Man with red bags and other pictures

I hope this doesn't get boring for you, but I'm on a roll here... I just love taking the little camera out for a spin in the subway... It allows me to do what I love to best: Look at people and show their humanity... Of course I still have not completely resolved if it's ethically OK to take portraits without people knowing... I hope that I add something by doing this... I hope so at least... A friend told me today about the German photographer Heinrich Riebesehl (1939-2010) and his series "Menschen im Aufzug" (People in in a lift)... What a lovely series shot using a hidden camera... You can check it out here: "People in a lift"
The first one is my first one of musicians & performers on the train... It happens quite often, but I've never been able to get good shots of it before... Quite happy with this one... Some weeks ago a performer came into the car and said "Got bad news: I gotta play!" He got a good laugh out of the people there...
The other situation that I want to catch are subway preachers... I mean I'm quite impressed by the kind of conviction that allows you to go out there and basically try to show the world that they are wrong, living in sin and only your way can save them...

I wonder how long their shifts are... Ringing that bell for hours must be quite tiring!

Love this art work... Must go back and try to get a good shot of every one of the signs...

 A little further in...

More performers... Gathering actually quite a crowd...

Actually love the juxtaposition of the beautiful woman exiting the train with style and the man in the back just plainly staring at camera...

Man withe red bags.

Always the exciting moment when trying to squeeze into a packed train... Especially coming in late and being by the door... A lot more relaxing when the door is finally closed and the train starts to move...

I think he figured me out after this one... I'm so glad I managed to get this one though!

Love the scarf!

With a lot of people I see on the subway I'm really impressed by the way they carry themselves... He is just there.

Well... An artist for another one...

I wanted to post something yesterday about an artist I portrayed recently for the German magazine Der Spiegel.
Unfortunately none of my images made the issue... They used material from her shows to more explain who the artist is and what she does... Well, in any case I was disappointed... When I used to work with a sports photographer to do portraits on someone but that person didn't perform well, the stuff didn't get published... I always felt that was unfair... I mean, we did our job, so we deserved to get published, no? And I was happy that this was not the case with my clients... I guess you never stop learning!
Looking beyond my bruised artist's ego I have to say though that my images wouldn't have made that much sense with the other images selected for that story, so I cannot really fault them... Those images will be posted another time.



So I decided to post an image of another artist I portrayed with writer Mona Eltahawy a little while ago: Shirin Neshat.
We met her in her NYC loft just after the launch of her movie "Women without Men" (which is fabulous by the way!).
She was very welcoming and we got to meet her partner Shoja Azari, their dog Lara and their cat (I didn't catch its name but was informed (after I pet it for a while) not to touch, as it apparently bit other guests before.) The cat was super intrigued by my equipment cases and I had a somewhat hard time to get access to them after it settled right on top of them... Well, I was a little more careful as well, as I just had been told the anecdote about the biting incident...

The image was taken during the interview. I usually try to take images during the interview and do some more formal shots after the writers are done with their stuff... This seems to give me the chance to capture more animated sides of the subject as they are not that aware of the camera. What I like about it is that it shows Shirin's spirit, the natural elegance of her posture and the way she uses her hands to communicate.

Not much else to report other than that one of my HMI ballasts broke, so I had to improvise regarding my lighting set up.