The Monochrome Chronicles #25: After Dark (part II)
This series, After Dark, approaches nightlife in the streets from two directions. The theme of the previous episode of The Monochrome Chronicles (#24) was the streets themselves. The images in that episode showed how the streets, the sidewalks, the buildings indicate the atmosphere of the area. And how the images can convey the mood to the viewer.
The theme of this episode is the people who occupy the streets at night. No, that description is too vague. Let me try to approach the subject from the point of view of my camera. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, my camera has a mind of its own, I just follow it around. In a way, this allows me to create my own world. I make the rules. Of necessity I travel on foot and alone. Sometimes I wander for an hour or two with no particular goal in mind. Such is the story of my street photography at night. This story does not follow a linear path. It cannot. It has been a kaleidoscopic journey. Suspend your disbelief.
In my meanderings behind my camera I’ve encountered and photographed many people. Herein is my gallery of these people. Now, I have accumulated these images over a period of 25+ years. In retrospect, I recognize that the images fall into three groups – according to my point of view. And loosely based on place and time: Tokyo (2004-2022), Asia (2006-2019) and NYC (1997-2003).
Let me start with an image that transcends the others. That may be hyperbole but the words to express how I respond to the image elude me. The woman seems to hover above her own existence.
In some ways, this is the spirit of nightlife that I’m trying to capture. Low key, understated. I imagine that this is the norm – from her point of view.
For me, my street photography in Tokyo has been some of the most rewarding for a few reasons. By the time I relocated to Japan in 2003 I’d been pursuing black-and-white photography for nearly a decade so I was pretty much in my own groove. I felt comfortable behind the camera. Another factor was that I was a foreigner, a “gaijin.” This worked to my advantage. I could take risks, go outside the boundaries. As one Japanese friend told me, “Japanese people can tolerate such behavior from you. They think that, as a gaijin, you just don’t know any better.” (I take that as a positive sentiment.) Also, being new to the city I could combine exploration of the neighborhoods and street photography.
A thoughtful expression flashed briefly across this man’s face. In this instance I’ll intentionally withhold the details of the context. The image holds elements of traditional Japan against a background of contemporary Japan. Maybe the look on his face betrays an awareness of the contradictions between the two worlds.
In a crowd is a good chance to catch people off guard. In this instance, by serendipity, the available light allowed me to focus on just one person in the crowd. Reading her facial expression is, for me, difficult. Like so many features of Japan, facial expressions are culturally driven. Forget the stereotype of Japanese people masking their facial expressions. They just use a different mode of expression.
Another segment of Japan is the co-called salaryman subculture – where office workers are so loyal to their employers that they work long hours and form strong bonds with co-workers. Socializing in the evening is part of their day. And rich fodder for my street photography.
The end of a pub crawl may leave a reveler in a pensive mood. This is an as-found image. Undoubtedly, I couldn’t choreograph such an image if I tried. Maybe this reveals more about me than about the man, who after all was a stranger to me. The image is my reward for patience.
The casual atmosphere in an izakaya fosters intimacy among its patrons. The point of view in this image is rather voyeuristic. The backs of the two figures in the foreground create a framing device to focus the rest of the composition. The repetition of three figures in the center gives depth to the view. Such scenes are commonplace in Tokyo’s business district on Friday night.
An enigma lurks in this moment in time, frozen on film. My interpretation is biased because I remember the context. An important element lies off the edge of the frame. Part of the enigma arises from the obvious differences between the two pairs of people. Clearly something has garnered the attention of the two salarymen. Ambiguity is a strong element of this image.
Places where colleagues can gather in the evening abound in Tokyo’s business districts. In fair weather standing bars on the sidewalk are popular. Even after working long hours in crowded offices, sometimes colleagues are reluctant to go directly home at the end of the day, part of traditional Japanese culture.
A vigorous and powerful image, and yet I hesitated whether to include it. The scene can be interpreted in various ways, and possibly very negatively. Finally I decided to include it because I make no judgement about the incident. It is simply one moment in time.
Turning away from the salaryman subculture, let me offer two more views of street life at night in Tokyo.
In a peculiar way, this image is quite intimate. OK, such behavior may be considered NPC by some. It is rare in Japan. Actually, his behavior is incidental to this image. The man seems so small in the frame. And he is alone. Something is awry here. At one and the same time, he is furtive and vulnerable. Or maybe it only seems that way because he has chosen to pee against such a wide white wall, in a well-lit area.
