I’m a street photographer. I see my job as finding interesting moments on the streets and capturing them, or failing that finding a visually interesting way to capture the myriad uninteresting moments. Interesting can be different things depending on circumstances: beauty, irony, humor, an unusual point of view, novelty in attire or personal expression.

The BlindSighted Project allows members of Blind Photographers to explore challenges related to our eyesight, challenges that affect our image-making process. This project is an opportunity to explore how we approach photography.

I work best when I have a plan. I don’t know exactly what I’m going to shoot on a given day, but I usually work within a few forms, and those forms govern how I equip myself and how I size up my surroundings visually.

One form I use I call the “corner tableau.” All the photos composed within this form have an array of people standing at a street corner as their main subject. Corners are a good place to do street photography in general because they are a natural congregation point. People of all types are forced to gather and interact with each other, even if it’s only to exchange uneasy glances. Because I want to get clear pictures of the subjects’ faces and can’t safely stand in the street, I shoot from across the street with a medium telephoto lens, typically a zoom so I can frame tightly. I usually frame the subjects head to toe because body language is an important part of humor in these situations.

The corner itself has to be chosen with some care. if the area isn’t busy enough you don’t get a good mixing bowl effect and get few interesting interactions. If traffic is too heavy the vehicles will block your sightlines for too long and you can’t keep track of what’s going on. If traffic is too light, people will be tempted to jaywalk and you won’t get the congregation at the corner. If you choose a west facing corner late on a clear day, faces will be contorted because of the bright sun in the subjects’ eyes, masking the real emotions. If you choose a drug corner… well, you get the idea.

The images themselves are produced mostly by instinct. I trip the shutter based on gestures or changes in body language, trying to anticipate an interesting moment rather than react to one. I can’t see enough detail in a camera to reliably judge facial expressions in these shots, so I have no choice but to read body language.

Here’s an example of a rare tableau featuring only two subjects:

I created these two photos by tripping the shutter when I noticed the subjects’ heads turning.

Another form I use is the simple headshot or portrait, reinterpreted for the street. Working this form, I go out looking for interesting faces, novel faces, or faces doing interesting things. The same lighting rules that work for traditional portraiture apply to street work, but you have to find natural situations that provide that flattering yet dramatic light. To fill the frame as I like without getting right in peoples’ faces, a telephoto lens is essential for this work.

Also essential for this form is a camera with a fast and flexible auto focus system. The head shots are almost always taken of moving subjects, so I have to pan to track the subject, placing the face where I want it in the frame. I have to be confident that the camera will adjust focus as the subject and I move because there’s no hope at all of manually focusing in such a situation.

A more traditional form is the straightahead reflex shot, where you shoot with a normal or wide angle lens, react to a situation, framing it and shooting it as fast as you can. I enjoy this form as much as the others, but it is difficult for me due to my limited distance and peripheral vision. A developing scene is often upon me before I can fully apprehend it, while the other forms allow me to see a scene developing and be ready for the moment. I’ve had some successes, though; here’s one example shot in New York City:

The camera setup is simple for this form. I use a wide angle lens, 24mm typically on a full 35mm frame camera like the Canon 5D. I manually focus it to a likely shooting distance and let depth of field do the rest. I like to vary my shooting angles to avoid all my shots having the same tall man’s point of view— half the frame empty, the other half full of the tops of people’s heads and shoulders. Sometimes I’ll tip the camera down, sometimes I’ll stoop, sometimes I’ll shoot with the camera away from my eye (something you can do competently with practice). The point of all the various techniques is to get the point of view and framing that the shot requires without disturbing the developing scene.

And then there’s the oddball stuff that so far defies easy classification. Like my other street photography, the photos involve people, but they typically also involve unusual framing and light. I can never plan these shots, rather I just have to keep my mind open for the visually interesting wherever it might present itself.

I think I’m only partially aware of how my visual impairments affect how I do photography. The best approximation of my vision for those with normal vision seems to be “low resolution.” I can see most things out to infinity but can’t resolve much beyond a certain apparent diameter at any distance. I’ve never had vision better than this so the way I apprehend the world is the way I’ve always apprehended the world and I’ve pasted photography on top of that. Most of my photos aren’t detail driven. I’m not going to see minute details in the viewfinder so my shutter releases will be based on larger visual cues like body language and knowledge of human behavior that allows me to anticipate events. As a result I’m often surprised when I get home and look at my photos, seeing for the first time what I missed out of the street.

My camera setup is probably like that of a normally sighted person. Nothing I can do to the camera setup is going to replace the detail vision I lack, so the primary feature I need in a camera is a fast auto-focus system, with enough tracking smarts and focus points that I can put subjects where I want them in the frame. How I operate the camera is likely quite different than a sighted person, as I think I’m more likely to memorize control positions and menus to avoid having to look closely at them while I’m working.

Responses

Oberazzi:

@kylejones: Thanks for posting in this project.I think my eyesight is similar to yours, so I have adapted much the same way. “I’m often surprised when I get home and look at my photos, seeing for the first time what I missed out of the street.” Me, too.

more later.

Drew Bedo:

Hello Kyle,Thanks for talking about how you work to make an imag. Sounds like you stand somewhat back from the subject area and shoot with longer lenses…right?

For the headshots and the corner stuff, yes, because it makes sense for that. It doesn’t make sense for man-in-the-crowd shots like this, however, so you have to choose the lens and shooting distance for the task.

Oberazzi:

How do you process the images on the computer? I am currently using (really learning) Lightroom. I would like to leave the image as close to the one captured, but almost always the color balance and exposure are off significantly. It makes me wonder if I am adjusting the image to how I see the world not how the rest of the world sees it.

I use Aperture for general cataloging and storage, RAW conversion and white balance. Then I export to Photoshop for noise reduction, exposure correction, B&W conversion, dodging, burning and sharpening. Then back to Aperture for tinting, straightening and cropping, if any.

If I don’t have an idea how I want the final processed image to look then I’ll sit on it until I get an idea. Sometimes it will take months for me to see the right approach, so I purge images slowly to give my unconscious mind some time to work.

Read more on the original Flickr discussion thread:[BlindSighted] kylejones

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This entry was posted on March 7, 2009 at 11:02 am and is filed under our photography, photographers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.