ยฉ Inge Morath
The Pose Is a Reflex
People have learned to be photographed. Twenty years ago a camera in the street was a small event. Someone stopped, someone fixed their hair, most never noticed you, because being photographed was rare. Today anyone you pass sees themselves in pictures every day on their phone and knows how they look. What arrives in front of your lens is no longer just a face, it is a face that knows itself.
The new reflexes are two, and they live together. The first is the automatic pose, the photo face that snaps into place in half a second, chin down, good side, trained on thousands of selfies. The second is suspicion, a new question, where does this photo end up and who will see it. The third state has almost disappeared, the one classic street was built on, the person who does not know they are being watched.
The watershed has a date, 2007, the first iPhone, and from there the camera stops being an object and becomes a constant presence. This year over two trillion photographs will be taken, almost all with a phone. Winogrand photographed people who did not know what they looked like in pictures. You photograph people who know it better than you do.
At the table you see it right away. Street portfolios arrive shot as if it were still 1975, stolen candids, and the faces inside tell another story, people who saw the photographer a moment earlier and have already composed themselves. Pure candid assumes a world that no longer exists. That is not a reason to quit, it is a reason to stop pretending the subject’s awareness is an accident: it is your material.
The pose is a reflex, and like every reflex it runs out: it lasts a few seconds, then the photo face drops and the person comes back. When someone sees you and composes themselves, do not shoot right away. Stay. With suspicion you move earlier, declaring yourself, because by now that is the price of entry. Street photography twenty years ago stole unawareness. Today it earns the moment when someone stops posing.
Marco Savarese
Editor-in-Chief
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marco Savarese
Marco Savarese is Editor-in-Chief at Eyeshot, the independent publisher he founded in Italy in 2018. He spends most of his year reading portfolios, judging the Open Call, and editing the magazine catalogue. The reading desk is open, and he takes one-to-one Professional Reviews from photographers working seriously on long-term projects.
Who Finishes Your Photograph
NOTE #210. A photo isn’t finished until it survives to where people see it. Paul Strand chose hand photogravure for Photographs of Mexico so the printed copy kept the tonal weight of his prints. Protect the tone to the end, or the worst medium decides for you.
What the Dark Does
NOTE #209. A face lost in shadow reads as underexposed, a defect to fix. Gordon Willis kept Brando’s eyes in the dark in The Godfather and held it against the studio. Before you rescue a shadow, ask what it does; if you can say it, you decided it.
The Place After
NOTE #208. Of a huge event, often only an ordinary place is left. In On This Site (1996) Joel Sternfeld photographed fifty banal American places where violence happened, each with a line of text. Photograph the aftermath, and let the line do the work.
The Photo Made Together
NOTE #206. Street photography teaches you to steal people; there’s another way. In Malick Sidibรฉ’s Bamako studio the youth chose how to be seen. Before you take someone, ask how they’d want to look, and make the photo together.
Write Your Own Rules
NOTE #205. The thing that improves you most isn’t a new camera, it’s a short list of your own faults. Tony Ray-Jones kept a notebook of orders to himself and it shaped Martin Parr. Write your three rules and keep them in your pocket.
Watch the Master Work
NOTE #204. You don’t learn from a master’s finished prints, you learn from watching them work. In 1962 Joel Meyerowitz watched Robert Frank shoot, quit his job that day, and picked up a camera. Watch the body, not the result.
The Work Before the Name
NOTE #203. The worth of a photo and the worth of the byline are two different things. Koudelka shot the 1968 Prague invasion anonymously as ‘P.P.’ and revealed it sixteen years later. Photograph what must be photographed even when no one will know it was you.
The Subject You Run From
NOTE #202. The strongest subject you have is the one you’d rather not photograph. Ishiuchi Miyako went back to Yokosuka, the occupied base town she was taught to fear, and made it her life’s work. Point the camera where it’s uncomfortable.