Metaphorically, this man is an outsider. His body language betrays his inner state of mind, more so than just his physical separation from the scene in the window. In this image, the lack of detail serves to focus the viewer’s attention.
The second section of the gallery in this episode derives from other Asian countries and stretches the limits of street photography. I would use the term expressionist night photography. The subjects vary widely, I will admit without apology. The unifying factor is that these images arise from my wanderings after dark; they all come from my camera, from the world inside my viewfinder.
As an added dimension, these locations were unfamiliar territory or me, and usually I was a temporary visitor unlike Tokyo or NYC where I was on home ground. Undeterred, I could find the nightlife district and then just follow my camera.
A portrait that lies on the edge of expressionism, the result of the briefest of encounters between me and this subject. The context is immaterial. We communicated by nonverbal signals. I would like to claim that our eyes locked, he nodded agreement to my request, I raised my camera to my eye and took the shot all without breaking my stride – that would be untrue but it is the impression I get from the image. A fleeting moment.
So much is happening in this scene though the three figures basically are static. The composition seems arranged but is strictly “as found.” The woman, symbolically, sits apart in the background. Ironically, the light focuses attention on her. The style, the composition are almost painterly but my camera managed to capture an added depth of meaning in the image.
To paraphrase Yogi Berra, you can see a lot just by observing people. Sometimes a street photographer just has to sit and wait for the right moment. The level of intimacy among these three people is clear from their body language.
A different form of intimacy arises in this image of two street vendors. My role as photographer is to capture the moment. After that I defer to the viewer’s imagination.
A sidewalk pharmacy at night…well, why not. No doubt biased by my career in pharma industry, I have been intrigued by late-night pharmacies in far-flung places, beginning with a 24-hour grass pharmacy in Havana in 1999. No, not “grass” as in marijuana, grass in the sense of traditional herbal medicine. In this instance I couldn’t decipher the product labels, which were in Nepalese language – all except the sign “X-rays” at the bottom of the counter.
Intimacy as seen from a distance. The point of view in this image diverges from that of the other images in this set. Nearly half of the composition is negative space – which serves to focus attention on the people on the sidewalk. The two barren tree trunks fortuitously delimit the space in the frame. The answer to the question, “What are they doing?” remains ambiguous.
A moment in the night life of a street vendor captured on film. This night the vendors far outnumbered the customers, leaving the vendors with time on their hands. This man’s body language is difficult to read. He seems to be far away.
The lighting scheme of this image…well, that is out of scope for street photography. It is what it is. To put it another way, a street photographer has to be able to recognize a lighting scheme rather than to create one. In this instance, the light was just right for a dramatic image. It seems to hide a mystery. The man appears to be immobile and yet highly alert.
The setting was quite unusual. Traffic was virtually nil so the street was eerily quiet. The street itself was mostly dark due to the paucity of street lights. A few shops were open for business, contributing indirect light through their front windows. Only a few sidewalk vendors were present, maybe one or two on each block. In such a setting, this vendor and the two boys easily became a focal point. Yes, the image is technically weak but the expressions of the three, especially the youngsters, more than make up for any other flaws.
Segue. Allow me to digress a bit before turning to my early street photography in NYC in the 1990s. In preparing this episode I’ve been struck by how different is the style of my work in Tokyo compared with that in NYC and wondered about the nature of the difference. Maybe because I was familiar with NYC streets but unfamiliar with Tokyo streets. Maybe because in NYC I was learning the techniques for street work whereas in Tokyo I was more experienced. And of course I was older.
Unintentionally I tested these ideas when I went back to NYC for a week in 2014 – after a decade of living abroad. Of course, I returned to the night streets. The outcome? Well, as Thomas Wolfe told us, you can’t go home again. These images are much more akin to the style of my work in Tokyo, ne.
The next set of images marks a return to the origins of my street photography in NYC. I would caution you that the transition may seem abrupt, but only because it is in reverse. My street photography – and by extension, my night photography – in NYC was at the beginning of my learning curve.
The style of these photographs from NYC may seem rather derivative, possibly due to the influence of the NYC school of street photography. In later years I was more free to establish my own style. My point of view in NYC was different, too, for I’d been living there for some 20 years, which contrasts with my work in Tokyo and Asia where the territory was new for me. Maybe my motivation was the same throughout – my fascination with night-life – though my perspective evolved over the years.
And, of course, I was younger then.
