Thanks for a balanced , tempered comment. As I shoot, my mind does not collect the pros and cons of where my photo falls within the range of 'sweet - sour' or 'pleasant -painful' . As another viewer said somewhere among the many bemused and more who were incensed by the brouhaha the latter think I 'cooked up' to infuriate, PHOTOGRAPH LIFE AS YOU SEE IT. If my style and manner of photography was to shoot with 'delay' I could make choices in my mind, but left with an inventory of the mundane, in my view. This discussion does cause me to reconsider the feelings of the 'subject' I find myself attracted too. As I mentioned in earlier comments , for 30 years, after I served for 6 years as County Prosecutor, I employed parolees and homeless to help me with my obsession to renovate, first the abandoned County Jail , which my law partner and I bought at auction in 1983, and then for home projects. I am fascinated by the 'down and out'. Among them, there are some rare gems. One, that I found at 6 am in a box under River Street Bridge, worked for me for twenty years; for 2 to 20 hours a week; most often homeless. I wish, the day I found KEVIN, I had taken a photo as he crawled out of the cardboard box set among the other occupied boxes along the railroad tracks . Am I a voyeur? Was he/she, who took the picture of a starving concentration camp inhabiter, out of place?
Will one of my detractors tell me if I would be equally reprehensible if I put my visual experience into graphic 'written' form? Are you all aware that I have never 'published' the picture. I may have said this earlier in the debate: I was attracted to this possible picture opportunity by the 'proportions' of the massive facade imprinted " _________ State Prison" and the likely diminutive visitor.That the visitor was Black, drove the point home with even greater power, I think.
"Creepy and racist". Now you have pushed my ISO beyond 6400! So let's get all the subjects and methods of photography on the 'darkroom floor' and cut out everything you DECLARE out of bounds. If during the Holocost I sneaked around taking pictures of 70 pound women barely clad, asking no permission, with an intention to display/sell the results, maybe some were black; Racist? Creepy? Your verdict :
No, I stayed in the car, in part because I was, and still am unsteady on my feet; but I don't wish to hide behind that excuse. Is the 'snapshot' of the life of a disadvantaged Black mother of two, likely visiting her man and the children's father, viewed against the overwhelming facade of the STATES PRISON - the little ones at 24" tall, and the door encased in a 24' slab of concrete, a picture to satisfy my prurient/mocking desires or is it possible I had another purpose. Is that scene 'off limits' to all photographers, no matter the purpose?
I started to reply with greater eleoquince but lost it somewhere in ciber space. Short version: Thank you x (2), you have identified what I have not realized; that I do and want to connect the picture by the roadside in 1953 So. Carolina to the lady about to enter the prison on Sunday Morning, 2013. I must retrieve other photos which will allow my detractors to revisit my alleged ' mean spirited' purpose. Title anybody? In the 50's we went to the Civil Rights Buffet and got a dish of Equal Rights but couldn't find the platter with Employment Rights.
Post your inquiry/comment again as I can't find it, and I have my fstop @ 1.2
Post your inquiry/comment again as I can't find it, and I have my fstop @ 1.2
See my 14:52 reply of today.
Yes, I do find Black people more interesting, and in many fields more stimulating. I grew up with parents who encouraged and facilitated Black families to purchase, not rent, homes in '1947 Segregated Asbury Park, N.J. ' where banks didn't loan to 'those folks'. While in law school, to my father's consternation, I went to the all Black Baptist Church as often as I attended the nearby Synogoge. Was that because the church was one block closer?
Yes, semi amplitory after many rounds of chino and radiation ( but wan't no 'free ride' on that account). I parked among the designated prison-visitor area, but in the handicap slot, which gave me better access to the shot I envisioned.
Pepper: you may view my prison picture as mocking the woman and her likely misery. Could the picture say something about the overwhelming imprisonment of 'Blacks' in an overwhelmingly White society. I am no bleeding heart, but I will tell you that for +25 years I have gone out of my way to employ unemployed 'x-cons' , always at more than minimum wages, as my small effort to enable them to seek full time employment - telling the prospective employer that they work for 'Robert Tepper' , which in our small community, gives them a little credibility. I DO appreciate and accept your less than flattering view of my Mia copa. Give me more of whatever I deserve.
Elliern's question calls for extensive psychoanalysis, or is it photo analysis. My urge to photo sets in quicker than my broader/deeper thinking. I can't say my pictures are previewed in my mind. Perhaps my post is prompted by a desire to understand my motives. But that may curtail creativity. The first picture that I can remember taking (I was 15) was on a family road trip from N.J. to Fla. In 1953 US Route 1 was 'the way to go'. I pestered my parents without let up to STOP every time we whizzed past a pitiful shack with shoeless African-American children. I believe I was fascinated by those scenes; not out of pitty, nor derision, nor haughtiness - I believe. I have detoured from the 'better' route thru South Chicago to the 'Black Section' for no laudable reason, on one occasion to observe a large woman, dressed in a bright yellow suit with a large matching hat, unloading sound equipment from a aging vehicle parked in front of a 'wired together' storefront church with a hastily painted sign "Church of the . . . " I took my picture of "Prelude to Prayer". Was my picture tasteless; an invasion of her privacy; mockery? I will be most receptive to further comments from my detractors. I love photography, but have little interest in beautiful landscapes, people saying - cheese, or auto races. Life has it's up's and down's. I suppose I am drawn to the latter.
While I have earned universal derision for the two images described, my intellectual curiosity prompts me to ask if I would be equally scorned if I painted the images I saw or, as I have done in this forum, written about the scenes that appeared. Was I wrong to visit the grounds of the prison out of curiosity? I have attended criminal court proceedings for no other purpose than to 'taste' a piece of society much different that fortunate folks may know.
While I have earned universal derision for the two images described, by intellectual curiosity prompts me to ask if I would be equally scorned if I painted to image I saw or, as I have done in this forum, written about the scene that appeared. Was I wrong to visit the grounds of the prison out of curiosity? I have attended criminal court proceedings for no other purpose than to 'taste' a piece of society much different that fortunate folks may know.
I accept the advice of Rbrylawski as endorsed by Jaymatt. I was on prison property. Do you folks think the 'rules' of propriety apply to photojournalists. While I am not a PJ, my shots may find a home in written articles about lavish parties or the sad results of our corrections system.