"Distant Presence"

Hey everyone, this is Antonio. Just a note before we start this episode, I want to apologize for the sound quality of this show today.

We had some technical glitches, which we're still trying to figure out, and we couldn't do anything about it for this episode, but we promised that we'll try to fix it for the next one. So please, please forgive us for the sound quality in this one and enjoy the show anyway. Thanks. Be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence. It is a rare photographer who can take a detached, cold-blooded view of his work. Music.

Hey, welcome to the Street Shots Photography Podcast. This is Antonio. And this is Ward. And this is episode 221 for the middle of December, 2024 and area code two, two, one. Hello. Hello, Houston. We have Houston. We have a problem. We can't stop doing area codes. Now, before the show, I'm like always looking up like, what is this area code? Actually, when I first did it, it gave me a country code for like some other.

Oh, yeah. The country was. I was like, wait a minute. No, I don't think that's right. It's like, it's in Senegal. What the hell? It was some, some other place. Actually, is it a country code? How can it be country code? Three digits. I thought country codes were. I actually don't have any idea. No. No. Maybe, maybe I was getting it wrong from, from my AI search in my browser, my brave browser. I was having a hallucination. So I finally had to ask the right question. Yes. Hello, Houston.

Hello, Houston. 221. And yes, for those, as we rotate the dial around, finding all the different area codes. So anyway, yeah. Hi, everybody. This is the middle of December. Middle of December. Yeah. Middle of December, right? Shaking your head. Why are you shaking your head? The countdown. Of what? For 2025? Of the whole Christmas and total darkness for, you know, 18 hours of the day.

And we'll make it through we're gonna talk about that later somehow but all right we'll make it through yeah so what what have you been up to how you how are you doing i'm doing good work has been good still working on my notes for for japan you're really getting you're really getting, those you're getting serious with the notes there i mean you want to really. I mean, I bought a book and when we will, we can talk about that later. I bought a book that Japan associated with. Okay.

Yeah. So we talk about books now or. No, no, no. Keep going. We'll talk about them a little bit later. Just get the, we get the general, you know, we ease into this a little bit. We get everybody has to know how you're doing. Yeah. So just working on that and thinking about it a lot and I'm gonna, gonna be as prepared as I can be. Okay. And, and offline, you said that your country is having a postal strike now. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that's good for you. You won't be able to order any books.

No, because they come by courier. Darn it. I was thinking, okay. All right. Even the camera store. I mean, this book I bought was at the camera store. I was like, you know. Okay. All right. So yeah, there's, there's no way to, to curb that urge when you're walking up and down the aisle there in the camera store. Well, so wait for the postal strike is happening now before Christmas. Yes. Oh no. I just thought about that. That has gotta be, that's gonna be.

It's horrendous. All the small businesses that use Canada post.

It's it's terrible and fedex and ups must be having a awesome day but they probably don't well there's some complications there in certain places where small business can afford to use them they've had a real spike in use and it's causing them delays issues with with delays so and now i understand the u.s postal services has now stopped shipments like postal shipments to canada wow so now there it's our american cousins are having to stockpile mail headed for canada so wow

it's a nightmare and especially for before christmas and all the everybody who's ordering stuff for gifts that's it right they're they're they're not going to get it and well how long has the strike been on for i want to say a month really sorry for laughing but a month no but this is yeah oh yeah it's crazy where have i been not paying attention to this you know it's just it's our it's our little banana republic up here yeah okay yeah all right well yeah i'm

obviously it's it affects your uh our artificial sponsor somehow yeah it does it does but i think i think my canadian customers know that there's probably because i say i believe i say on the website that I use Canada Post. So if they're going in and I see folks going in and looking at product, but they're not ordering and that's fair.

Well, I'm sorry about that. I do offer, you know, Courier at their cost, but, you know, with a lens that cost effective, why would you pay, you know, 20 bucks for whatever. Well, I'm sorry that this is happening and I hope that gets solved at some point soon. I do too. Because it's affecting a lot of people across the country.

Yeah yeah well well gosh what else have been it's been as we're getting into the winters photography stuff anything cameras, picking them up no not just well i i mean i told you i bought that little flash so i've been playing around yeah yeah you showed a picture of it yeah so yeah it's very cute it works describe it describe it tell us the model number and stuff like that it's i think it's pronounced god ox not Godox.

Godox. I mean like God, like God. Yeah. Because the translated characters in Chinese is Godox. Godox Lux Jr. It's called. It's powered by two triple A's and has a guide number, I think of 29.

Something like that at iso 100 so it has a little bit more kick it has a really small it's not the the actual reflector part of the flash is a little bit bigger maybe three times as big as the one that's on my xs20 flip up flash so it's a little broader light than that but it's i'm looking at the picture of it now wow yeah it's got a big well it's got but the actual flash part of it is just a little oh right in the center a little bit part yeah center like offset it's

directly above the hot shoe mounting right i see so it's the way it's the way it is so and it looks like it's a broad flash but it's really just that just has a lot of reflector in it i see yeah and it seemed it seems to work fine at light i mean i use i've been playing around just in the house lighting like It's supposed to have a 24 or 28 millimeter coverage, but I've been using the 16, and it's been fine. The little vignetting, I want that effect, actually. The little vignetting on

the edges. The little drop off around the edges. That's nice. Yeah. And with the close subjects that I'm contemplating shooting with, if I shoot with a 16, I think they'll be great. So harsh light with the black and white in my post. I mean, I think I'm going to get somewhere with that. And how much does that run you, if I may ask? It cost me $70 Canadian, which would be $58.

Really? I'm going to put that on my list of things to recommend to people because it seems like a nice little thing that you could stick in a bag.

It's just a couple of AA batteries. So the refresh, like the recycle time is a little bit longer than I think, you know, you and I would be used to with our big speed lights that, you know, we usually have. So if you're fine with that, like you're not, it does actually have a, it has a slave mode too, actually. Oh, really? It has a, it senses another flash. It can, it's got two slave modes, one that's flashes right away and one that flashes on the second flash. Oh, okay.