Simone was more than just a night person. My camera and Simone were attracted to each other like yin and yang, but only for a few minutes. I’m tempted to say Simone was just another element in the mix of people in the neighborhood. She was more than that. She had a sparkle, a warmth that would set her apart wherever she went.
“What a girl has to do to hail a taxi in this crummy town!” Obviously this is street theater. To say anything further would only detract from the impact of the image.
Everyone deserves at least one turn in the spotlight, to paraphrase Andy Warhol. A photograph such as this might seem more Hollywood than NYC. The key here is the dynamic between the two main characters. One – she with the big hair – seems starry eyed, enjoying a role played for the evening. The other – a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other – though she seems the younger of the two, is playing the jaded, wise-cracking woman who has been around.
Anonymity allows night creatures to emerge after dark. And then there was this over-the-top character who would be out of place anywhere except in a comic strip or perhaps a Carol Burnett sketch. Yet she fulfills a function: she was a hoot. Comic relief. Or maybe this is satire.
Nighttime allows people to try out new roles. This can hardly be seen as a routine occurrence on a city street. Clearly, this must have been an event of some sort. The event is immaterial. The key element is the look on this person’s face, which hints at some inner secret. This is no flashy drag queen. This guy is enacting some interior drama.
Face it, a photograph basically is a representation – sometimes a representation of the physical world, other times a representation of the photographer’s inner vision. This image presented a dilemma for me. The subject itself is someone else’s creation. In that case, what is my role as photographer? One answer is that photographs of so-called “found objects” on city streets is a recognized genre. My answer, on the other hand, would be that I’ve removed this subject from its context, that I’ve interpreted it according to my point of view, part of the world inside the viewfinder of my camera. It is a representation of my inner vision.
Twenty years ago, before the era of the cell phone, public phone booths were a common sight in NYC, but the undercurrent here is something sinister. On the surface this might seem to be simply a photograph of a guy making a call from a public phone. Few clues about the context are evident. A curious feature is the man’s body language. He is standing with his back to the phone, looking at the surroundings, seemingly staring into the lens of my camera. At that period in NYC, public phones were the stuff of various urban myths, often associated with criminal activities and drug trade, which biases my interpretation of this image. Then again, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
This series, “After Dark,” has spanned two episodes of The Monochrome Chronicles and covers a lot of territory – perhaps too much for a single series. For me as a photographer, the series springs from a common source: my affinity for the streets at night and the people who inhabit those streets. Maybe that sounds like a tautology. So be it. This is what propels me forward. Maybe one final image will illustrate what I mean.
Expect the unexpected. Interpretation of this image confounds me. It raises more questions than answers. The mix of clarity and ambiguity, of realism and symbolism, in a single frame invigorates the image, takes it beyond just photorealism. After dark the commonplace becomes uncommon. I find both poetry and mystery in this image.
Actually, I wonder whether “street photography” is the apt term here. The impetus, the techniques are similar to street photography – just to find out what people do in their everyday lives. The technique is quick, spontaneous, seemingly random. I pursue a kind of free-form, impulsive photography focusing on life on the streets after dark. Street photography is fluid, impressionistic – kaleidoscopic. Back in NYC, I used to say that my philosophy in photography was, “No limits.” Street photography after dark approaches that goal.
A side story. Let me illustrate what I mean by “no limits.” One evening in Yangon, I spent an hour or so trolling around the downtown district. When it was time to return to my hotel, it was too far to walk so I decided to take a taxi. I flagged a taxi down and I hopped into the back seat. The driver tore off, driving fast. Maybe I should have noticed something odd about this driver from the beginning but I didn’t. All the windows in the car were open and, as it was a warm evening, I enjoyed the breeze. The taxi man’s driving was a bit erratic. Soon I put two and two together: That distinctive aroma in the car? Marijuana. I realized that the cabbie wasn’t driving, he was flying. This did not bother me. I was flying, too, in my own way – a photographer’s high. I just sat back and enjoyed the ride.
Assembling the photographs for “After Dark” and writing these two episodes of The Monochrome Chronicles has been a journey of discovery for me, a look through my retrospectroscope. What a view, if I do say so myself. I had never before pulled together all these images – not to mention the dozens that fell to the cutting-room floor. To borrow a phrase from the 1960s (my generation), the scope of the series blows my mind. How far I’ve travelled – photographically and personally, as well as geographically. I feel an unaccustomed sense of…what?…nostalgia, dysphoria, I’ve-been-there-ness.
Well, enough about me. It’s time to pass these episodes on to my readers.
