Photochemical Graffiti – a rock ‘n roll photowalk

Scott Ferguson replied:

Comment posted: 22/07/2026

Thanks Art! Yes, my style of 'high engagement street photography' has been evolving over the year or so since I started shooting a lot of street portraits. It's both fun and I think when I do it right, results in better photos as the people relax into the moment. I think the biggest 'skill' might be having an instinct for who will engage in an interesting way that doesn't feel like a posed snapshot, like Sasha and her friend. I like getting beyond the posed snapshot look that a lot of people wear like a mask -- that group of Chinese tourists were definitely in that "Instagram Moment" look, but I liked their overall look enough that I found those shots interesting, peace signs and all. But finding people like Kyota, or Sahsa in particular who can connect with the camera in a more intimate and interesting way is what I'm generally looking for. I think a decent aspect of the skill is picking the right people! That tighter B&W portrait of Sasha with the oddly placed shadow on her face is a real favorite, as are both of the two shots under the tree -- they feel a bit 'album cover' to me. I've been doing longer 'sessions' when I find someone who connects with the camera. I shot the better part of two rolls on another punky young woman a week or so later, and that's likely to be a future post here. I'm kind of intrigued by the idea of using the tools of elite photography, like a Hasselblad or a Leica with top glass on people I randomly encounter on the streets -- I'm not quite sure where it's going as a 'project' but it's fun to have that connection over a few minutes! I find myself amused by the way people who don't live here think of New York, which is a vibrant and lively city with all kinds of switched on people. It's certainly not the hellscape some people who are afraid of people who don't look like themselves might suggest, and yes it's a playground for the super wealthy, but it shares the same general environment with working people, artists, dreamers and sadly a lot of people who are struggling from day to day. It's one of the great cities of the world and I love being able to document it in my way. I would love to do some photo walking with you in NYC!

Scott Ferguson replied:

Comment posted: 22/07/2026

Thanks so much! I really appreciate that and feel a bit chuffed that you see an emerging style. I love Washiington Square Park! It is magical, and along with the East Village streets, by far my favorite 'hunting grounds' for cool street shooting. A huge part is the people you find in those places, who seem to be more open to engaging for a while, as opposed to being self absorbed with whatever they are up to, which I find in a lot of other parts of the city.

Scott Ferguson replied:

Comment posted: 22/07/2026

Hi Alexandre! Never worry about giving candid feedback -- and I really don't mind criticism, especially when it's constructive and educational, as you have always been. Yes, I'm enjoying doing more series shots when I can, but it's very much a matter of 'reading the room' to see if someone is up for it. Sasha was great for 10-15 minutes, but then ready to move on. She's got a very interesting look and loads of personality that I think come through on film. In terms of the focus issue, I still miss focus from time to time, but the biggest factor on medium format was that I upgraded to a newer 'blad camera body, a 503CW, as my old 500CM has some kind of misalignment issue on between the acute matte and the film plane that was creating a backfocus issue on any closer shots. I also got a later model Zeiss Planar 80mm f2.8, when my original 1970's Planar went into the shop for the 3rd time in 2 years. I love the 'blad system, but it's definitely a finicky system compared to Leica M's, my other camera of choice. I'm glad you like the new shots! As one of the photographers I admire most on 35mmc, it means a lot. Best, s

Scott Ferguson replied:

Comment posted: 22/07/2026

Thanks Gary, I actually like the layers of foreground depth in that first color shot of Sasha. I also like the layers of depth in the featured image of Kyota with the blurred bicycle very close to the lens, and the pedestrian crossing in the midground, and the frame receding into the dark depths of the store framed in the punk sticker covered doorway. I don't know whether he was doing anything recreational of that nature, but he was very nice to talk to, and loved the photos when I shared them.

Gary Smith replied:

Comment posted: 22/07/2026

Glad you were able to share the shots.

Scott Ferguson replied:

Comment posted: 22/07/2026

I've always wanted to be the Margaret Mead of something... Thanks for the kind words, I do feel like I'm settling on a bit of a style and subject matter that I find interesting and fun. And I do find the newer 'blad gear really strong and much more reliable than the early 1970's model I started with. What a great system! I hope they decide to revisit making film cameras someday, like Leica have (as I think I'd need a 2nd mortgage to afford one of their current model digital cameras. Plus, I struggle to love the look of the super high end digital shots often I see -- they feel a little 'processed' and just a touch phony to the eye where things are a little sharper and brighter and more saturated than real life. With film, I find the image rich and deep, but with a more pleasing amount of texture and grain. i'm still testing the 120 Makro, but feel like it's going to be a great companion lens to the 80mm.

