It’s the Light!
Tashkent, Uzbekistan 2012 : Market Scene
Torie and I never refused the chance to photograph a market. They can be intimidating, though. Does the person you want to photograph want to be photographed? Should you ask and take the chance that the magic will evaporate from the scene? Should you shoot and take the chance that the subject will be angry? Is Torie getting better shots than I am?
Should you listen to the KGB man when he comes up in his navy blue suit and tells you not to photograph the people you are dying to photograph? (Torie was admonished about this very thing, but she persisted (I told you that she was an only child, didn’t I?). It turned out that KGB men are used to being obeyed and he grasped her arm and escorted her out of the market. That got her attention. To be fair to her, she didn’t realize who she was dealing with.
But we had gotten most of our shots by then. I had time to wait for the shot above. Waiting is vital, said Cartier-Bresson. I’m paraphrasing him, of course. He’d find a background he liked and then wait for the picture to come to him. It’s hard for me to wait, but in this instance I did. I saw more than just the background, I saw the highlights on the brooms and on the woman who naturally turned toward the light as she waited for customers.
Seeing the light is key. For me it was not easy to learn. It took me a long time back in the days when I was going to class. My teacher told me that squinting might help, but it didn’t help me. We worked in black/white film and trying to print in the darkroom was the way I learned to see the light. If you are taking photo class and they ask you to work with black/white film instead of digital, don’t fight it, the lessons you learn will be a benefit for years to come.