But your XE3 doesn't have a built-in flash, right? So you'd have to use some sort of commander thing, right? To fire it off. Yeah. Well, I've got a, I actually have a Godox trigger and I've got other, are There are other things I can do and has a, it's got a little plugin for a PC cable, so we can use it on our twin lens. Told my son, if he wants to borrow it and use it with his twin lens, he could do that too. I would imagine with a twin lens, it would be kind of weird.

It might, cause it's a horizontal flash. So would it, how well would it work with the square?

Format well you're mounting at the cold shoe on the twin lenses on the side and this is for format so i don't think it's gonna hurt i i and the what's the coverage of an 80 millimeter lens right i think it's equivalent to about 50 so i think yeah yeah and leaf shutter right he can use whatever shutter speed he wants so we're geeking out you know we're geeking here geeking out about flashes well i haven't played with flash in a long time it's getting up to speed right flash flash is like a whole

they could run a whole class just on like trying to teach people how to use flash properly and there's still things i'd like to learn about it that i forget all the time and i one time took a class with joe mcnally and he did the whole class was on on his speed lights he's using the the nikon sb whatever it was the 28th at the time or something like that, And his, you know, he's, his whole like production, you know, traveling is like with, I don't know, like he had like had a dozen of these

things set up and he would just, he was sort of, well, he still is a master of like controlling the light on these little things. And he also had some sort of cool bracket that he was selling under his name, which now you could buy. I can't even remember to describe it, but now you could probably just buy it, you know, that B&H for five bucks, you know, made by some, you know, company overseas. But it was something, I can't remember what it was, what it did,

but I was like, oh, that's a really cool thing. Like I should get one. But yeah, you know, to, to, to do lighting with speed lights, like, you know, a, rather than stroke, like a, you know, big heavy duty strobes means, I don't know. It's like, it, I think there's a, there's a real art to that and, and. You know, to be able to remember and how to figure out how to do all this stuff.

It's just, you know, so there's, there's tiny flash has seven power settings and it's got a little dial on the back where you point the power setting to the distance and it tells you what aperture to use in manual mode. So it's, it's kind of cute. Like it takes some, you know, thinking up front, but I think it'll be a real party to use. So I'm looking forward to that.

On the picture that you sent, which I'll probably have to put in the show notes now because we're talking about it, but it looks like it fits your camera nicely with that lens hood on it and this light. It looks very, I mean, I want to say it looks retro, obviously, but there's something really classic about that look. It's not this big speed light with the bendy head on it with a big diffuser on it or something like that, like you're about to shoot a wedding.

This looks like, this looks like something you'd be carrying around in like the late sixties someplace or something, you know? Like, yeah. So for fifties something bucks, that's pretty good. So I will put a link to it in, uh, in the show notes. Yeah. I kind of wish I was selling them. Well, I'll put an affiliate link on Amazon and maybe if anybody wants to buy it, I'll get like eight cents for it or something or whatever Amazon does. All right. Cool. Cool. I'll be, be really excited to see.

Actually have you done any tests with it with i have just around the house and the dog i haven't really done yeah yeah the dog's like what are you flashing me for he's the reluctant muse yeah well you need to try it on some people somewhere maybe yeah because the red eyes of the dog the green eyes yeah well you can fix that that's easy to fix but i know but yeah that actually that lens is pretty close to the uh to

the center line of the lens so you might end up getting a lot of red eye in that anyway. Well, it'll be white eye. White eye. It'll look really cool in black and white. I agree. Absolutely. It'll be, it'll have kind of a Blade Runner thing going. Yeah.

Boy okay well yeah all right well cool i you know hate to admit this but i also i ordered the xm5, oh you did you video freak yeah yeah yeah i ordered it you know it's not going to come in until like you know the 2026 you know so or whatever at this point so i don't i mean it does give me a lot of time to even double think about this like do we really want it.

And you know after looking at your camera i mean it's not the xc series but the all the reviews i've been reading about it and just being a little content making camera and you know interchangeable lenses and all this it just it's i don't know so i ordered a silver one that would be my first silver fuji so i thought it would look kind of cool so i might have to get a flash like this on it or something like that too just to copy you just

to be a copycat in some way yeah all right yeah but But I keep getting emails from B&H saying, we don't know when it's going to ship. I'm like, yeah, fine, whatever. You know, it's not something that I'm really, you know, worried about getting right away. But. You just call that guy, Bob, you know, in the back in customer service. Yeah, that's right. Put me on the list. Where's my XM? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, Fuji will surprise us because that's how I got my X106 or VI, I should say.

I'm not going to go into that debate right now, But, you know, they, they emailed me and say it was going to come in October and ended up, I mean, yeah, it was going to come in October and it showed up two months before that. So I was pretty happy about that anyway. But yeah, that's, that's on the, uh, that's in the, in the running in the background and I'm probably going to end up selling some of my stuff. So I want to start getting rid of.

That's another conversation we need to have. What? Oh, right. Cause you want to buy a lens, right? You want to buy a lens, but don't send it to me through the post office. No, no. Right. You're going to have to figure out how to get, get that to you. Yeah, exactly. Ox cart, I think. Yeah. I'll send it in pieces and put it back together again. I get to transport. Put it on the greyhound. Yeah. But I haven't, I, my photography has been kind of slow these days.

I've passed a couple of weeks since my new girlfriend split. We spent a lot of time being tourists. So I lent her my Fuji X T 20 with, with the 18 to 55 lens on it, which is still one of my favorite lenses. That's a good starting kit right there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's actually the lens I got with that camera when I bought the, I bought that as a kid. It came with the, sorry, I just heard a weird voice.

It might've been my, my Hey lady person. You know, the, the, it was, it was, oh, oh, oh, what's her name? It begins with an A and ends with an A and L-E-X in the middle. Yeah. But I have my headphones on, so I heard a voice. I was like, there's someone in the room with me. Anyway.

Yeah so she she used that and she knew what she was doing she does she knows cameras which was cool i haven't i haven't downloaded the pictures yet but it was fun to be a tourist in my own city with you know with cameras and stuff like that but i still haven't downloaded the pictures i got all these pictures on my x100 because that was a nice camera to carry around with me but you know what most of the stuff i did was on my phone surprisingly you know i mean that really

is that's really the the fill-in for you know point and shoot and stuff like that and it's just you know the quality was really it's just really good and although i did take selfies with my x100 f i mean x106 vi yeah i'm kind of straight i know i know i'm not gonna get it and they were pretty good actually because i wanted this shallower depth of field and i just wanted that that look And so I did some selfies in front of the Manhattan bridge.

