacy, so I normally use a zoom telephoto lens in order to photograph them while they're still 50-100 feet away from me; but that means I have to continue focusing my attention on the people and activities half a block away, rather than on what's right in front of me. Sometimes I find an empty bench on a busy street corner, and just sit quietly for an hour, watching people hustling past on the other side of the street; they're almost always so busy listening to their iPod, or talking on their cellphone, or daydreaming about something, that they never look up and see me aiming my camera in their direction.
I've also learned that, in many cases, the opportunities for an interesting picture are very fleeting -- literally a matter of a couple of seconds, before the person(s) in question move on, turn away, or stop doing whatever was interesting. So I've learned to keep my camera switched on, and not worry so much about zooming in for a perfectly-framed picture ... after all, once the digital image is uploaded to my computer, it's pretty trivial to crop out the parts unrelated to the main subject. Indeed, some of my most interesting photos have been so-called "hip shots," where I don't even bother to raise the camera up to my eye; I just keep the zoom lens set to the maximum wide-angle aperture, point in the general direction of the subject, and take several shots. As long as I can keep the shutter speed fairly high (which sometimes requires a fairly high ISO setting), I can usually get some fairly crisp shots -- even if the subject is walking in one direction, and I'm walking in the other direction, while I'm snapping the photos.
With only a few exceptions, I've generally avoided photographing bums, drunks, crazies, and homeless people. There are plenty of them around, and they would certainly create some dramatic pictures; but they generally don't want to be photographed, and I don't want to feel like I'm taking advantage of them. There have been a few opportunities to take some "sympathetic" pictures of such people, which might inspire others to reach out and help them. This is one example, and here is another example.
The other thing I've noticed, while carrying on this project for the past six years, is that while there are lots of interesting people to photograph, there are far, far, far more people who are not so interesting. They're probably fine people, and they might even be more interesting than the ones I've photographed ... unfortunately, there was just nothing memorable about them. They're all part of this big, crowded city; but for better or worse, there are an awful lot that you won't see in these Flickr sets of mine...
Six random women, June 2015
Note: I chose this as my "photo of the day" for Jul 28, 2015. It was an easy choice, since this is the only photo that I've uploaded to Flickr today ... duh.
*******************************************************************************
I'm traveling this week, and I have no idea if I'll be able to access the Internet in a civilized way (there may not even be any oxygen or electricity where I'm going) ... so I'm only uploading one photo a day while I'm gone.
I hope to return to the Center of the Universe within a few days ...
I don't really have any editorial comment about this photo, and was prepared to skip right over it initially -- indeed, wondering why I had even bothered to snap the image.
And then it occurred to me: precisely because it looks so ordinary and commonplace today (late June of 2015), it's likely to look unusual, bizarre, or downright unimaginable a decade from now. Or a century from now. As such, perhaps it will serve some minor purpose, so that people can look at it and mutter to themselves, "Is that really what people looked like back in those primitive times?"
Yes, they're all relatively young, and they're all reasonably attractive (okay, maybe very attractive) ... but that's pretty normal here in New York City. Or maybe that's just what I'm accustomed to seeing every day, so I take it for granted that they're attractive.
Perhaps it will seem odd that half of the women in this photo are doing something with, or to, or on their smartphones ... but in 2015, one might well have expected all of them to be fondling their phones.
Maybe it's significant that four of the six are wearing sunglasses ... maybe, a decade from now, we'll all have contact lenses that provide appropriate degrees of shade.
Maybe it's significant that they're all wearing sandals or sneakers ... but at least none of them are barefoot.
Most likely, I suspect, the overall style of dress will be considered outrageous to a new generation of fashionable young people. It was summertime when the photo was taken, so you would think that the presence of short dresses would not seem that outrageous ... but who knows?
And the hair-styles: note that all of the women have long-ish hair. It's not down to their waist, but at least three of them are wearing a ponytail, and none of them have an elaborate pile of hair curled up and around their heads.
I would be curious to see if anything else about this group strikes the average Flickr viewers as good, bad, indifferent -- or "permanent" versus "transient."
*********************************
This is the continuation of a photo-project that I began in the summer of 2008 (which you can see in this Flickr set), and continued throughout 2009-2014 (as shown in this Flickr set, this Flickr set, this Flickr set, this Flickr set, this Flickr set)), this Flickr set)), and this Flickr set)): a random collection of "interesting" people in a broad stretch of the Upper West Side of Manhattan -- between 72nd Street and 104th Street, especially along Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue. These are the people in my neighborhood, aka "peeps in the 'hood."
As I indicated when I first started this project six years ago, I don't like to intrude on people's privacy, so I normally use a zoom telephoto lens in order to photograph them while they're still 50-100 feet away from me; but that means I have to continue focusing my attention on the people and activities half a block away, rather than on what's right in front of me. Sometimes I find an empty bench on a busy street corner, and just sit quietly for an hour, watching people hustling past on the other side of the street; they're almost always so busy listening to their iPod, or talking on their cellphone, or daydreaming about something, that they never look up and see me aiming my camera in their direction.
I've also learned that, in many cases, the opportunities for an interesting picture are very fleeting -- literally a matter of a couple of seconds, before the person(s) in question move on, turn away, or stop doing whatever was interesting. So I've learned to keep my camera switched on, and not worry so much about zooming in for a perfectly-framed picture ... after all, once the digital image is uploaded to my computer, it's pretty trivial to crop out the parts unrelated to the main subject. Indeed, some of my most interesting photos have been so-called "hip shots," where I don't even bother to raise the camera up to my eye; I just keep the zoom lens set to the maximum wide-angle aperture, point in the general direction of the subject, and take several shots. As long as I can keep the shutter speed fairly high (which sometimes requires a fairly high ISO setting), I can usually get some fairly crisp shots -- even if the subject is walking in one direction, and I'm walking in the other direction, while I'm snapping the photos.
With only a few exceptions, I've generally avoided photographing bums, drunks, crazies, and homeless people. There are plenty of them around, and they would certainly create some dramatic pictures; but they generally don't want to be photographed, and I don't want to feel like I'm taking advantage of them. There have been a few opportunities to take some "sympathetic" pictures of such people, which might inspire others to reach out and help them. This is one example, and here is another example.
The other thing I've noticed, while carrying on this project for the past six years, is that while there are lots of interesting people to photograph, there are far, far, far more people who are not so interesting. They're probably fine people, and they might even be more interesting than the ones I've photographed ... unfortunately, there was just nothing memorable about them. They're all part of this big, crowded city; but for better or worse, there are an awful lot that you won't see in these Flickr sets of mine...