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Two Recommendations

Two tidbits/recommendations related to street photography.

In the new Elvis Mitchell interview with Phillip Seymour Hoffman about his film “Capote”, Hoffman recounts how the film’s director, Bennet Miller, wanted to capture the “small, quiet moments” when Capote wasn’t talking, or trying to make himself the center of the universe.

Hoffman on Bennett’s direction: “He wanted to capture him (Capote) in the small, quiet moments. Bennett always talks about how when they first come to the Dewey House, him and Harper are walking across the lawn, and you actually see them at the doorway before the door opens, and he said, “That’s the moment! That’s the sting!” of actually seeing Capote’s expression before the door opens. He’s like, “if I don’t capture that moment, I don’t have my movie.”

Again, paraphrasing Bennett, Hoffman says, “I want to unveil the truth of his (Capote’s) ambition, and all these things, and you (Hoffman) are going to capture those in the moments when Capote doesn’t know he’s being watched. In that, you find a wonderful raw kind of feeling, a truth.”

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The introduction to Gary Stochl’s “On City Streets“, by Bob Thall. He talks about how Stochl was completely unknown to the Chicago Arts community, and how he pursued his own unique vision (of street photography) for forty years, unencumbered by the marketplace, or what it means to be an artist and get one’s work out there. He pretty much worked in an artistic bubble (though he mentions seeing Robert Frank’s book “the Americans” and an HCB show) for forty years before receiving any kind of recognition for his work. His first show, of which the pictures in “On City Streets” are a part, went up in Chicago in 2003.

Tag: Tidbits