Well, you know, there's a street down there called, uh, is it Washington street or something like that?

And it's like, they had to close it off. Cause now everybody goes there and takes a picture with the Manhattan bridge in the background and, and, you know, you go there and just, everybody's taking pictures and said, well, you know, we're, we're tourists. Let's, let's do the same thing. Yeah. So, you know, started taking pictures of ourselves, but I used the, I used the X 100 and it was, those pictures came out nice. So, so anyway, I got a lot of pictures to download, so cool.

So yeah, nothing, nothing again, I, I haven't done any downloading and stuff like that. You know, I was sort of circling the wagons winter kind of stuff. I mean, I don't know. I feel like I should be going out and, and taking more pictures. I do have classes coming up, so that sort of gets me sparked tomorrow. Tomorrow I've got a class at the library and it's a photo journaling class.

So that's always a fun class to teach because I get to, I don't know if I've described it to you here before but like what we actually did a little bit yeah yeah so what i do is like like you know basically it's a little geeking out with the materials and stuff but then i want to talk to them about like prompts and stuff like that and i i grab a bunch of pictures historic pictures and i made little prints of them and the idea is like at the sort of there's

a time when everybody can start to write in the journals plus i give everybody a journal and a fountain pen So then nobody has, you know, nobody comes unprepared. They can all write in it. And in my handout, I give, I think I made about 20 different pictures, right?

So there's a lot of famous pictures, like, you know, the Irving Penn picture of, you know, Picasso and one of my pictures of the Brooklyn Bridge and, you know, a few others. So I've been, there's a total of 20. Oh, you know, Dorothy Lange's the migrant mother and whatever. And I give them QR codes that I linked to pages that were associated with them. And I give them a choice to either write about the pictures or.

Sight unseen like they may know about them already basically i put all these pictures on the on the table and say everybody grab you know you know a couple and and just write about them for about 15 or 20 minutes but i do give them the opportunity to go and look at the websites on their phone so if they want to get a context of the image ahead of time you know so i kind of encourage that because you know for me i'm really about the photography history part

and i think it's useful to know at least some context but it's not necessary so people just grab it and they tape them into their books and they start writing and then and then you know when we wrap up it's like just telling everybody you know hey what did you what were the thoughts were where did you go with these pictures and stuff like that so cool so that's tomorrow night and then i've got my regular digital photography classes coming up i've got actually a remote or a second i

keep on saying remote a zoom class which i thought we were sort of moving out of so it's just a basic photography zoom class on saturday which yeah you know maybe maybe saturday will be lousy weather here so people will be you know apt to be indoors so but that's okay yeah that's that's that's all i'm doing and yeah we were speaking of books before during during the the week that. Angie was here. We did a bunch of museums and I cannot remember where I got this book.

I think this might've been at the Brooklyn museum. So I've, I found a book on Gordon parks there. Oh, right. It's called segregation story and it's by Steidel. And I thought I would do an unboxing and unwrapping here for an audio unboxing. Yeah. So for the, for the ASMR freaks in there, right? Here's the, here's the unwrapping of the plastic, right? You heard it here first, folks.

There we go. Fair. I'll even crinkle the plastic there. Okay. It sounds like a campfire. Everybody's happy. Right. I, I'm ashamed to say I don't have any of his books until now. And this is his color work, right? So here I'll do the flipping of the pages too. It looks like a lot of pages for. It's a hundred and seventy. Oh, wait, no. Oh, sorry. I cut it short. It's about 200 pages. There's, there's the first 20 pages are text with some photographs.

Essays by, let's see. People who I don't know, there's a forward written by executive director of the Gordon parks foundation, Peter W couldn't couldn't heart jr. Okay. Mikel Roz Russo. Okay. So this is going to be an education because I don't know anything. And then a couple of essays in here, but they're all, they're all his, they're all color pictures, right? I don't think I've, I don't really think I've seen a lot of his color pictures.

Of course, the cover is this incredible shot of a, looks like a family at, in front of some store with water fountains. And one says white only. And the other one says colored only, but it's covered up by a little girl who's drinking water. And it's pretty, I can't believe we were like this once. And then there's all these posters in the background, like lickety split, banana split and butter pecan. And like all these signs in a window for like ice cream and stuff like that.

And then there are these, there's this fountain that says white only, and these little girls are drinking from the other one, but it's like this almost faded Kodachromy style work. It's really beautiful stuff. So I'm going to look forward to this book. I I've sort of toned down on my book purchases lately.

As i am running out of shelf space but i definitely look forward to reading this so do you have any you have any gordon parks books i'm sure you do i do i have that selected, selected works it's five books is that still available no and it's worth a fortune now if you want to try and get it yeah it's a five volume set that was meant for a reference for libraries and things like that and it was heavily subsidized the idea was that it was supposed to go to boys and

girls clubs and libraries around the country and it ended up all of them being snapped up by collectors of course which is not really the point right the whole thing but it's cherished like it's it's i mean you go through it's an event to open up one of those volumes and go through it it's basically a chronology of his career with some thoughtful essays along with it and with the steidel book the the images are they're second to none they're amazing beautiful deep,

black and white i think i don't think there's any color in there i could be wrong some of the later ones may have it may have you know what i'm i'm sure there'll be some of that work that's in that in your volume there, I'm sure, are in that book as well. But yeah, it's very good. I'm looking through it, and there's some scans of what looks like captions or stories on the rolls of film, like Rollie 1, Roll 43.

This roll contains the retake of Joanne Thornton Wilson and her niece, Shirley Diane Curtsy, daughter of Mrs. Allie Lee Thornton, Curtsy Causey. As they, as they look for change, as they prepare to enter the colored entrance at Mobile's Stanger Theater, the segregation system here provides that Negroes and whites do not come in or leave by any passageway that would put them in close physical proximity. I don't know when this was, when this was written. It's like,

it's a typewritten typewritten page that's scanned. Yeah. And there's some, also some, there's like one page here of like slides done in a contact sheet form too. I'm just showing it to you here, but. Oh yeah. Yeah. So this looks like this. I actually, I really want to. Historical document. Yeah. Looks, looks great. Yeah. It's, it's. And it's sobering.

