Is A Photograph Enough?

New York Magazine just published a big ‘what are they up to now?’ feature on Brandon Stanton, founder of Humans of New York, and now up to, as the subhead declares, being a one-man philanthropy machine. Brandon started Humans of New York (HONY) in 2010, and in the 12 years since it’s grown into a social media juggernaut with 30 million followers on Facebook and Instagram.

I became aware of Stanton sometime in 2013 and was impressed by the compelling and intimate stories of struggle and triumph Stanton shared from fellow New Yorkers and so in 2014, partly inspired by HONY, I started a 365 project with the goal of making and posting a street portrait every day for a year. This project was important in my development as a photographer because the commitment to make and share a photo every day turned out to be the key to transforming a longtime interest and love of photography into a practice. That practice ultimately became the passion photography is for me today.

One thing I tried and abandoned during that year was, like HONY, interviewing the people I photographed and collecting their stories along with the picture we made together. I didn’t abandon this practice because I was bad at it. In fact, I was surprised by how much people would tell me if I just asked. It was mostly that gaining such a quick intimacy with people with the intent of ultimately sharing these conversations in public felt like pushing a boundary I didn’t really want to push, even with permission. Worse, I began to realize that the compelling stories I collected were too often a crutch to prop up bad photos. 

In the New York magazine piece on Stanton, he describes his struggle to understand what he was doing with his photos and interviews:

“He had tried calling himself a journalist, but it never felt right. When he called himself a writer, the writers piled on. “ ‘No, you’re not a writer. This isn’t writing,’ ” Stanton said, imitating them. “ ‘This guy’s being celebrated as a photographer, but he’s not a good photographer.’ What do I tell my mom I am?”

I won’t speak to the writer part since most of the stories we associate with HONY are the words of people he meets, not his own, but I can speak to his discomfort with the label of a photographer. I think he can be a good photographer and if I looked back at all he’s done, I could find plenty of solid and skillful examples to prove the point, but at the same time, I don’t think that’s where his main interest lies, and that shows in his work.

Stanton is visually interested in people enough to photograph them, and he needed those photos to put faces to the words that would follow, but his finished product suggests that our surface appearance is mostly an uninteresting facade. The good stuff is hidden, and it’s found in the stories we carry inside, and the stories we tell about ourselves.

Ram Dass said, “When you know how to listen, everybody is the guru.” I think that’s the truth Stanton discovered for himself and his 30 million followers. His tremendous success is a testament to the label I’d tell Stanton to tell his mom - He’s a listener and a storyteller.

Somewhere along the way in my 365 project, I realized that photography was my main interest. Photographs were enough for me. I didn’t need or want the words. I wanted to learn how to make the kind of photographs that were compelling on their own, with no words, or minimal captions if at all. I wanted to learn how to make photographs that hold ambiguity and mystery. I wanted to learn how to make photographs that raise questions, not answer them. If I was making a portrait, I wanted to find a way to show how our inner stories have mapped themselves onto our outward appearances, and the different ways interiority can rise to the surface in our interactions with others. It’s a learning process I’ll spend my life exploring.

With a few exceptions, the audience for this kind of photography has a tiny fraction of the reach Stanton’s work does, and that’s ok too. One of the biggest reasons I became so enthralled and passionate about photography is that it offers everyone interested in it an expansive universe of different paths to travel, some more or less populated than others, some more or less popular than others.

I don’t think the kind of photography I’m most interested in is better or worse than photography that mix images with words and some of my favorite photography books, like Rosalind Fox Solomon’s Got To Go, combine the two in ways that perfectly complement each medium, and create something wholly unique in the process.

According to the New York magazine article, Brandon Stanton no longer lives in New York. He’s now based in Atlanta, GA, and as for that dilemma of what to label himself, he’s now leaning towards calling himself a “channel for blessings.” Maybe if you listen to enough gurus, you become one too?  I wonder if that happens if you see enough gurus too.

I’ll see you all you gurus next week.

May the brave people of Ukraine be protected from the darkness in their midst. Want to help out? Here are some suggestions from NPR.

peace and love

James Prochnik | The NYC Photo Community | Issue 106 | March 4 - March 11