Union Square in the middle of a weekday is such an interesting sight… all around the square are shops and nice restaurants filled with business people taking a quick break, but inside the park are dozens of homeless people who all seem to know each other. They sleep, they sit, they eat on the benches and on the paths, and seem comfortable with their surroundings.
I have to say that going there with my camera, I at times felt scared and had to walk away pretty quickly at times. The smells were sometimes questionable, to say the least, and I oftentimes had to pretend that I was taking pictures of something behind my subjects. I felt like I stood out like a sore thumb, and was glad to have brought someone with me.
Additional Field Notes –
Photo 1 – This picture took me a few minutes to execute, because I felt as though I was really invading the subjects’ privacy. Standing in front of them with my fairly large camera, I felt that they knew what I was up to, and so I tried to act as natural as one can do so in this context. I really liked the suitcases because I feel that they capture the nomadic nature of the subjects, as well as their ability to settle anywhere at any given moment.
Photo 2 – The two boys, who were that day out for one of the Jewish holidays, were obviously from a completely different world than the two other men, yet they were all talking animatedly together. I really felt that the scene captured the essence of New York City, where people from all different backgrounds and of various occupations can mingle with relative ease.
Photo 3 – There was something about this lone smoke that made me want to take his picture, perhaps because I felt that he illustrated the so many other smokers of the area. After taking the picture, I really liked how it turned out and chose to include it.
Photo 4 – In the midst of the bustling city, inside this small park, this scene felt oddly personal to me. I don’t know who the subjects are nor what the topic of their discussion was, but they looked to me as two old friends would after not seeing each other for a while. I left the picture in color because it felt so alive to me that putting it in Black and White would have taken away from it.
Photo 5 – I first saw this lady from the street, from behind, and her installment looks all the more intriguing from that point of view. The pictures I saw when I came around were of various places in the city, though none were particularly striking. What I tried to capture in the picture was the fact that no one stopped to look at her work; everyone passed her by, stuck in a moment.
More photos at:
The first and last pictures are probably my favorite.
Looking at “on the move” gives me the feeling that you were not that comfortable being there but took the picture anyway. Well done, they look scary to me too.
I was intrigued with the self made contraption by the vendor in “stoppped in time” as I discovered it upon a more close examination of the photo.
I think throughout all your photographs you have a great sense of composition. The lines are angles are very appealing to the eyes. In “Stopped in Time” the contraption that wields the woman’s artwork is eye catching. I like how she has no eye contact with the camera. I would have liked to see this image without the other people in the background but just the same I can see how those people may add to the depth of the image.