Street Photography in NYC

I just got back from three nights in Manhattan. I was able to devote two and a half days to intensive loitering as me and my mirrorless camera honed our street photography skills. Street photography in Manhattan is like shooting fish in a barrel. It’s so easy. I can think of a number of reasons why this is the case.

The first and most obvious reason is the intensity of pedestrian traffic. With so many people on the streets, it produces a continuous stream of interactions and exchanges–the dramatic subject matter of street photography.

A second reason has something to do with the New York spirit. People there feel a sense of entitlement to do whatever it is they’re doing on the street, and that sense of entitlement extends to photographers. A stereotypical New York movie scene involves honking horns, middle fingers, and swearing pedestrians. The reality is a remarkable tolerance. Drivers accept the traffic. Pedestrians accept the crowds. It is what it is. And cameras? Well, cameras are just part of the backdrop.

A third reason (and here I’m speculating) may have to do with the fact that New York is used to being photographed. From King Kong to Woody Allen to How I Met Your Mother, and from Stieglitz to Weegee to Meyerowitz, New York has figured in some of the world’s best known image making. One wonders if New Yorkers play to that. Hey look! There’s a camera. I belong in whatever images it’s making.

Comparisons to my hometown are inevitable. Especially this summer as host to the Pan Am Games, Toronto will be full of itself. Yet it is precisely this bullshit “world-class” rhetoric that confirms Toronto as a provincial backwater. Toronto is like a twenty-something in a business suit–almost grown up, but painfully self-conscious.

When I got home on Wednesday morning, I caught a cab from Billy Bishop Airport & rode through King & Bay, the heart of the financial district. It seemed quiet, almost ghostly, by comparison. It was a cool morning & I realized that most of the people were using the PATH. That’s one of the big distinctions between Toronto and just about everywhere else. The PATH diverts a huge proportion of pedestrian traffic underground. The PATH is street photography’s nemesis, not simply because the underground corridors are dark, but also because most of the PATH is private space. If the property managers want to prohibit photography, they’re legally entitled to sic their security guards on us.

That’s not to say that New York doesn’t have issues around free speech and private/public boundaries. The Occupy Wall Street movement spoke in part to the rights of people acting in privately owned public spaces. Indeed, I noted plaques (like the one below) embedded in the sidewalk along with metal edging to indicate property lines. This sign was on the northeast corner of 6th Ave & E 45th St. A security guard was standing nearby, so I asked him what sort of activity could happen on one side of the line but not on the other. He was vague, mostly because it really wasn’t up to him; it was up to his employer. Then he laughed and said most of the air rights in New York aren’t owned by America anyways; it’s all owned by China. I have no idea if that’s true (or relevant), but it’s interesting to meet a security guard in New York who thinks of himself as indirectly beholden to the Chinese government. One thing was clear: the security guard didn’t care which side of the line I stood on while I took my photos.