Delancey and Forsythe Streets

I’ve been going through the negatives of my Lower East Side work, scanning promising images, and in general, trying to get a handle on where the project is at the moment. There are a lot of negatives. Some of the photographs show specific places or point to the changes occuring in the neighborhood. But others, like the picture above, are more about the feel and flow of the street.

Working with the view camera there is a tendency to overcontrol the frame–every line or patch of color is located precisely–and as a result the images can become static, emptied out of vitality. One way I attempt to keep things loose is to allow random movement within the frame, whether it’s people walking, cars passing through, or simply the quiver of leaves in the wind.

Although the Lower East Side is a busy place with lots of people on the street, if you stop everything for a 1/15 of a second, the scene can appear rather empty. In real time, the flow of people is constant, and twenty people may go by in a few seconds, but in still photography time it may be two individuals, or none at all.

With a small camera it’s possible to move with that flow of people and shoot rapidly. With the view camera I necessarily set up the frame and then let things happen within it. I wait rather than chase. What I strive for is the feel of spontaneity while still keeping a tight grip on composition and framing. I’d like the photographs to have some of the spirit of small camera photography while at the same time containing the consideration of detail that is only possible with the view camera.