Random Excellence: Roy J. Feldman

I'm a fan of the work of TOP reader Roy Feldman, a working photographer from Detroit whose pictures I've seen in bits and pieces over the years. Check out ten of his pictures of Hamtramck, a two-square-mile city bounded on all four sides by Detroit.

To me the set seems unfinished; I'd happily look at ten or twenty more, or even thirty. Of course I imagine he's fitting this work in around his day job, which must be more than full time. He told me he's having a show of the work soon. Maybe he can chime in and tell us more about that.

Mike

UPDATE Roy Feldman comments: "Mike, thanks so much for the mention. I am only showing ten because that's the amount of wall space in the gallery I am showing at. Some more images on my Instagram: #royfeldmanofficial.

"Cameras are some variation (letter version) of X100, X-E2 with kit lens, or Google Pixel phone. All processed in Lightroom with a nod to Kodachrome by pushing red saturation and pulling blue. Cheesy borders made with NIK as sort of a joke (all the hipsters around here look at them and say 'you can only get that look from film.' Yes, I know the history of the name, but the State of Michigan said it was open. I do get asked what f-stop I used for a photo taken in 1893 occasionally.

"The featured picture was cell phone, car window, turn off the wipers. No hocus-pocus."

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

John Camp: "Completely agree with you: love the work but the set looks unfinished; I feel the urge to look at more."

Rodger P Kingston: "Wonderful work. It's not often that I see photographs I wish I had taken. There are several on Roy Feldman's site that brought out my envy gremlin.

"I'm sure that Mr. Feldman realizes that the 19th century iteration of the Detroit Photographic Company represented the great expeditionary photographer William Henry Jackson."

Michael Ferron: "The street musicians? That one hits hard. Beautiful work."

George Barr: "Showing us a wonderful photograph like this is such a treat and I can't thank you enough. As usual you picked out the real gem from the very good portfolio. A fascinating presentation of strong composition, tonalities, colour, the power of the square image, and the addition of something extra (the raindrops) that takes a photograph and raises it to another level. I could deconstruct the image and write about how each element works, but sometimes you just have to stand back and enjoy."

[George is the author of Why Photographs Work. —Ed.]

Another Phil: "Wow! just when I was feeling a little jaded looking at 'net images, a post knocks it out of the park. I love the subtle red, white and blue in the header image, the 'musicans' is stunning as is the two guys looking at the Claude Monet on his site. Every image has me looking and wondering, which is great. (First time I've revisited an artist's site two days in a row for a long time)."

Mike replies: I really like the "two guys" picture too.

Comments

[Patrick Dodds]

Beautiful work - thanks for mentioning it.

[Victor Bloomfield]

These are lovely, especially when viewed at full size on his site.

[Carsten Bockermann]

You're absolutely right about his work being unfinished. I would certainly enjoy looking at some more of his Hamtramck photos.

[Edward Taylor]

I also like his work, but I have often wondered how far you can go with post processing before an image becomes more an illustration than a photograph. I am not sure he has crossed that line, but none of these images came out of the camera looking like they do. There are photorealistic artists that go the other way and draw or paint images that look like they came out of a camera. I don't know if any of this makes a difference when talking about art, but it might make a difference when talking about photography.

[Eolake]

Couldn’t agree more, lovely stuff. Perfect compositions.

[Steve Jacob]

Agreed. Based on those 10 images I would love to see more of Roy's work.

And hoorah - we are talking about images again, not cameras ;-)

[Bob Johnston]

What an eye! I really admire these. Thanks for showing us Mike and thanks to Roy. He should be better known. I am sure that his show will go well.

[John Wilson]

Dying to know what his gear is, just gorgeous.

[Allan Ostling]

I am struck equally, by the images and by the way they are presented. I'd like to use something like this for my own work -- do you know what software Roy Feldman uses?

[Bill Wheeler]

I liked the square format right off, and he makes great use of it. Lots to look at in each picture. Thanks, Mike. Bill

[Dan Khong]

The square format synchs with me. My vinyls are all stored in square folders, and so are my CDs. For some strange reasons, I like the square format. Some say it represents a sort of round form - well balanced and never needing to decide which way to tilt a camera.

[Jim]

It looks like digital stuff with psuedo-film-like frame edge treatments added, not native square film shots. Still, some of it pretty good, but the fake film edges are cheesy if in fact it is shot on digital.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Good stuff! The square frames and color treatment suggest (to the contemporary viewer) that this work was formatted for use on Instagram. Complete? No, but then his other work also is presented more like passing impressions rather than persistent studies.

An aside, the frame Mike shows, above, reminds me of the days when modifying Polaroids was popular.

[Robert Newcomb]

I may have to uh, modify some of the comments I've made in the past about digital and color vs film and b&w - hey I'm very willing to learn...
Lovely,interesting images; couldn't care less if they are "pure photography" or not - don't really know how they were made.
I would like prints though:)

[Darko Hristov]

"Rarely, but every so often, grace commands chaos and renders beauty. Photographing it doesn't follow a predictable pattern, it's a serendipitous practice with a frequent occurrence of failure."
Great writing too.
This and your two sentences, (the description of Alissa and the parenting thing) made me read them out loud, even though it's 3 am and I am on vacation in a camper van in Bilbao, Spain.

[Speed]

In the Update Roy Feldman wrote, "The featured picture was cell phone … "

It must have been the camera he had with him :)

[scott kirkpatrick]

Liked what we saw in the Hamtramck pictures. All but maybe two of them Had To Be Color

[Kenneth Tanaka]

"The featured picture was cell phone, car window, turn off the wipers. No hocus-pocus."

Speed: "It must have been the camera he had with him :)"

Made me giggle so hard I almost had to change my panties. Now about that "hocus-pocus"... that's be a terrific name for a plug-in, wouldn't it?

[David Comdico]

Good stuff. Especially relevant in regard to the next article on IQ. Vision trumps everything. I especially like the chapel portrait with its layers of repetition, and the cat poking out on the left side in the window self-portrait. Having said that, I think the film markers on the border detract rather than add to the photos.