Signs of America : John Conn’s Street-cum-Documentary photography.
His is the sweep of time. The unseen changes in the creeping vicissitudes of existence and the people on the street.
He is an outlier.
‘Stranded’ the sign says, the piercing eyes, the stare, the hint of a tattoo. He looks as if he is trying to understand the world, maybe he is analysing what has happened to him to bring him to this point in his life. Maybe he is considering his down-at-heel situation in the overarching history of the rest of the world as it passes him by on the street?
Copyright ⓒ John Conn
With street and documentary photographer John Conn you are immersed. You are on the street with all its pain and despair, joy and revelation. You feel captivated and, simultaneously, drowned in his work.
‘God Unspoken’ painted across the windows of a shop, while he presents images of a whole raft of signs taken from people professing their allegiance to God on the streets.
Conn’s is a visual literature of the street, the rapture of faith, the abyss of homeless invisibility and…his nation – America – in all its evolving glory…
Copyright ⓒ John Conn
“You know, to be honest,” Conn, who has been shooting since the 1970’s, starts up. “When you no longer have any alternatives left, what you’re left with is the truth. And, the truth of the matter was that I don’t remember being good at or interested in anything. But, having my hands on a camera gave me a purpose. When I looked through a viewfinder, I liked that ‘tunnel’ vision of the world. Everything else drops away—sort of like love. All consuming.”
He is playful, his website a series of photographs grouped in themes Signs of God, The Americans and Homeless Signs are just three examples and I share with him a fascination for the semantics of the street.
Copyright ⓒ John Conn
Signs, messages, sent visually to their audience to interpret and hopefully understand in the avalanche of information thrown at us and in the general chaos of the everyday of our lives.
Copyright ⓒ John Conn
A woman adorned with biblical quotes and religious placards passes a group of people on the street. They look askance at her, bemused, while all around them are the big, colourful and garish signs of capitalism. On this paradoxical stage of humility and profit, people take their choice in the urban landscape.
We catch ourselves asking what drives this woman? She wears a bib which also signifies her belief. But, why does she feel this extraordinary need to convert, or attempt to convert those around her and declare her faith so openly?
A layered photograph where Christianity brushes against urban capitalism in all of its branding and logos and slogans – a bit like religion?
Cities, built to house workers and transport systems developed to take employees to work, so that they can produce saleable items of whatever description for the corporation.
So, who is she, who does she go to home to, who are her friends? Why is she out there trying to spread the word?
“I started ‘Signs’—as I’ve done with many of my ‘mini-shoots’—with the need of filling in gaps for my American series,” Conn says of his grouping “What I wanted from this ‘Signs’ mini-shoot (as it started out) was a few religious themed photographs for The Americans. It was easy enough, since so many proclaim their faith or beliefs to the world around them either in voice or written word or both. All I had to do was find them, point my camera and shoot. Simple.
“After pointing and shooting a number of times, I had what I needed but I found myself looking more and more for signs of faith, belief…God. And as I continued to shoot, ‘Signs of God’ came into creation and I soon learned God was easy to photograph. Most used the written word as a sign of His/Her presence. Point. Shoot. Got it.”
John is a native New Yorker born with a curiosity and an eye that makes him want to represent the world in frames, which, in turn takes us out into the streets around us to try and understand.
Copyright ⓒ John Conn
“I grew up in the South Bronx,” John Conn says matter-of-fact. “Always in the streets. That was our playground. Our lifestyle. Playing stickball. Racing over rooftops. Opening fire hydrants on a summer day—and spraying cars and people in passing. People spoke with each other. Knew names. Families. It was a good childhood. No one put on airs. So I take that childhood with me when I go back into the streets. No airs. Not afraid to pass a few words with strangers. That’s how you get photographs.”
It is a fascinating recipe and as John’s work shows, it works.
Copyright ⓒ John Conn
A dishevelled man with a placard that says Why lie I need a beer offers Conn the peace sign as the photographer captures him. It comes from the aforementioned collection called The Americans, a series of street photographs grouped together to form a documentary representation of America at a certain time in a certain era.
Copyright ⓒ John Conn
“Both, to a degree,” John says when I ask him if he is a documentary photographer or a street photographer. “I do favour calling myself a documentary photographer since I want the photos to tell a story. Have someone walk away with the big picture as opposed to a collection of photographs with various stories attached.”
Conn is a thinker, he meditates on the searching for an answer that traps the interpretation of what he does into one box…but, of course, it never does.
“I like to work with a loose ebb and flow,” he continues. “I’m not aware of when my street photography crosses over to the documentary side or the other way around. In the scheme of things, it doesn’t matter to me. I feel they are just different sides of the same coin. And what’s interesting—as least to me—is that, I’m always looking for that one photograph that will unravel the Gordian Knot of images I usually amass on a project.”
Copyright ⓒ John Conn
This for me is visual sociology and Conn at his best. A young homeless woman on the street is looking down. She looks resigned to her fate, beaten, dispirited, exhausted. Yet it is in the reflection of the windows behind her we find the key to this photograph. In the reflections in the glass behind her, we see the world in motion, going about its business, passing her by, reinforcing her tragic invisibility as she melts into yesterday.
“I was first caught by her eyes,” he said wistfully. “They were this pale blue and they just rode on the surface adding to that ‘despondent look’. And, not to beat a dead horse, but she seemed to have no alternatives left. I spoke with her a few minutes and she didn’t say much. I find that people that are truly lost have little to say. With hundreds of people passing you by day in and day out like you don’t exist, it’s hard not to feel detached.
“So the “MELESS” can be viewed as an artistic statement in regard to her situation.”
John Conn’s photography is a wonderful collection of what it is – or, rather, as it was when happened.
“It was simply America,” he said of his work. “Yes, America. I’ve looked at (Robert) Frank’s work over the years so much, that it became a ‘norm’ to me. I mean, America—Robert Frank. It goes hand in hand. But I wanted my own hand in the workings of the images that is America. The theme is so overwhelming, the subjects so numerous, that the best I could hope for were parts of parts and attempt to draw them all together under the umbrella of America. With my work, just as long as someone walks away with a sense of [the] America I present in its vastness, I’m pleased. If not, I’m still pleased with what I saw, what I did. I like my work. Sometimes I get it right.”
He laughs, it echoes around, like his images chime with the multi-dimensional monster that is America.
Copyright ⓒ John Conn
John Conn uses Nikons—D800s. I always have at least two bodies. My prime shooting lens is the 24-70. Backup, 14-24. I also carry an 80-400 but I like to work close
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