Up close and personal

Whether on Fifth Avenue in New York, in an urban ghetto, or in a third world village, people are people. Author and photographer, Steve Simon, in The Passionate Photographer, expressed the importance of developing intimacy with subjects in street photography. I don't mean physical intimacy, but personal intimacy where you are essentially given permission to move in close and communicate with them on a deeper level. Some say it's an art, others a skill, and some are more anatomically descriptive, but nevertheless, it is a skill set that requires nerves of steel, especially when we do not share a common language.

Take this pit bull for example. I was photographing in one of the most rundown neighborhoods in Bridgeport, CT. When I turned around, I was staring into the face of a pit bull and Hector, its owner. It was not a time to turn and run, but instead, make friends -- fast! I don't remember what I said, but as you can see, it worked. His personal space became my personal space, if only for a few moments, but then that's all I needed.

Just BOOM!

Last week I was photographing deep inside one of the buildings of the Remington Arms manufacturing complex that had been totally abandoned in 1988, when I found this window graffiti that really said it all. Before Remington moved from Bridgeport, CT, to Arkansas, they employed 17,000 workers at this 73-acre manufacturing complex of buildings.

Most of the windows have been  broken out and floors littered with broken quarter inch safety glass that crunches under your feet as you walk through. The fuse boxes are hanging open and gutted. Graffiti covers most of the interior walls as street gangs claimed their respective territories. There was even a fresh dead rooster outside an open door that had obviously not fared well in a cock fight inside the night before. A couple of the four story buildings have been leveled, but the three foot deep debris field of broken brick, glass, and steel remains. It's a classic picture of urban blight and abandonment.

Today was one of those days when, like the last of the Remington employees 25 years ago, everything seemed to go "BOOM." No need to go into details because we have all had them. You know, a sequence of events that seems to knock the wind out of you as soon as you try and pick yourself up from the previous event. We cry, "Woe is me, woe is me," and then we find someone who was hit harder.

Suddenly, the BOOM becomes a bang, and the sun comes out and shows us something new. Something we never thought of before. It puts new wind in our sails and fresh ideas in our minds. We leave the shattered rubble of the day behind and move in a new direction.

Walking down Main Street

It seems every small town has a "main street," and most Connecticut towns actually name it, "Main Street." Each one is a treasure house of idyllic structures with their unique architectural elements custom designed, sometimes hundreds of years ago.

Some "main streets" are a blast from the past reminding us of our childhood. Gone are the dime stores and soda fountains, but often you can see traces of bygone memories like the F.W. Woolworth name in the stained stone above the windows of some stores. And what about the chrome rimmed Formica tables, red naugahyde booth upholstery, and jukeboxes with all those "flipper cards."

Main Street, Woodbury, is a haven of well kept homes and churches, some as much as three hundred years old. While most have been turned into art galleries or antique shops, many are still private residences that have been in the family for generations. I challenge you to spend a couple of hours like we did, and walk your Main Street, with your camera of course, and watch the beauty take shape. It's there, in the details.

This image is one of six 16x20 black and white prints from our Main Street, Woodbury, Connecticut, collection that we hung at Ayla's Deli in Woodbury, yesterday. Ayla's is located in Barclay Square, 20 Sherman Hill Rd. Stop in, enjoy a sandwich, and give us a call - not necessarily in that order, though.