Phoneography Challenge, the Phone as Your Lens: Black and White (and Street Photography)

19 August 2013

Lens:

1. 30th Street Station, Philadelphia, iPhone 4s, August 2013;© Sally W. Donatello and Lens and Pens by Sally, 2013

2. 30th Street Station, Philadelphia, iPhone 4s, August 2013; © Sally W. Donatello and Lens and Pens by Sally, 2013

3. 30th Street Station, Philadelphia, iPhone 4s, August 2013; © Sally W. Donatello and Lens and Pens by Sally, 2013

Let me know which you prefer and why.

Pens:

Gracie (http://graciebinoya.com), Polly (http://watchingthephotoreels.com) and I sponsor the Phoneography Challenge. If you’d like to join the fun, please click here for details. 

When I come across a blog that focuses on street photography, I study the images. Some of them are enticing, and spark my creative sensibilities.

My everyday viewing aims at life’s other possibilities (the abstract, architecture, design, nature, everyday objects, and play with dark and light). My photographic frames rarely reveal human subjects (the exception: family). But I’m changing my attitude and desire to study the street with my lens.

My recent trip to Philadelphia was an opportunity to open my sights to that visual landscape: the street as fonder for my photographic eye. Strangely, my attempt circled around activity at the 30th Street Station. I became enamored with it as a container for human rhythm and sway.

Street photography is an old art: a genre that has been part of art history for much of the camera’s life. Some of my favorite photographers stilled the bustling of New York and Paris. Truly, while it tends to document cityscapes, for me any street will do–rural, suburban or urban.

The Seine River, France, 1955 by Henri Cartier-Bresson

The Smartphone (and specifically the iPhone) has played a huge role in re-directing attention to street photography. Phoneography has become its ambassador. As street scenes continue to be uploaded on the Internet, this archival record is becoming massive.  Some Phoneographers devote their entire oeuvre to public spaces.

Street photography freezes flashes of human behavior: those moments embedded in a city’s personality. That character of urban landscape has many components: architecture and human activity being the most seductive. It’s really the street life that is its center–the range and tempo of second-by-second motion around and within moving and stationary objects.

Australian Photographer Trent Parke’s “Martin Place,” 2005, Google Images

In the Lens section are my entries for today’s challenge. While they’re various ways to traverse our cities, public transportation can easily be at the forefront of a day’s meanderings. Buses, cars, subways and trains are omnipresent.

At Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station I was awed by the afternoon light spreading across passengers, pouring shadows in their pathway. I kept at it, recording those waiting and watching.

My three photographs are taken from a slightly different vantage point, following the changes. Suddenly, I realized that I’ve entered a whole dimension that I would otherwise have missed.

Oh, and I was stunned that the iPhone 4s captured wires flowing from the young woman’s cellphone to her ears. These inventions amaze.

Monochrome is a medium that beings additional strength to street photography. That’s why I thought that my three images were apt for this week’s challenge.

Tip of the Week: Click here to view the Website iN-Public, which is devoted to Street Photography. The site is a collective of photographers who “have been invited to show their work because they have the ability to see the unusual in the everyday and to capture the moment.”

Here are other entries:

http://blogagaini.com/2013/08/19/black-and-white/

http://weliveinaflat.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/lights-and-lamps-in-different-styles/

http://completelydisappear.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/in-her-mind/

http://watchingthephotoreels.com/2013/08/19/black-and-white-phoneography-challenge/

http://graciebinoya.com/2013/08/19/phoneography-challenge-black-white-3/

http://streetsofsfphotos.com/2013/08/19/flower-and-fruit-stand-in-bw/

https://motherwifestudentworker.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/phoneography-challenge-black-and-white/

http://simplylifestuff.com/2013/08/19/phoneography-monday-bw-2/

http://angelinem.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/phoneography-challenge-black-and-white-3/

http://40again.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/phoneography-challenge-black-and-white/

http://sustainabilitea.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/phoneography-challenge-black-and-white/

http://shotwithmyphone.com/2013/08/20/every-city-has-a-silver-lining-iphoneography-photography-nyc/

http://piecesofstarlight.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/phoneography-black-and-white-street-photography-summer-love/

http://zimmerbitch.wordpress.com/2013/08/22/phoneograhpy-monday-black-white/

http://forestwoodfolkart.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/iphoneography-challenge/

Note: Here’s a reminder of the weekly schedule and themes for upcoming Phoneography Monday Challenges:    

1st Monday: Nature

2nd Monday: Macro

3rd Monday: Black-and-White

4th and 5th Mondays: Challenger’s Choice (Pick One: Abstraction, Architecture, Food Photography, Night Photography, Portraiture, Still Life, Street Photography, and Travel).