Street Photography and Documentary Portraiture Workshop One (2021)
Tom R. Chambers taught an all-day street photography and documentary portraiture workshop at Precision Camera (Education Center), Austin, Texas, June 5, 2021. He covered the history of street photography, discussed Masters' photographs and his photographs, and discussed the street environment and documentation concepts/strategies.
The participants made photographs on the streets of Austin based on classroom discussion, and then returned to Precision Camera to critique and select their images for an exhibition titled, "On the Streets of Austin" held at Artworks Gallery in the city, July 3 - August 7, 2021.
Chambers states, "For a first-time approach on the streets of Austin, the participants did very well. Street photography is not an easy genre, if you take into account that it requires the introduction of the human element as it relates to:
environment, evaluation/assessment, activity (movement), timing (“decisive moment”), juxtapositions, foreground/background relationships, light play/shadow play (lights/darks), contrast, camera position (angle of approach), perspective, shape/form, geometry, depth-of-field/focal range, repetition, symmetry/asymmetry, oddities ("strangeness", "breaking of the norm"), anachronism, cultural (other) contrast, etc."
Susan Sontag (American writer, filmmaker, philosopher, teacher, and political activist; 1933-2004) once stated:
"The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur [observer of society] finds the world picturesque.”
Participants' images:
Delaney Van:
Jeanene Betros:
Lindsay Erich:
Ruben Gaztambide:
Stephanie Routh:
Tom R. Chambers (Instructor):
Quotes by street photographers:
"Everybody has that thing where they need to look one way but they come out looking another way and that's what people observe. You see someone on the street and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw. It's just extraordinary that we should have been given these peculiarities. Something is ironic in the world and it has to do with the fact that what you intend never comes out like you intend it." (Diane Arbus)
"I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed." (Garry Winogrand)
"You fill up the frame with feelings, energy, discovery, and risk, and leave room enough for someone else to get in there." (Joel Meyerowitz)
"All the technique in the world doesn’t compensate for the inability to notice." (Elliott Erwitt)
"If you can smell the street by looking at the photo, it’s a street photograph." (Bruce Gilden)
"Seeing is not enough; you have to feel what you photograph." (Andre Kertesz)
"There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative. Once you miss it, it is gone forever." (Henri Cartier-Bresson)
"I only know how to approach a place by walking. For what does a street photographer do but walk and watch and wait and talk, and then watch and wait some more, trying to remain confident that the unexpected, the unknown, or the secret heat of the known awaits just around the corner." (Alex Webb)
"No matter how advanced your camera you still need to be responsible for getting it to the right place at the right time and pointing it in the right direction to get the photo you want." (Ken Rockwell)
"There is only you and your camera. The limitations in your photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are." (Ernst Haas)
Tom R. Chambers is a street/documentary portraiture photographer with over 100 exhibitions to his credit in the States and overseas. His "Dyer Street Portraiture" project was listed in the notable exhibitions section of American Photographer magazine, March 1986. He has also managed photo departments for Texas Tech University, University of Rhode Island, and the City of Providence. He was personal photographer to the Mayor of Providence, 1985-1990. He has taught photography in the States, Zimbabwe, China, and India. He owned/directed a photography gallery (Viewpoint) in Lubbock (Texas) in the 1980s.
Announcements:
Exhibition opening at Artworks Gallery, Austin, Texas (July 3, 2021):
Tom R. Chambers and the gallery director/curator are seen to the far left.
Tom R. Chambers is seen to the far right giving a speech at the opening of "On the Streets of Austin". The participants/photographers are seen to his right ... left to right: Ruben Gaztambide, Stephanie Routh, Lindsay Erich, Jeanene Betros, and Delaney Van.
Tom R. Chambers (center) is seen giving a speech.
Tom R. Chambers is seen giving a speech.
Poster:
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