Cairo 1973, Harry Callahan from the book Harry Callahan Colour
An Ad agency Creative Director gave me Harry Callahan Color after seeing my street photography portfolio, It wasn't until recently that I realised what gems of street photography it held. This beautiful color image shot in the warm light at one end of the day shows a wonderful tableau of figures stretched almost equidistantly across the frame. They all appear to be waiting, presumably for a bus that is overdue judging by their numbers. Above the people the frame juggles a large number of signs all kept in the air at the same time. The composition is very geometric except for a bent and leaning tree that gathers the eye in the top left corner like a hundred tributaries that gather your attention and guide you down the trunk into the main flow of the picture. One man stands off the pavement in the road his long shadow stretching behind him as he looks down the road. This photograph is busy and cluttered but still and ordered, above all it is beautiful......I wish I'd taken this photograph.
I wish I’d taken that #1
December 3rd, 2009
4 Responses to “I wish I’d taken that #1”
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December 8th, 2009 - 8:38 pm
I have to agree with you on most points. The man entering the frame to the left causes some issues for me though. It’s like the photo is in perfect order, but wait a minute, we have this late comer barging into the scene!
December 11th, 2009 - 7:32 am
Eric, I quite like the guy entering the frame, he sort of enters with us, the viewer…we read the picture left to right and both the tree arriving from the top left corner and the guy entering the bottom left corner lead us into the action and subsequently stop our eye exiting the frame there.
I also see a relationship between him and the guy leaning on the tree who seems to be noticing his arrival.
The way your eye moves around the photographic frame is something I learned as a twenty one year old when I started working for The Independent Newspaper in London in 1990 and printed in the darkrooms beside John Luff the Indys darkroom manager. John taught me to print in a way that kept the eye moving about the frame but refused to let it easily leave. He was, in no small way, partly responsible for the distinctive look that the Independents Photography had in the early days, a look that transformed newspaper photography in the UK and beyond to more than just an illustration of the words.
December 14th, 2009 - 7:25 pm
It’s a lovely shot, for sure. My own problem with it is the person whose head is behind the tree. Do you know the location of the shot? It’s presumably somewhere in the Middle East, but it strongly reminds me of a main street leading down to Barceloneta. It’s got the same harsh light.
December 15th, 2009 - 4:34 am
Artysmokes, since the title of the picture is “Cairo 1973″ I would guess that the location is Cairo, Egypt.
Nick, thanks for posting this picture. I didn’t know it before but as soon as I saw it on your blog I was immediately stopped in my tracks. The colors are so warm and the position of each person in the frame is so perfect that it almost feels like it was staged. From my point of view I was especially fascinated by the complex geometries created by the shapes of the tree, the signs, the shadows and the people. I am always attracted by the abstract beauty of street photography. In the past few years I noticed that every time an image feels special it’s all about the hidden geometries that just happened to be there the instant the photographer took the shot. This image in particular has a very graphic feel, if you know what I mean. It almost feels like a painting, a cubist painting. Certainly the fact that I cannot read what those signs say adds to the mystery of the geometries just like when I watch city scenes in Japan or Hong Kong.
Like you, I wish I had taken this shot.