Yeah. and it's a style book so it's definitely quality stuff so anyway that's what i got this week excuse me that's what i got this week in my books so i'm pretty pretty happy about it so anyway you're gonna say uh you said you got a book i got a book so in the mind trying to get in the mind of japanese photography i do have daito moriyama book i have the tetsuo suzuki yeah well i just have the little thames and hudson it's like a little a little trade paperback thing that's got

his selected works you know maybe maybe 80 pages or 100 pages it's great it's like you want to ask sit down have a discussion who was died of moriyama here look at this then we can talk so it's like one of those there's a book that he that came out in 2014 they've reissued it and i don't know who published it but i may i see there's a store in tokyo that has it in stock so i may but it's 600 pages it's huge it's a coffee table thing i might

i might not it's like gonna be like 100 bucks you know and it'd be much cheaper to buy it there and bring it in my check bag or whatever right yeah anyway well that weighs your bag over the limit of well i i'm not a shopper so So I try to travel late. But the book I did buy is interesting. It's not the later 70s and 80s, you know stark high contrast street photography of those guys of tetsuo suzuki and daido morayama.

This is a young guy at the time the book's called east beats osaka 1964 to 1970 the photographer is yoshihiro suzuki and his story and it was his son that got this off the ground a few years ago So his dad had moved from the country into Osaka and as a 20, 21 year old got a job as a, I guess, a salaryman, the way he's described. And with one of his first paychecks, he bought a Minolta SR-1, circa 1959, I think is when those cameras came out.

Anyway, so he started just shooting around Osaka on his way to work and around the train and when he would go shopping and all that kind of stuff. And it's a great document of the time, like 60, just 64 to 70, that six, seven year period when he was a young man pointing his camera at the people walking by and the backs of the woman's sweater and the handbag that she's carrying and some of the people and some young women giggling and a little smear, a little unintentional camera movement.

It's just a wonderful young man's kind of shy exploration of a big city from an outsider's point of view. One of the themes of my Japan trip is, and what I learned from Mexico is I can't live there. I can't be one of them. I can't really feel like I'm shooting like a local. Here's a guy who, Japanese gentleman who came as a young man and shot. And from my feeling going through the book, he's still sort of an outsider and he's a young guy.

And he's taking pictures of all these older people and, you know, in the storefronts and the movie posters and all that kind of stuff. And he brings the time and the place really well.

And it's 288 pages it's a lot of pictures and it's not the high contrast stuff it's mostly black and white and in the middle there's maybe 20 or 30 color images that are just this wonderful warm kind of break in the book of you know the buses parked on the motorway or whatever in the parking lot below where he's shooting and there's this blue light this kind of cloudy look to it and And there's some other warm stuff of streets and intersections and things like that.

So I think it's great. And it's very loose. The way I think I described to you in the chat when I told you I got it was it was really loose and a little shy. I like that. And it's a little bit different. He's not Winogrand and he's not like Friedlander or one of these guys. Very specific, right? He's just like, I'm going to see, can I get this picture? Can I get the, you know, like it's, it's a different, it's a different mindset. And it's wonderful because it's like kind of the outsider's look.

At the city that he's living in. So how is it that he's setting himself up or that you see him as an outsider? Like what's the. Just the way he, the way the kind of glancing, well, I call the pictures glancing blows. Like he's just like, he's just pointing the camera and it just feels like he's hoping for the moment and he's just happening to get it.

It seems like every picture is like that, except the ones that are more formal where he's got, you know, the storefront or the, the, the vegetable stand where it's just very formal. And all the bins are there with all the signs with the prices and everything. You know, those are like, there's no people or very few people. Well, there's no people in those images.

And then when he's out on the street, it's just sort of the camera, you know, he's shooting from the hip or he's, you know, he, he, he's a little covert. And what's nice about that era is people aren't really aware or have any kind of, well, wariness that you're photographing them.

And so you'll get like dead on stairs from businessmen and women and so on walking in the street. And so there's a kind of innocence in it too, which I appreciate. Like I say, it's loose. It's not like a, you know, here's what I'm trying to say about my city. It's not that. It's just these little passing glances, which is, I think it's wonderful.

And it's like a young man's perspective. It's not this kind of, you know, zero in like Bruce Gilden or aesthetically interesting and making, you know, thought provoking like a Winogrand. It's like, it's a young man walking around, taking pictures. Are you thinking you're going to be approaching your trip? Like, like what he is? More like that.

Yeah. And the reason why I got that book is that it's sort of – it's more –. It's more the way i think i would be shooting there like i think i think it would be between this and my my stampede midway if i'm taking pictures of people and i'm not just going to be taking pictures of people but the people that i do take pictures that will be in between this and, my stampede midway pictures i'll be you know i'll be in between it won't be quite as loose as,

as Suzuki's, but it won't be as, as composed or gotcha as the stampede pictures are. So just all this, I'm trying to keep all these balls in the air while I'm getting ready to go for this trip.

I'm, I'm impressed always by, or at least, I mean, not always, cause this is the first trip I think I know you, like you, you went to Mexico before we were hooked up on the show, right yeah yeah so this is the first trip i know that since we've started working on the show together and i'm impressed by the amount of preparation that you're doing for this.

And like i don't think i none of this would occur to me if i'm traveling someplace, but that's an interesting it's interesting how you're approaching it i tried to do it a little bit before i came to new york right yeah but you already had some of that already right because, you're already collecting a lot of books and stuff like you already had new york on your mind in general right yeah and i and i did get i think i did sort of get what i wanted in terms of subject matter

and stuff like the first day i got that bench picture i mean come on like steps away from where.

Oh man that that was very fulfilling so yeah i guess you're right i i was able to get the those hits i suppose yeah yeah and but this i i just i don't want to be completely strange no i catch it yeah i get it and i want all i want to do is have those four buckets of, kind of subject matter ideas in my head i'm not judging you on this or anything no no i'm just like you know the prep the prep i'm doing is just that all i have to do is walk around and shoot And I don't have to go.

