Back when I was a young photographer, many many years ago, I would photograph people in the street all the time. Whereas these days it’s mostly studio and location work, and commonly with models, not usually candids in the street. Sometimes I miss the freedom it seemingly afforded and I was looking for an opportunity to get back into some informal street photography.
Well one day I was going to meet a gathering of other photographers to do some street photography, and I arrived about half hour late (missed my bus into New York City from Hackensack, New Jersey). Needless to say, I didn’t meet up with the photographers in this group. As I had not previously met anyone from this group (that I’m aware of) if I were to run across them in the streets, I wouldn’t know it was them. So off I went on my own, searching out opportunities for images.
So there I was, with the sights, sounds and smells (cough, cough) of lower Manhattan. Walking along Canal Street, straining my eyes, looking for possible images to make. After walking up and down, back-and-forth and round and round, was not finding anything really interesting. I shot a few frames though before moving into Little Italy to check out why they had closed off Mulberry Street.
Walking into the crowd on Mulberry Street did nothing for my creative juices. There was some kind of celebration going on. I wasn’t interested, but a lot of people were interested. Out came the cameras, cell phones, tablets and video cameras. Instantly I had my subjects! Everyone with a camera was fair game for street images by yours truly, Matt Wallach.
If while perusing the photographs in “Photographers of New York” you find that you were captured and would like a print, wish to repost a digital copy (please do not do so without prior consent from me) or whatever, please feel free to contact me.
Thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings. Everyone is free to link to this post and comments are always welcome.
Matt Wallach or “Jungle”