In Conversation with Street Photographer Matt Weber

In Conversation with Street Photographer Matt Weber

By Michael Ernest Sweet

Matt Weber came of age in New York City in the 1970s. In the early 80s, barely in his twenties, he drove a NYC “yellow” cab. Both of these unique situations offered up great photographic opportunities – New York City in the 70s and 80s was a place almost unimaginable to anyone who was not there – dangerous, dilapidated, and destitute. In fact, New York City nearly declared bankruptcy in 1975. Weber was aware of his times in terms of his visually-rich surroundings, which led him to acquire a camera in 1984.

“I drove around at night in my cab when the city was just like Scorcese showed us in Taxi Driver. I was only twenty-years-old and NYC at night was a crazy place. I kept muttering to myself, “If only I had a camera” after witnessing absurd things on the streets, which were perfect for a camera, if only I had one. A knife fight in Hell’s Kitchen, with the blades flickering in the dark streets, would be an example of a scene I only saw once. I also saw a punk rocker having sex with his girl on the hood of a car in broad daylight, and my friend said, “Too bad you don’t have a camera!” In the fall of 1984 I was robbed at double gunpoint in my cab, and it was terrifying. Less than a month later, in December, I walked into Competitive Camera, which was right across the street from Madison Square Garden, and I bought an AE-1 Canon with a 50mm 1.4 lens. The lens cost $99 and it was the best money I had ever spent, as I would take many of my best images with that lens. Later, I bought a 200mm 2.8 lens, which helped a lot as I was stuck in my taxi and needed a telephoto much of the time.”

Copyright ⓒ Matt Weber

Copyright ⓒ Matt Weber

Many of us would happily give our right arm, as the saying goes, to live in times with access to this kind of scene. But it takes more than just access to capture work like Weber’s early street photos. It also, namely, takes guts! Even today, in 2021, I could find many “dangerously interesting” places to shoot in New York City, none of which I would actually go to. Weber’s work is the result of a perfect storm – being in NYC in the right era, having a camera, and having the will to get in there and shoot. Looking at the photos today they might seem safe enough, but I can assure you if you were the one behind the camera in many of his shots you would be in a very real kind of danger. But perhaps it is Matt’s eye for the complex scene that really distinguishes his work.

“You can find them [young photographers] on 34th Street on many days, waiting for interesting people to appear. A crazy looking person is ok, but I need things to be happening with more than one person, unless the person is doing something other than looking strange. That’s why the summer is so much better, because people tend to hang out and things happen. During the winter it’s mostly people hurrying from point A to point B.”

I can sympathize with Matt on the winter angle. It is a very hard job indeed to make good street photos in the winter, as everyone is bundled up in their winter gear, all looking the same. Add a Covid-era mask and you’ve got a lot of the same images, one after the other. I sometimes think this is why younger photographers have become so obsessed with film photography – as it is an attempt to try and distinguish themselves and their work. Matt sees more mystery in their methods.

“The young guys, and I know quite a few of them, are married to shooting film. I can’t figure out why, since film limits what they can do at night. They also post hashtags like #shootfilmstaybroke. The majority of the younger guys love using a flash too, and I don’t know why. I never liked a flash, I always considered available light as the literal truth. Maybe Bruce Gilden is the reason, but I’m not sure.”

Weber himself switched to digital in 2013 after realizing that he was spending more than a thousand bucks a month on Portra 800 and developing fees. It was a game changer for him. He felt liberated by not having to count frames any longer. He also realized that with a daughter to support, this switch made a lot of practical sense too. As with many “old school” photographers, the switch to digital was not the only change – he also began shooting color.

Copyright ⓒ Matt Weber

Copyright ⓒ Matt Weber

“Mike Peters quickly showed me the few things I needed to know about shooting digital images, and post processing in Lightroom. I was fairly good at Photoshop, but adding Lightroom to my workflow was really important. I say this because switching to digital has meant that I literally bury myself under a mountain of images every summer. I try and catch up during the winter, but I think it’s crazy how many pictures I make now that money is no longer an issue. For many years, I attributed all my best pictures to luck, but that was a lack of confidence, because while luck is very important, one still needs a decent amount of talent, otherwise you will still end up with bad frames.”