And then I'm not bowled over by, oh my God, I didn't know about this. Right, right, right. I didn't want to do that. And that kind of was like that in Mexico, right? So I'm trying to. That's interesting. So you have all that tucked away already, you know, in the sense of the studying and prep ahead of time. And then you're just not having to worry about it when you get there. Yeah. And I've got less time. Well, I've got a couple of days more actually in Japan than I did in.

Okay. In Mexico. So. All right. That's cool. Cool. All right. So you're going to have to, we need the link to that book as well. Cause I want to, I want to take a look at it and certainly link for the show notes and stuff. Like I say, it's loose, right? It's not quite as formal as these other photographers we've been talking about. Yeah. So I think it's wonderful. I think it's a. How did you find this book?

It was on the bookshelf at the camera store. Oh, oh. I didn't know anything about it until I went through it and I'm like, oh, I think this is where this was great. And it's great because it's got a dust jacket on it that's clear that has bright orange lettering on it. And it's very striking with the kanji and the English on it. It's wonderful. Music. I'm not going to remember it. Yoshihiro Suzuki. Suzuki. You're describing him as this outsider in his own, in his own, in his own city.

And I'm imagining this in my head. I'm just, you know, picturing this, this photographer walking around and, you know, in a sense, what you were saying, shyly sort of removing himself from his own place, right?

And it sort of ties in with what what subject i kind of wanted to talk to you about tonight i smell a segue well it was actually a good segue i was glad i was kind of glad that you you mentioned him but let's see if i can do this segue pretty pretty easily that the the idea of of photographers being detached from the what they're photographed but yet having to be present right it's the sort of i don't know if we can say almost opposite kind of being that you

have to be to be a photographer so this photographer that you're talking about suzuki is in his own town but is approaching it you know so he's detaching himself from his own location, and yet he still has to be present in order to be able to capture, or create the photographs that he's doing and so.

I i was thinking about this in terms of like what it means to be a photographer especially now you know part of what i was thinking about was you know we're getting into the in the northern hemisphere here we're getting into winter and shorter days and isolation and hibernation and all the stuff that everybody kind of you know moans about you know for not everybody but a lot of people moan about you know the winter times where we become more isolated you know we're more homebound yeah,

And it just got me thinking about this idea of photographers who, or photography is something that we do very much on our own. It's very much of a, we do this by ourselves. Even if you're in a photo group or you're walking around with people, you're still kind of doing something. In your own head. You're isolating in your own head. Yeah. And in some way you also have to be present.

Present well you don't have to be but it helps to be present when you're photographing to be in i don't know the necessarily in the zone or something like that but being aware of what you are doing and those two things seem almost at odds with each other i don't know if you think that as well so well yeah i don't want to be if i'm putting myself in a situation i think of my street or our street photography you want to capture what's going on and what you see but you don't want

to draw attention to yourself so you have to be there at the same time not being there that's like the way i think of it and that's a for me that's a fun place to be i get to be the observer capturing it i got a little secret you know i'm stealing a secret what's going on i'm there but i'm not there i'm i'm watching intently to see if i can catch something yeah no that's good that that detachment is something that i've gone back and forth over the years with having issues with myself do you

mean in the moral way like yes no but yeah stealing. Things are just or both in in in yeah you know i mean probably why ends up me why i end up creating photographs like you know photographing from the hip to me that is a very detached way of taking shots but also like i remember a long time ago in a long time sorry this is when i was in college or just after college i took a class or like a sort of an after it was uh i can't remember what the class was but it was in photojournalism,

right? I was, I was really heavily into that. And even in my last year in class, we had a couple of photojournalists pop up in the, uh, who were invited to my, like my thesis class, actually author, author Rothstein. Rothstein. Yeah. Rothstein, Rothstein, Rothstein. Yeah. Sorry. I'm Depends which end of the block he lives on. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway, he showed up, but also we had, um, Jay Ross Bauman. Have you heard of him? No, I don't think I know that name. So J. Ross Baumann is a photojournalist. What he was pretty famous for, I can't remember any of his, I can't remember any of his specific pictures. I'm sorry I'm slurring. I don't know why I'm all so tired all of a sudden. Was... He joined the, he made inroads into the American Nazi party and the white supremacists. Oh, the infiltrator.

Yeah. But he was a photographer too. So he was taking pictures, but he, I think they made him dress up where like, I remember seeing a picture of him wearing like a brown shirt with a swastika on it and stuff like that. And he was, he was documenting them from the inside. And at some point he had heard that they were planning, some people were planning to set bombs off someplace, whether it was Washington, I can't remember exactly where.

And he made the choice that he could not, he could not be quiet about it. And, and so he ended up turning, you know, turning them in and becoming state's evidence and, and, you know, testifying against them, I think. Like, and so he, he got to the point where he was, he could no longer be detached from the situation. You know, he was, he was, you know, as a photojournalist, you think that, you know, whatever's happening is going to happen and you don't get involved

or you don't change the situation. And yet, and yet he did. And but i you know i had also heard from other photojournalists who were in fact one i won't mention the name of the instructor i had but it was a photographer who was taking pictures of young people and and he talked a kid out of killing himself and and i'm gonna i'm gonna say this wrong so forgive me but my my mind my my sort of memory that i made up was that, that he somehow regretted it rather than taking the photograph, like.

Like he got himself involved in the kid's life and, and, and talked about a killing himself and I, he might've been questioning his own, you know, his detachment on this, whether he should have been involved or not. And like, if he had just been the journalist that, that he expected himself to be, that he would just have documented, you know? You have another example of that too, a Sebastian Salgado. Okay.

He's like and i said before before we went to air that he's in between documentary and art right he's he runs his his images always have a a humanistic or environmental point of view right and that's the thrust of his work but he had he had covered you know environmental disasters he covered the i think what really put him over the edge was the genocide in the congo, and there was like you know bodies everywhere and a horrible situation and it took a

huge toll on his health and his his mental health and his actual his physical health and so he ended up having to stop altogether and recover for months or years move back to brazil or paris he was based in paris for years anyway he had to go back home and just put his feet up and stop because he was so engaged in his subject matter that he couldn't handle it anymore and so and i wanted to mention too this is documented in in a in

a movie a documentary about him called salt of the earth if we could find a link to that as well. It talks about his background. It's a wonderful, I think, slowly paced contemplation, is my word again, about Salgado. And if you're a fan of Sebastia Salgado, it's wonderful because you see him as this older man. And if you're not a fan, you should watch it anyway. You should watch it anyway. You can become a fan. Yeah.

