A Confession

I find photographs in all sorts of places. And I'm almost radically egalitarian in how I'll prioritize their status.

I used to love "antiques" (junk) stores that had large collections of old snapshots. I loved to look through them and muse about what they showed, always aware that I could at any turn happen across that chance perfectly-imperfect one-in-a-thousand shot.

I seldom bought even those, though. I'm not a collector. I'd love to be, but I move around, I'm disorganized, and I'm not really a good steward of the objects I own. This pains me, but you're got to know your weaknesses.

This is what kind of collector I'd be. Extra credit:
know who this is? Hover over the image for a hint.

I've written a few times how fascinated I am by the "good" pictures people have on their smartphones—meaning, the ones that mean something to them and show things they want to show other people, and preserve. I like old postcards, Shorpy, collections of Kodachromes*, and so forth and so on. I especially like curated collections of ephemera...as an aside, I believe that editing and curation have recently become much more important in the culture of imagemaking. Our apprehension of this hasn't begun to catch up to the reality, but I think a lot of the creativity of the future might shift from the making of images to the collection and arrangement of them. There is just so much now, and it all gets lost in a sea of more and ever more.

Virtual tours
But I digress. Anyway, here's my confession...I love poking around on Zillow and on Google Street View. For the pictures. On Zillow you get to see inside peoples' houses—spit-shined and made presentable, mostly, but it's fascinating the way people can't quite entirely erase the traces of their lives and the way they lived inside their spaces. And I love interiors, as a genre of photography. Sometimes—not often, I'll admit—I come across an interior that looks as formally beautiful as a Vermeer. Of course, somebody photographed that, and that somebody might have self-described as a photographer or even been a professional. But just as often it was an anonymous realtor, or the owner, and the picture was meant to be utilitarian. Show off the nice garage.

On Google Street View you can virtually "walk" neighborhoods all over America—seeing what there is to see, and again getting a sense of how the (mostly absent) people occupy the spaces that are familiar to them. And just as with the old snapshot tables at junk stores, occasionally the random photograph taken automatically from the top of a moving vehicle magically arranges itself into a real photograph. It "arrests" me, that's the word—I stop, stilled, and stare. How did that happen?

I don't screen-grab it, though. My hard drive is already junky enough.

It's as close to the real magic in photography as the stuff I see in museums, the stuff that's presented with such great deference toward the status of the auteur, the curator, and the institution. Often, though, all that ego just gets in the way. The magic of photography is radically egalitarian—never plentiful, never easy to access, but open to all, anywhere, everywhere. Sometimes where you least expect it.

Mike

*I love how, at that link, the writeup has to start by explaining to people that "50 years ago, people used 35mm cameras like we use smartphones in the age of Instagram." Ha! I'm older now, and I'm a-living in the future....

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

Marco Maroccolo: "The great Josef Sudek!"

Dennis: "A neat thing about Google Street View is that the view changes. Same with satellite views. They get updated every so often. A couple of years ago, three co-workers and I were walking to lunch from work and crossing a street single file when a Google truck photographed us. For a while, if you checked out the Street View, there we were doing an unintentional impression of the Beatles' Abbey Road cover. But that's been replaced by a newer set."

Francisco Cubas: "I couldn't agree more with your last paragraph. I see poetry exactly the same way. Borges wrote that poetry can appear in any simple conversation—it's not a prerogative of great books or great poets. As you say, its magic is radically egalitarian. Maybe all those institutions and powers just get in the way and make people think they're not worthy of art.

"About the shift from making to collecting images you may be interested in the late work and essays of Joan Foncuberta."

Ulrich Fraaß: "This is the famous photographer Josef Sudek (1896–1976) in his small studio in Praha. Unfortunately he lost his right arm during World War I."

Mike adds: If anyone out there reading this ever gets a chance to see Sudek prints in person, jump at it.

Mike Plews: "Sudek by Sonja Bullaty belongs on every photographer's bookshelf. Magic on every page."

Mike replies: I agree.

JG: "One other great thing about Google's Street View is that serves as a convenient, always and easily accessible time capsule. My father died in February 2017, yet no matter where I am, I can always log into Google Street View, scroll back to May, 2011, and see a photo of him in his car waiting at the stop sign a block from his house for the Google Street View car to pass."

