Whatever may be said about the numbing effect of terrible images of human suffering, the fact remains that we are drawn to empathize with our fellow human beings.  And in our digital age, the images keep assaulting us.  Most recently it is the dead and dying children gassed in Syria.  But there is another, and often much more effective approach to telling this story in pictures.  You don’t show any of the horror.  You just let your audience see it in the victims eyes and read it in their faces.

In this regard there is a photo blog by Marko Djurica in the Reuters Photoblog entiled “From Aleppo to no-man’s land.”  It tells the story of Syrian families (the word families is important) trying to escape into Serbia.  The United Nations estimates that there are over two million refugees of the civil war in Syria.  Their story is told by Djurica’s image of a little Syrian girl asleep in her father’s arms.

Have you ever been to a historic site, maybe a battle site, squinted your eyes and wondered just what it was like – tried to imagine the players on that historic day? Or have you ever walked down a street and thought: hmm, I’ve seen this before only to realize that you had seen that particular location on TV or in a movie?

Photographer Christopher Moloney has exquisitely captured this magic for us in his photoessay, “Now & Then.” What Moloney has done is sought out the places of our cinematic dreams, armed with his camera and with black and white stills from great movies.  Once the location is found, he holds the photograph as closely as possible in alignment with the scene, which, of course, means that he is finding the original camera angle and takes the picture.  There are some tricky technical aspects to this, most significantly getting the depth of field that he needs to keep both backdrop and photograph in focus.

Artistically, the holding hand is a wonderful touch.  So is the juxtaposition of black and white photograph against colored modern backdrop.  Even someone with as limited a knowledge of movies as myself will recognize almost all of the films.

So many of these pictures strike home that it is difficult to choose a favorite.  Mia Farrow in “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968) at 50th Street and Sixth Avenue in New York City raises an immediate sense of terror and dread and who doesn’t love Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (1961) – window-shopping at a Tiffany & Co. also in New York City.  It’s not unusual to see actor/director Woody Allen on the streets of New York City.  So encountering a younger Woody with Diane Keeton in ‘Annie Hall’ (1977) along 68th Street in New York City is only a step backwards in time. But a favorite? – well I’ll give you a hint: “Who you gonna call,”  when the ectoplasmic index of your apartment reaches Old Testament proportions and Sumerian goddesses threaten the block?

If you thought that the “Running of the Bulls” was bizarre, then take a look at this photograph by John Robertson for Barcroft Media/Landov, showing a woman in England having a snail facial.  Yes you read that right.  And if you want to see an infomative(?) video check this out. The next time that you are in Corby, England, you can stop by the Simply Divine Spa and have a snail facial for yourself for a mere £50.  The important point is that without photography to record this miraculous event, you might not believe it.

For the first time, I find myself returning to a blog that I wrote several days ago and massively editing.  There is an intriguing series of images by photographer Mark Laita entitled “Created Equal: Images of Real Americans.”  These set in pairs contrasting images designed to show the great diversity that is America.  So we have, for instance, a chef with glass of fine wine in hand and a cook with a spatula in hand, a fur trapper and a woman in fur with a dog, and three Hells Angels and juxtaposed three Choir Boys.

My first reaction to this series was, “Yes, kinda cool!”  It is, as I say, quite intriguing and thought provoking.  But then, I found myself thinking that it all only almost works.  Almost works?  Too many of the images, perhaps by necessity of the message, are stereotypes.  For instance, there is an image of a southerner and a Hassidic Jew.  Now I have known a lot of people from the American south in my day, and none of them look like this “southerner.”  Indeed, I am pretty sure that they would be mighty insulted by Mr. Laita’s choice of appellation.  If we are really holding that stereotype of the quintessential southerner in our minds then, really, shame on us.

Significantly, I find myself going back through the series time and again.  To its credit it holds that kind of draw.  Many of the pairings are just plain fun.  But others trouble me. They trouble me because I understand why I see the two as contrasting, why I see them as fitting together.  Most troubling are the three Chicago Policemen contrasted with the four Chicago Pimps.  While the pimps are definitely sartorially challenged, I find myself asking who are the real thugs here?   It doesn’t quite seem right and maybe that’s the whole point.