Yeah, so it's wonderful. And yeah, and it was like he got too close to his subjects. He, he, you know, he's an empath. He was really, it was really tugging on him, pulling on him. And yeah, so, and those photojournalists that come back from these, he's, you know, these war-torn areas and what they go through and PTSD and everything. And you have to be the detached observer as much as you can and at the same time capture the humanity that's happening in front of you. It's a hard thing. Yeah.

Cause the, I mean, these are obviously kind of extreme cases and photojournalism certainly is on that side of it, especially Salgado and any other photographers who do this, especially in conflict zones and stuff.

But, you know, photographers are, are kind of living in this two States. They're both part of the, part of the environment that they're photographing, but they're separate from it because of the camera. You know, that the camera in front of their face, the camera, the photograph, the job or something like that is what keeps the separation. But they have to be part of this. They have to travel with the people. They have to put on the flak jackets. They have to run around like they have

to you have to be there and do this stuff. So that's really one. That's one extreme. I mean, I'm imagining that most people are listening to the show are also not are not in that realm. But, oh, what I was, what I was coming back to saying about this, this photojournalism class that I was taking is that I, the reason why I really wanted to be a photojournalist. I mean, I, I think I said, I might've said this in a show, like I wanted to be like Dennis Hopper in, uh, in, um, Apocalypse Now.

In Apocalypse Now. Yeah. I was, I was, I was like, he's my hero. Yeah. but i i found in the like the even the short little projects that i did for this class, and they were they were really nothing they weren't anything in the even the remotely related to any of these things that these other guys are doing.

I found that i couldn't i couldn't detach myself enough like like in order for me to get the picture and i was i was a student so i was just learning but i could not i could not do the two things i couldn't i couldn't pull myself away enough and then be present enough to take to to create the photographs so but that was in in you know in a journalistic form you know bringing that back to kind of like you know maybe what you're going to be doing in japan and and even like

what i what i try to do around here in my own in my own neighborhood and and i also kind of want to tie it into, I said this before, is that now that the Northern hemisphere is getting into this, into this, you know, hibernation kind of thing, which automatically brings up this sort of detached separation from kind of the world a little bit, how, how do we, how do we reconcile these two things now?

Like with, without being a photojournalist and, and just being like a photographer for who wants to take pictures, you know, are, are they things that need to be reconciled? I don't know. Am I just like, well, you and I being street photographers, there's. We're kind of coming to terms with living in that duality. When it comes to winter and the separation of winter, it's interesting.

There's a painter, a famous painter, part of the Canadian guy who was part of what we've come in our community to call the group of seven, the Canadian group of seven. His name was Lauren Harris, and he drew these stylized pictures that represented the Canadian North, like the extreme north above the Arctic Circle. So you had ice flows and icebergs and the tundra and these kind of stylized images.

And one of the things I believe he said was one thing about being Canadian in this case was the difference between solitude and loneliness.

Where loneliness is the separation the otherness and solitude is a kind of peace in being by yourself and his his images his his paintings sort of depict that there's a calmness a solitude to it and i kind of take you know i'm hearing these words years and years and years ago i kind of take that to heart and that the canadian north and in canada there's this kind of feeling in the winter that yes there's all this this solitude but you can

kind of find peace in it and many of us don't many of us are very busy with winter winter activities you know our, national pastime is hockey and that's that's a you know driving all over the country to go curling too curling curling is more sedate curling is definitely more sedate i'm just so fascinated Some of the older folks like that. I'm so fascinated by it, but yeah. Well, you know, take the shuffleboard and chess and mash them together, and that's for your opinion.

So I like the idea, and I like to, like if we're thinking of solitude as aiming towards loneliness. I try not to go there. I like the idea of solitude. And when we're walking on the street or whatever, when we're contemplating, you know, the maybe, and I walk the dog every evening, it's getting darker and darker and I get home from work, it's getting darker and darker every day.

And I've taken a couple of pictures actually with the phone of, you know, the lights that shine on this freezing pond that's enclosed by a fence and there's trees around it. And it's just this, this kind of ethereal has this ethereal look to it. Or I was taking pictures of the horror frost and the snow accumulated in the trees. The what? In my neighborhood. Horror frost. H O A R. It's a frost that collects on the branches of trees. All right. Yeah. I'll just say it carefully for you.

We don't want to put the bleep over it. I was just like, well, you spelled it out. So yeah. I imagined it wasn't the word that you were saying, but I just wanted to double check.

That's why i corrected it i'm gonna set it up and i don't know this is the word it's an actual word look it up yep yep okay and and so you know taking pictures of these these trees in the neighborhood and the kind of beauty of what's going on at the same time the darkness and you know if you do have if you're one of those people that tends to be depressed in the winter time you know it can be really rough yeah yeah you know and then for those folks i'd like look for the beauty look for you know

a good photo book yeah yeah well and so yeah so it's just that and that that separation i i i don't mind it at all and i like you know the christmas lights and all that kind of stuff and that whole kind of you know there are things for you to look at in the darkness so that's interesting you know as you're saying this you know realizing that this episode will come out just before well we'll come out before christmas and so by the time people listen to this they'll they'll have this show on their

minds or something like that maybe not so much but you know they'll be moving into christmas and the holidays and get gathering with. Families and stuff like that.

And how I was thinking about this, cause I've actually got a family party this on Sunday and, you know, being part of the, part of the family means I'm going to participate. And then there's this part of me that wants to record it. You know, I'll probably end up bringing my Polaroid camera.

I like doing the Polaroids on, on these kind of special days, because again, we talked about this as like in times, but I liked the artifact of the day, you know, and it slows me down, but how to, for me to be sort of in the. Part of the gathering, part of the event and how to also sort of step back and, and record it, you know? And I'm imagining there's gonna be a lot of people doing that this year. I mean, you'll be with your family.

So obviously you want to have a good time and you, and you want to be part of it and you don't want to just be recording it, but there are these moments, you know, I think family gatherings or something like that are often a great opportunity to take really good photographs not, not snapshots.

