Thanks to Alan Griffiths of the Luminous Lint web site, which carries such a wealth of photographs for pointing out on Facebook a video interview with Joel Meyerowitz on featured on The New Yorker web site.
The clip is from a new 30 minute film by Cheryl Dunn, on New York street photography, ‘Everybody Street‘, which was commissioned for the show the show ‘Alfred Steiglitz New York‘ just coming to an end at the Seaport Museum in NYC.
The Seaport Museum page on the film has links to the trailer and three clips which are on Vimeo. The trailer includes short comments from a number of the photographers, including Rebecca Lepkoff, now a remarkable 94 year old, who I wrote about some years ago as a part of a series on the New York Photo League, who has been documenting the city since the 1930s, and as well as Meyerowitz there are also clips on Bruce Gilden and Mary Ellen Mark. Other photographers in the film include Tim Barber, Martha Cooper, Bruce Davidson, Jeff Mermelstein, Clayton Patterson, Ricky Powell and Jamel Shabazz.
Viewing Meyerowitz pretending to photograph on the streets of New York for Dunn’s camera made me very much wonder how that kind of behaviour would go down in – for example Peckham or Hackney, certainly without a film crew present. But it – and his account of how watching Robert Frank at work – made him on the spot decide to throw up his job and become a photographer (he didn’t even own a camera at the time) also brought back some of my own thoughts and writing about photographing events on the street, and in particular this picture of mine from Notting Hill Carnival in the 1990s, about as a photographer becoming a part of the dance.
London has also had its street photographers, and they too are to be celebrated later this year, although not so far as I am aware in a film. But ‘London Street Photography‘, opening at the Museum of London on 18 Feb 2011 (until 4 Sept) includes over 200 street images from 1860 to the present day, and includes the work of 59 photographers – including around 47 still living, many of whom are still working. I’ll write more about this show – I have a colour picture on the museum leaflet for it – and the accompanying book at a later date.
Viewing Meyerowitz pretending to photograph on the streets of New York
No, that’s the way he really does shoot. I’ve seen him still in NYC shooting just like this several times over the years, although he usually wears all black, including a cap, and he bobs and weaves more. For the video I have no doubt that he was actually shooting. This is what he does and how he does it.
In fact I just did a quick google search and this was the 1st video that showed up, in which he wore the exact outfit I just described:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qjym5uliDw
I’ve seen Bruce Gilden on the streets since the 80s too, and he looks exactly as shown in his segment as well, and acts no different than I’ve ever seen him. Only difference is nowadays he isn’t using the Underdog Battery he for decades had clipped to the underside of his Leica.
I’m sure he is very good at acting himself, so it should be the way he really does shoot.