Street Photography -- How it has changed!

In the later years of his long life the great Robert Doisneau lamented that when he was photographing on the streets he "was no longer as welcome."

People on the streets or in the cafes are suspicious of a person with a camera. Ironically, not of people with cell phones -- cameras that they have in their own pockets.

When I took this photograph in 1995 there certainly was no suspicion in this amiable, self possessed young sailor's face. He stepped out of a side hallway into the light and by good fortune my camera was already at my face. I offered him my card and my standard "If I get something I like I'll send you a print." He waved my card off and walked on.

"I want my photos to remind people of something or someone familiar and identify with it in some way. There is no greater gift." Earlie Hudnall

I discovered the work of Earlie Hudnall on Peter Fetterman's wonderful "Power of Photography" email a week or so back. Hudnall is a Houston-based photographer with a long career as a photojournalist whose work is also in the Smithsonian. His epigram (above as well as on the entry page of my website this month) is a good description of what I want from my work and why I label it "Spying on a Memory"