I mean, you can take snapshots. Sure. Why not? But like, you know, you were talking about previous episodes about going out and seeing, you know, your people from your family and your history and photographing them and spending time with them. So you're actually that, I don't know if that actually rolls into dovetails into what we're talking about because.

Well, what you were just talking about, like from the time I had my darkroom and before when I had Polaroids as a kid, almost all of our family snapshots in our vernacular work is mine. Like, I was the photographer in the family from age 10, age 11. So, so many pictures of, that my sisters and my mother have. And my brother for that matter, were pictures that I took at family occasions like Christmas.

Like all the family lined up was like a self-timer thing because I had an SLR that had a self-timer finally. So all of us could get into the picture, you know. Oh, that's interesting. So, you know, that resonates for me big time because I was the guy that was doing the recording and, you know, burning my fingers on the flashbulb on the, you know.

On that black and white polaroid right the zip right yep yep but so you're you're you're part of the family but you're also the observer as well yeah so how was that i mean it was great okay i got to be i got to play in my hobby i got i got a bit of dispensation because i could spend the money on the polaroids right okay because i used to have to conserve we were not a rich family So I was like, if I could blow a whole pack on a weekend, like on a, on a Christmas week or

whatever, you know, it was, it was a big deal. It was fun and I was happy to do it. And people in, I mean, people love, you know, in those days for always, I love Polaroids. So what recommendation do you have? I mean, recommendation would you have for people? Because, so I, well, maybe even for me, right? I have this really hard time, like separating myself. I, I, what I ended up doing actually for me is I ended up not doing either of them very well.

I'm not very present and I'm not a good detached recorder, you know, of the event. And so like I'm half-assed doing both of them. And since you seem to have had better experience than that, what would you say, is, you know, something to look out for it or something to pay attention to? If you, if you can remember, or if you have any thoughts on that, I'd be curious to hear them. When I was younger.

I i couldn't afford to take grab shots or do you know anything kind of artistic because you have it was flashballs or whatever so it's like okay everybody let's get lined up we'll get the picture you guys gonna sit on the couch okay we've got these friends over neighbors were over whatever you guys just stay where you are i'll come and i'll take your picture so it's an announcement you know that i'm gonna come around and take everybody's picture in part because that

was kind of i think the feeling like you know you're taking these these snapshots these group pictures of people you know it's not it's not the documentary streets right right now and all it's just like you're announcing it okay i'm taking pictures and then i put it down i take the camera i put it up back up in my bedroom and now i'm having dinner with everybody okay i'm off, you know that's one but as i got older and more sneaky then i would just take

those pictures like i was shooting a wedding or whatever and my sisters would make faces or they wouldn't or they'd forget I was there and I would take pictures and sitting at the table with your camera wrapped around your shoulder.

And like, like when I might've done that once or twice when I was younger, but I don't know, I don't think, no, it was just when there was kind of that dinner party atmosphere before dinner, you know, that was a good time to walk around, find an excuse to go get your drink, whatever, knock it back. Take some pictures of the other people drinking. Yeah. Maybe, maybe do a selfie kind of thing. Like Amanda, I seem to remember doing stuff. Yeah.

Actually, as we're talking about this, I'm remembering, well, just had Thanksgiving with my brother and I brought my camera with me and, you know, we did. So, okay, let's all get, you know, we have to get together and take shots, but I like to take the candid shots too when I can. But that sort of keeps me away from like, you know, well, geez, then there goes all the shrimp. I didn't get it to eat the shrimp. I'll draw a box around it, eat the shrimp first, and then start on here.

Well, I mean, I think there's something, now that I'm thinking about it, it's sort of like time box, the thing. I want to be here and present, and I can't do both. I will have the camera for that hour and a half or whatever it is, long enough until you think you got something. And then put it around. Okay. Yeah, I think that's what I would do. Yeah, okay. That's a good idea.

And because I'm looking at the shots that I got that are candids and stuff like that, and they add so much more to the overall, you know, all the phone pictures that we have that everybody shoots, you know, everybody's wrapping their arms around each other and smiling at the camera. And here I am like grabbing, you know, a shot of my brother and his kid, you know, from an angle that is not, you know, set up as more of a candid shot. And it just adds some flavor.

That's not even the right word. It just adds some depth to the whole event. But I can't do that all the time. And like, you know, I'm sitting there like, oh man, at dinner, like sometimes it's the same thing. I'm like, if I don't have my camera with me, I'm like, I'm looking, I'm like, oh man, I missed that shot. Oh, that would be a good shot. You get the phone then, like have the phone, whatever. Yeah.

But it's not the same. I mean, it's, you know. Well, I know, but you, you, you, it's better than nothing. Well. I think if you're at the table, like the wide angle camera, the wide angle camera that we have now have on the iPhone, they take great pictures of dinner tables. No, no. I get that, but, but, you know, there's some part of me that likes a slight telephoto. So I'm a little bit, you know, anyway, you know, first world problems here.

So it's that kind of thing, but I like your idea of like making. You know, a certain amount of time to put the, pick it up and put it down again. And then if you have camera shy family members who you feel like they're kind of being humiliated, then sort of like, okay, you know, there is that too.

A lot of people just don't like particularly the older folks they just don't like the way they look or whatever yeah yeah and you kind of have to remind them that it's a memory for the younger kids while you're here right at home right right and appreciate you who you are now and you know with uh with doing the polaroids or in my case i think i'm going to do fuji instax i have this cool little instax camera yeah well i actually might bring polaroid too

actually i might bring the polaroid and give that camera to somebody else that i i asked to i2 whatever it's called yeah actually it might be great to give the camera to somebody else and or bring one camera and let them take pictures with it yeah you know but anyway i forgot what i was saying oh the artifact part of it i mean nobody i don't think anybody that's not true i'm trying to generalize here i don't want to generalize i think i'm i may be one of the few people who

thinks of these things as artifacts, then it's important. And many, many people just don't think about that, you know, about actual photograph that's been taken on that day. You know, and the thing I like about Polaroids or Instax is that, you know, that's a direct representation of the light. It's not even through a negative, you know, it's almost like a slide. That light is recorded that day.

Nobody else really cares about that stuff other than me. Well, I look at my, I look at my negatives and I think.

