photo by Brandon Stanton
I recently heard a news story/interview on The
Humans of New York, which started out as a blog and has now become a New York
Times bestselling book. The person behind the work, Brandon Stanton, takes portraits
of people he encounters while walking around the city. He asks if he can
photograph them and then interviews them and includes a bit of the interview
with the photograph, which provides a bit of context to the portraits. Stanton makes
a lot of these portraits. In the interview I heard, Stanton came across as
humble and even a bit overwhelmed by the attention his work is gathering. He was
charming enough that I was predisposed to like this work even before I saw it. You
can see the work here.
Nick Vossbrink, a photographer working out of San
Francisco, wrote an essay called "I'm Tired of 'White Guy' Photography Projects" that is marginally about the Humans of New York project and categorized
the work as colonial photography which examines other cultures alien to the
photographer’s point of view in an attempt to explain that culture to
outsiders in a condescending manner. You can read his essay here. National Geographic is the primary
example of this approach to photography, though they are far from the first to
use this model of working. August Sanders seminal work of documenting the German
people is another or Jacob Riis, whose work serve served to expose the dangers
and destitution of New York ghettos of the late 1800s, are other earlier
examples.
In fact, using photography to examine and
understand other cultures and people and ways of life is as old as photography
itself. It’s part of what photography is; a way of looking at the world and figuring out how everything works. But
Vossbrink has an interesting point to make concerning photography.
Vossbrink said in his essay:
“To
see the same approach taken towards non-white or non-mainstream cultures now
feels old and stale. And with almost everyone having the tools to document and
represent themselves now, it starts treading into self-serving, patronizing,
white-guilt behavior too.
The
colonial view doesn’t work for me anymore. At its best, I find it boring. At
its worst, I find it racist. In almost all cases I’m tired of it.”
So does his point have merit? Perhaps. I do think
we have moved past the idea of photographing indigenous peoples in far-away,
exotic locales and have it be anything but insulting and patronizing to the
people depicted. But is the idea finished completely as a mode of seeing? I
find that hard to believe.
And that’s the thing with creative endeavors. It
is up to the artists to come up with something new. If we rely on the tried and
true, what has been done before, we face the prospects of creating art that is
tired and stale. That is why certain kinds of photography really are kind of
boring, when it comes right down to it. And photographs can be boring and
beautiful at the same time, if the image has nothing new to say. Things like
landscape photography and nudes are mostly just retreading old ground and
repeating images styles that border on being tropes. New takes on these subjects are rare.
And that’s what Vossbrink is reacting to in his essay. All too often Stanton
gives us the same “Oh, look at the weirdo in the big city” kind of image that
we’ve seen time and time again, from people like Diane Arbus and Weegee. For
urbanites, these images are comforting and familiar. For rural folks, they are the
evidence supporting all their preconceptions about the people in big cities.
So is Humans of New York patronizing and boring?
Not really, though the skills of the photographer aren’t particularly strong.
Stanton’s images are sometimes mediocre, bordering on student work, if I have
to be honest, but it is the quotes and the stories that go along with the
images that elevate them out of mediocrity. This work is about more than the
images, which is usually the case with successful art; the meaning of a piece
of art extends past the surface image of the artwork. It is the context of the
art and its subject and its maker's intent that makes for good art. Is this great photography?
No, but it is good photography that is worth looking at and that is something
far from boring. And I suspect that Stanton is a photographer to watch and pay attention to.
