Just checked it on TOP and followed the links from there. Fantastic stuff!
But what really surprised me was when I started noticing how waist-level perspective produced by her Rolleiflex TLR contributed to the results. We are all so used to SLR or rangefinder eye-level perspective that we mostly forgot that something else could be done too.
I've had an opportunity to use my friend's Rolleiflex TLR a few times and do some 120 film processing and printing, but I totally forgot about it (no surprise, considering that was almost 20 years ago). But when I think about it now, what I vividly remember is that shooting with TLR was in fact very different than shooting with an SLR or a rangefinder. Not technically, but psychologically. Here is what I mean:
Our posture and SLR camera operation must be, I realize now, threatening to an unsuspecting subject. Imagine you are a subject: you look at the stranger staring at you (a photographer!) and one second later he replaces his face with a black box littered with buttons, his eyes with a large one staring right at you, and with both arms holding his newly acquired mechanical face. Wow! So noticeable, intrusive, threatening, and a very good reason for a subject to completely change behavior, cover his/her face, run away from us, or even attack us! I always felt like a predator on the streets, trying to be as fast as I could and catch my prey before it runs away from me. And that's exactly the reason why I don't like and gave up on street photography. I don't like being a predator.
Now I remember the feeling when using TLR. I am there, and I am looking down. Before and after taking a shot I look the same. No no rush, no sudden movements, no hiding behind the camera, no threatening body postures. TLRs are silent. Someone may give me a glance probably just wondering for a moment about what I might be doing, but no one gets really interested in what I am really doing. Click. Click. I am still there, people passing by. Click. Click. No need to hide, no feeling like I am stealing something. Click. I am doing my own stuff, they are going with their business. Click. Click. I am not a predator. I am just there. Wow, that's different!
In many of published Vivian's photographs I can recognize that characteristic TLR waist-level perspective and relative lack of intense reaction to her presence by her subjects. They just glance. Or not even that. I can imagine she was just there, the way a traffic sign is, a bench, garbage bin, fire hydrant, or a parked car. And she was clicking. And clicking. And clicking some more. And life went by, undisturbed, unaltered by her presence.
Although it is obvious she was not too shy to carefully invade someone's space in order to capture a great moment, or grab attention of her subjects, I am amazed by the number and quality of her "waist-level I am not here" styled photographs.
Which eventually made me think: we need to be able to do this too! But most current DSLRs (and all from Pentax!) are in fact preventing us from taking TLR perspective photographs with relative absence of photographer-to-subject interaction. But we don't need TLRs to do that. Apart from getting Sony A55 or similar, how about Pentax K-mount EVIL with a flip screen, or perhaps K-3 or K-z(?) with a flip screen? I never saw any good reason why DSLRs should have live view, far from needing a flip screen, but I think I do now.
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