A bit of acetate was with me on the day right but you and me there you know i'm sure people are listening to show who've shot film may feel that way but most people don't really care and i hear people who wants to throw away negatives and stuff like that anyway i'm sort of going off off the off the beaten track here so separate but present detached but present yeah yeah i don't how do we get from photojournalism to christmas i don't know that was a very interesting

sort of the getting there for the, taking that point of view into the winter season. Right. Right.

Yeah. And especially with the holiday coming up, I think that would be, that would be a good test of this as well, but yeah. Well, okay. I think, I think to be seen, we can follow up on our last episode of the month when, whenever we're able to do that.

Hopefully we have the time to do that at some point for the holidays are you doing anything for christmas we're having some of my wife's family over are you going to be recording it or taking pictures oh yeah i usually take pictures when anybody's over yeah i'll do that yeah i uh i did my mother-in-law's 80th birthday here last year and that was back in our hometown so this will be yeah much easier to deal with here and

maybe i'll try out that little flash to do these pictures of our visitors too. Do you share the pictures too with everybody? Oh yeah. No, I create the, I have a whole family section on my Smug Mug site and I give people the links. If you have the link, you can see it. I think I did that when I did another, I did an aunt's 80th birthday as well. Okay.

And I think I sent you the link. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That summer I went out on, I was kind of guilted into going out there and it was fun and yeah, there's an album. All right. Well, let's, let's wrap this part up. Any, any final thoughts about things and stuff? Well, yeah, no, what we were just talking about, let's wrap up this, uh, detached yet present part. We went from one thing to another. Well, I think it's something we should think

about in practice. I mean, you, if you're, uh, if you're struggling with it, you know, give yourself an opportunity to think it through and exactly what you're going to do. Instead of just letting it kind of drag you down and taking away your creativity and or your social, uh, your social enjoyment of being with you with folks at this time of year. So being very folks at this time of year. Being very deliberate in some. Yeah. Yeah. Just, just making yourself aware.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, being present in that way, I guess. I don't know. Yeah. I'm not a psychologist. I'm a simple man. If you were, you'd be billing me right now. 75 bucks an hour or something. All right. Yeah. It'll be interesting for me this weekend with, this is my, this is Elizabeth's family and it's a Hanukkah party. And I'm actually looking. Hanukkah and Christmas line up really well this year, don't they? Yeah. They're pretty close. Within, yeah. Within two weeks of each other.

Or at least I don't actually know the date of Hanukkah, but we're having the party on Sunday. I think it's later. I want to say it's later now. I have to look at the calendar. I don't know. But anyway, we're doing it. We're doing it today. We're doing it on Sunday. This is when everybody's available. So, excuse me. So it'll be interesting to see. I'll report back on how that works out. But I guess what I'll do is I'll try to pay more attention to being present and also as an observer.

And I think your, your, your advice about sort of putting a box around it, it'll be hard to do me, you know, sometimes like put the camera down and, and just be part of the family for a little while, but I'll see how that works out. And I think it will make the pictures that I do take more precious in some sense, cause then I won't be over photographing and stuff like that. But I do think I'll give somebody a camera to play with that way. I've got like sort of a second shooter.

Yeah. I think there'll be natural times in the evening or the day where it'll be better to take pictures when things are more loose. Yeah. When everyone's sitting down to dinner, particularly if it's high holiday dinner. Yeah. Yeah. You know. It'll be fun. All right. Cool. Well, great. I think that's it. For now. For this. Yeah. We have one. This is the penultimate show of the year. Penultimate show. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Speaking of pens. No.

This is not the. Yeah. Never mind. That's your other podcast. That's my other podcast. I should do my podcast on just pens. Yeah. Yeah. Boy, that would get a lot of attention. Yeah. Sure. Anyway. All right. Cool. So where, where is the world looking for you these days? And go ahead. I want to know what we're going to say. No, I was going to, I want to hear where you're going to be found first. And then I have something to say. Where I'm going to be found.

I'm on X and Vero at W Ross and photo Instagram. I'm at Ward Ross and fine art. That's our W A R D R O S I N fine art on Facebook. I'm WardRosinPhoto my website is rosin.ca and our unofficial sponsor, who can't deliver from Canada Post I'm sorry that's a whole other thing, that's Ornisfoto or n-i-s.photo and I appreciate everyone coming and looking at the product and been fielding questions from folks and I really appreciate that.

Just hang in there Hang in there, I gotta just hang in there So Antonio, where can you Wait, wait, wait, so how come you're not on Blue Sky yet?

Because i use i use x a lot for news actually right but get on get on blue sky a lot of photographers a lot of photographers are moving there i think that's sign up get your rosin for at least get your name up there this all right don't say you sound so reluctant i can't i can't another another well x i don't use it i only use it for breaking news and yeah artist friends but yeah it's become i think there's a good cool yeah i think that well i also think there's a good

community of photographers that are blooming on blue sky and they have some features on there, for following people that makes it it's a little bit different than than than x so i would check it out but uh all right yeah anyway uh where am i gonna find me i'm blue sky it's at am rosario my ig account is at am rosario photo my website is am rosario.com facebook is rosario photo.

And let's see i'm scrolling down so go to our sub stack we've been getting subscribers and i've got a newsletter it's in draft just i just haven't done it yet because i've been showing angie around new york city so and how about i promise that i'll do i'll write a sub article about my experiences in japan yeah okay so and whatever whatever kind of artwork's going to come out of that cool hoping it's zines or a book yeah um so that that is streetshots.substack.com so yeah

subscribe to us and uh you know leave us a voicemail and yell at us about the uh, the area code thing at speakpipe.com street shots and if you want to support the show financially, you could buy me a coffee or buy us a coffee i should say at buymeacoffee.com slash antonio. Music.

Rosario and yeah we could uh you know i love when someone you know throws us a few little you know chump change and feel like i can say uh the show is sponsored by so and so yeah so anyway uh so yeah that's it i'm i'm getting pokey here but uh it was great uh hanging out with you tonight Ward appreciate it as always a pleasure and everybody, also you Ward have a great holiday whatever you celebrate and if you don't celebrate

I will celebrate some other way yeah you and yours too my friend thank you and we'll see you at the end of the year and, soon it'll be the new year and here we go again okay, alrighty take care man. Music.