A Review of Dawould Bey’s Seeing Deeply
Copyright ⓒ Dawould Bey
The street portrait, while not always considered “true street”, is as old as the genre that only reluctantly accepts it into the family. There can be little dispute about Vivian Maier’s intentions on the street – portraits. Maier chased that in-between moment that happens on the street – not candid, not posed. Many of her photos were indeed street portraits, but portraits often with only a tacit agreement between photographer and subject. Others, like photographer Dawould Bey, have approached the street portrait with a much more straightforwardly classical approach. Indeed, Bey uses the street merely as a backdrop for what might otherwise be considered traditional portraits. But does this exclude him from the street photography genre? Perhaps, at least according to some. However, I would remind us all of street’s struggle to gain ground as a respected genre and, with that in mind, encourage us to consider a wider definition of what is and what isn’t a street photograph. There is more to gain than there is to lose.
Copyright ⓒ Dawould Bey
Dawould Bey’s new book, Seeing Deeply, does contain a dose of Maier-style street portraiture and it is done well. The mammoth book, nearly twelve by twelve inches and weighing in around seven pounds with over 400 pages, also contains a section of photography that can easily be categorized as modern “street” without question. These photographs, taken mostly in Harlem, are underwhelming for me. Perhaps I just see too much of this kind of photography (taking me back to my initial point). Regardless, it is the “other” photographs in this collection that most capture my attention and excite my senses. These photographs are the deliberate and more classical portraits often made with a candid “street” backdrop, rather than a dropcloth! It works splendidly, at least for Bey. His subjects are not only aware of the photographic process, they are willing and deliberate participants. In effect, they are indeed “sitting” for the photographer. Many of the best of these images, for me, are vintage and were taken in and around Brooklyn, New York. They are humble and poignant; simple in their profound complexity. These photographs employ no trickery, no extravagant post-processing technology, no dramatic lighting, angles, or subject matter. These photographs are raw in the truest sense. These people are completely exposed. They are in their natural environment. They are vulnerable. They are an embodiment of both themselves in a moment of time and a moment of time in itself.
Copyright ⓒ Dawould Bey
Street photography, so they used to say, is an attempt to capture life on the street. Full stop. Now, it seems, the definition has been highly diluted and bastardized by a bunch of academic-know-nothing-types on the genre’s Wikipedia page. I cite Wikipedia here only because it is, by nature, an amalgam of thoughts on the definition and more representational than any single-source opinion. The point here is that street photography need not be thought of as anything more complex than the attempt to capture life (photographically) on the street. If we can still accept this definition, then Bey has made a most worthwhile contribution to the genre. A powerful, well-composed street portrait (even though not fully candid) goes a great distance toward “capturing life on the street”. The people portrayed between these pages are more informative and more historically enlightening than much of the more candid street photography produced in contemporary times. These photographs benefit from being firmly planted in space and time. These photographs benefit from the deliberate allowing of one to show themselves and their lives, rather than relying wholly on chance that a candid photo might capture some sliver of the same.
Copyright ⓒ Dawould Bey
Bey’s collection does, I want to be clear, contain some decidedly “not street photography” photography. Put another way, this is not a book of street photography per se. It is however, a book of photography that I feel is easily contextualized within that genre. It is a collection that informs how we see and accept photography as “street”. If we do not push at the boundaries and explore the periphery of the genre, we cannot know for sure what is and what is not street. This collection of work definitely lives among the boundaries. As street photographers it forces us to rethink what we will allow into our sacred space and what we must reject. It forces us to confront the inability for nearly any photographer to occupy, neatly, that space we’ve so complexly defined as “street photography”.
In the end, we may have to accept that these kinds of street portraits do not wholly belong in any neat category of photography – street or otherwise. Perhaps they righty occupy a hybrid space and, perhaps, that is okay. It would be, after all, unfair to relegate this work to the annals of portraiture, it is not classic portraiture in this sense. So too, it may be somewhat unfair to allow them to sit comfortably among street photographs also. Bey makes no attempt to be candid here (with the exception of a few photos, primarily in the Harlem Redux section). Interestingly, Bey’s Harlem Redux, photos mostly made in 2015-16, aggressively takes on a contemporary “street photography aesthetic”. Unfortunately, like so many other photographs made in this era to this aesthetic, they are largely unsuccessful. Bey should remain in the middle ground. His signature is his ability to mix a street backdrop with a more deliberate and highly effective cooperative portraiture experience. His eye for “candid backdrops” is uncanny. This ability to see a candid backdrop and, at once, compose a subject within that space to produce powerful “public portraits” is rare. Photographers like Mary Ellen Mark, Vivian Meir, and Diane Arbus come immediately to mind. They too all struggled with the label “street photographer”. However, what they didn’t struggle with, like Bey, is their ability to capture the human condition in a raw but humane way. So too, they all pounded a lot of pavement and for me that makes them undoubtedly street photographers.
Copyright ⓒ Dawould Bey
Seeing Deeply
By Dawould Bey
Published September 18, 2018
University of Texas Press
Hardcover, 400 pages
$65.00
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