And Weber did have his share of bad frames when he first ventured into digital. It seems most of his struggle was centered on slow auto focus – a problem too many of us know too much about. I like how Matt’s focus is not on megapixels but on better focus. This has been my grip for a long, long time as well. And, it is the main reason I still use the 10MP Ricoh GRD IV as my main camera – zero shutter lag. Weber eventually settled on Olympus gear with Leica glass.

“In 2013, when I went digital, I bought a few Panasonic Lumix cameras like the GH3 and GX8. Then, looking for more reliable auto focus, I found Olympus and have bought 3 of the Mark II OMD cameras. I really don’t care much about megapixels. I just want fast auto focus that works. I hate when a camera can’t find focus, because “Murphy’s Law” will definitely come into play, and your best shot of the day, or even the month, will be a useless blur. The really good images are too few and far apart to risk having a camera that doesn’t lock onto your subject all the time. I thought all lenses these days would be equal, but Mike Peters convinced me to buy a Leica lens, which was only $500 and that’s peanuts compared to most Leica glass. I was shocked at how much better the images were. Mike does know his stuff and if he had time to teach 

I’d recommend him to anyone. The lens is a 15mm 1.7 and it’s the equivalent of a 30mm lens.”

Matt told me he only shot about 500 rolls of film a year back in the 80s, which he claims wasn’t really a lot. He would wait for things to come to him, he said, rather than seek out things to photograph. The taxi was a huge part of his being in the right place at the right time.

“The taxi meant I was driving over 100 miles a day around all the five boroughs, and I was seeing lots of things I would never have seen if I was on foot. I have to credit the taxi with

most of my best images, since that yellow box of tin is why I was at the right place at the right time.”

Despite this laissez-faire approach to finding subject matter, Matt does tell me that he would often drive to Harlem and look for things to shoot, despite the dangerous nature of the neighborhood in the 80s and 90s.

“I did drive up to Harlem a lot since it was only a few minutes away. It seemed like a whole different planet at times. The people weren’t happy with me at all, as yellow cabs had a reputation for not picking up black people. I never cared about race, I only tried to avoid people that looked like they had done time. There were plenty of white guys in the Bronx who’d rob you as quick as any black guy or Latino. In 1988, I think 34 drivers were murdered! It was ten times more dangerous than being a cop. Harlem had yet to begin gentrifying and was really run down. I never found the 5th Avenue scene of any interest. Rich people and tourists left me bored, but to each his own.”

Copyright ⓒ Matt Weber

Copyright ⓒ Matt Weber

Matt is still scanning frames from decades ago. Although all his film is developed and has been looked at at least once, he claims things are still emerging. He explains that one can find images with new interest as the negatives age. I’m reminded, of course, of Susan Sontag in her famous book On Photography where she indeed claims that “time eventually positions most photographs, even the most amateurish, at the level of art”. Matt assures us we will still see more “never-before-seen” images from his time in the 80s.

“Every time I look through my twenty eight years of negatives, I find photos which I overlooked. If I have the time to go through them one more time, I’m sure I will find at least 100 frames

well worth scanning. Time has a way of making one’s images more valuable, as your images are a virtual time machine, and the farther back one goes, the more frames worth scanning will 

be discovered. It might be a store that’s long gone, or unfortunately quite often it’s people who are no longer with us. It’s sad looking at the street scenes I photographed in my twenties, as

so many people appear, and I remember them and wish they were still alive.”

Matt tells me his plans for the future include looking for a good home for his archives. Even though he admits that many photographers overvalue their work, he does believe a lot of his work deserves a good home. I would agree on both counts. Yet, given the quantity of photographers and photographs out there looking for a permanent home, this task will be no easy feat.

All images used with permission.

More of Matt Weber’s work can be explored on his website at mattweberphotos

& on Instagram