Greg Heins: "The example of Sudek is especially pertinent now, in our shelter-in-place era. You could mount multiple exhibitions from the still-lifes he made in his tiny studio and then some more from the photographs he took of the window into his little garden with its solitary tree. Additionally, he lived from 1939 until his death in 1976 under either the Nazi or Soviet totalitarian regime. Many of his prints were made on whatever papers admirers in the West sent him. We are fortunate here in Boston to have a very choice selection of Sudeks available for viewing."

Martin D: "About a year ago you asked your readers to list their five favourite photographers. My list included Sudek. He is the odd one out in my photographic pantheon: the quiet voice of pure poetry amongst the prose of Hine, Evans, Abbott."

Comments

[Nigel Robinson]

Sudek. Looks slightly more organised than his compatriot, Miroslav Tichy. (no sick jokes this time, promise).

[rodger Kingston]

That's Josef Sudek. I've always loved his panoramas, even owned his "Prague Panoramique" (the original edition) for a while. It was nice to run across his picture on TOP.

[Steve Rosenblum]

I've been on a few conference call using Zoom so everyone is on their web cameras wherever their computer sits. The cameras have a lot of depth of field so you get to see whatever room they are sitting in which is another version of what you have described. I've read stories where people have only dressed from the waist up and then the rest of the people in their meeting can see their underwear. Interesting!

[Speed]

I don't screen-grab it, though.

And why should you? You've seen it already and the world (or the web) is full of stuff you haven't seen. This is not "Groundhog Day."

[Benjamin Marks]

Ansel Adams with a John Sexton print stored on its edge on the floor?

[Robin Campbell]

Re: your comment, "I used to love "antiques" (junk) stores". reminds me that I once heard someone refer to antique stores as "dead peoples stuff". Cracked me up.

[Thomas Walsh]

Edward Gorey at Elephant House?

[Dogman]

That's Josef Sudek. One of my many photographer heros. Before I looked at the person in the photo, I thought "That room looks like something from Sudek's house" per photos I have seen in the past.

[Tim Swan]

Josef Sudek.

[Guy Couture]

Eugene Smith isn't it?

[Bill Shannon]

The photographer in the photograph is Josef Sudek and the photograph I believe was taken by a student /assistant, it rings a bell

[Bill Langford]

Was the picture made in eastern Europe, maybe Yugoslavia? Was he refused entrance to his own awards ceremony for looking, well...not appropriately dressed for the occasion.
If I'm right, I'll let someone else attempt the spelling.

[Petr Kohout]

Josef Sudek.

[William Cowan]

I don't suppose the Ateliér Josef Sudek looks like this anymore.

[Tom Frost]

Check out @streetview.portraits on Instaram for lots of great "found" photos.

[John Talbert]

Josef Sudek

[James Meeks]

Josef Sudek!

[scott kirkpatrick]

Sudek, of course. (I've already grabbed a copy of the book, of which it seems not that many remain.)

Google Earth-driving is seductive and creepy. I visited Ctein's house in Daly city a while back, virtually, and drove over his neighbor's garbage cans while backing out of his dead-end street. This may be the only way to see the world for the next month or so. We're already virtually connecting the distributed parts of the family -- dinners with three families that usually get together, two of them on the phone screen at the corner of each table. Playing video games with several groups and a shared screen on Zoom.

[Ulrich Fraaß]

Hello, I would like to get a chance to see Sudek prints in person.

Ulrich Fraass
Spitalstr.7
97421 Schweinfurt
Germany

[Richard]

I'm not sure if the same applies to US TV - I get the feeling perhaps the emphasis is a little different, more focussed on either script or action depending on material - but on domestic TV here in the UK I constantly see the most amazing "still photos" captured ephemerally by some talented cameraman or director, some amazing perspective or superb composition lasting for just a few seconds on our screens before the scene cuts away. I often freeze-frame in the middle of a programme just to admire such shots! I struggle to get such captures on a consistent basis with my camera and these guys just do it day in day out for a passing linking shot or whatever. Unsung professionals!