I was reading recently, or should I say yet again, about the death of street photography.  This time the culprit is the cell phone, and the suggestion that people have, via their cell phone use, abstracted themselves from the world and instead of offering up interesting activities and gestures provide only a blank disconnected stare.  Hmm!  Well, I think that this is a bit overstated.  I did an informal survey on my way back from lunch and encountered fourteen people on the street of which only two were on the phone.  That’s about 14 % and seems about right.*  So yes, people do abstractly bump into you on the street, and yes, when I was at the Harvard Coop yesterday I did encounter a young woman with earphones, who was seemingly conversing with herself – but it’s hardly an epidemic.  I will have to apply the same survey technique to drivers.  Judging from the number of people who drive into buildings these days, this may be more widespread.

Maybe the problem is that you cannot tell the crazies from the connected.  You used to stay clear of people talking to themselves on public street and subways. But young couples still kiss on the street.  I say with confidence that kissing, and associated activities, will forever be more enjoyable than talking on the cell phone.  Children still dance gleefully in puddles.  And old people still walk hand-in-hand.

There is enough activity on the street to nurture the Cartier-Bresson in all of us.  You need to develop both his mindset and skills.  It’s not fair to evoke the limits of a post-9/11 world as an excuse for your own tenerity. Perhaps the cell phone users are there to present a photographic challenge for us.  And of course, the cell phone increases the probability that something photograph worthy will not go unsnapped.  At the same time it normalizes the act of taking pictures on the street, which should increase not decrease one’s ability to take street photographs.

*Note added in proof – I repeated this informal study this morning during my commute and found only 3 out of 67 people were on the phone.  That’s a mere 4%, and it included a lot of college age and young people.  I could however, have easily done a street photography essay on dog owners and their homemade pooper scooper techniques.

Well it’s the official end to vacationer’s summer.  So I thought that in honor of labor day weekend, and reminiscint of the image that I previously posted of a lavender praying mantis, that I would share with you a photograph from the (Martha’s) Vineyard Gazette showing a rare pink katydid. This was brought to my attention by friend and reader Robin via her Facebook page.

The story goes that a care-taking crew in Aquinnah on Martha’s Vineyard was pruning trees.  One of the workers went to dust debris off his sneakers when his eye caught what he thought was a pink grasshopper.  The crew’s foreman knew better.  The rose colored bug was actually a one in 500 pink katydid.  Although I have to say that I prefer to think that it was pink from embarrassment because katy-did. Sorry!

Figure 1 – Claude Monet, “The Magpie,” from the Wikimedia Commons. Original in the MUsee D’Orsay and in the public domain in the United States.

As I said yesterday, time is flying and I am behind on everything.  I have indicated before that my favorite photography magazine is LensWork.  Nothing, in my opinion, beats it at present.  With most photomags you find that the photographer’s website offers better reproductions than the magazine.  In the case of LensWork it can go the other way, and I think that this is a real compliment to the effort and, frankly dedication to image, that they put into it.  I find that I am now an issue behind with LensWork, just like View Camera.  But I digress!

A few weeks ago I found in LensWork the truly glorious and amazing work of photographer Andrea Stone.  I was happy to find that these images could also be seen on “The Stone Photography” website, which Andrea shares with her husband Rob Stone.  As a result I can share them with you.

Ms. Stone relates her transformative moment as being drawn to Claude Monet’s work “The Magpie,” and with that to the realization of what an image can be.  She has made a study of city scapes reflected in distorted patterns in window glasses. But such a description is really way to mechanical, because what she has created is in itself transformation. It bridges photography with impressionist art, creating magical pictures that could just as easily be paintings.  When the building doing the reflecting is by architect Frank Gehry, the end result is simply amazing!  Looking at her work is one of those great wow moments, when you just fall in love with photography all over again.

Ms. Stone loves cities like Portland, OR, where there is a delicate mixture of the antique and classic with the new and modern.  She relates the challenges of photographing buildings in a post 9/11 world, where the photographer is challenged for her interest in a particular building.  And then there is the challenge of light that all photographers face.  The fact that you can return on a second day to the same observing spot, at the same time of day, and under identical weather conditions and the reflection will be altogether different.  It is like a reminder that we move in both space and time and can never truly return to the same spot.