Scott Ferguson replied:

Comment posted: 22/07/2026

Thanks Erik! Yes, Kyota and Sasha were the standouts that afternoon, but Greenwich Village, East and West is full of fun characters, and I suspect you'll be seeing more in future posts! I look forward to seeing your posts! I find the rules of engagement with photography and privacy and free expression in the EU interesting, especially in our current era where our ability to record and share data & information has outgrown our ability to handle it, either as creators or consumers. I've heard from some of your fellow EU residents saying that they couldn't take the kinds of photos I do here in the US because of rights to privacy. I've also heard people on the hard right over here in the US acting as if there's no free speech in the EU because there are different rules of engagement as it relates to certain kinds of provocative political speech. My own view is that we probably need some more guardrails than we currently have here, but at the moment, we lack a universally respected 'referee' in terms of who would administer any rules of the road. I think this kind of thing happens when new forms of communication emerge and society needs time to grow into the new technology, going back to Guttenberg and the Reformation. In terms of my photography, when I first started trying to shoot people in NYC, I was very timid and tried to be a 'fly on the wall' like Vivian Maier, and capture interesting moments unobserved. I was terrible at it, never ready with the camera, and never at the right distance from the subject, and not particularly good at finding anything interesting. A little over a year ago, I got into a fairly lengthy and somewhat heated conversation with a punk rocker on the same park benches that Sasha's pick up band were playing on, and he was offended that I grabbed a photo without asking his permission in advance. I have a photo of him giving me the finger as I snapped that I promised I would not share publicly since he didn't give me consent, and I've honored that rule. While I think I may have been technically right in terms of US 1st Amendment rules, I also realized that I wasn't really all that interested in aggressively 'taking' people's images, and began to ask first before shooting, which has totally transformed my approach and improved my photos. Best, s

Erik Brammer replied:

Comment posted: 22/07/2026

Thank you, Scott. I haven’t taken that many urban people portraits yet, and when I did and asked for permission, I told them I won’t publish those images but I would be happy to email the scanned image files with them. So I respect their promised privacy. But I should ask people in the future whether they would mind to have their photographs presented in an article here. As far as freedom of speech here in the EU is concerned, there are absolutely no limitations. We can say pretty much anything we want here in Germany. In public TV, think for the likes of John Steward, John Oliver etc. Sometimes I actually wonder where the boundary to personal insult is crossed. Ironically it’s the very right extremist party AfD that claims there is no freedom of speech in Germany, but it’s that very party that will likely limit the freedom of speech if they get into power on federal level. It’s frightening. And it’s certain people from that party that publicly deny the holocaust and similar terrible crimes the Germans have committed during the Nazi era - and those denials are in fact illegal and about the only limitation of freedom of speech - rightly so. I am looking forward to your next articles to distract myself with something more enjoyable than these political worries.

Scott Ferguson replied:

Comment posted: 22/07/2026

Hey Erik, I totally respect your approach with people and consent to take and share photographs. Most often, I will use my Instagram ID as a way to share the image with 80% of the people I ask for a photo, and I try to tag them if I use their image in a post. Frequently I will share the photos with the subject before I post them, and one time a young woman asked me not to post because she wasn't happy with how she looked. Otherwise, I try to tag people when I post them, and only one time has someone asked me to take a photo down once I had posted it, which I did, even though he had consented to the photo and we shared our info. But occasionally there will be good photos that I like where I didn't have the opportunity to get someone's info, like the Led Zeppelin fan -- and I'll use my judgment on whether to post it or not. I'd say that these days I get some level of consent -- either verbal or non-verbal through gestures for 95% of the photos I take where a single person or a couple of people are clearly the subject of the photo. And I never take shots of people who decline a photo. I'll spare you and the readership more political worries, but I'm glad you are able to say anything you want to in Germany!

Erik Brammer replied:

Comment posted: 22/07/2026

Thanks, Scott, the Instagram thing is an excellent way, and since I am a late-comer to Instagram, it’s something I am yet to get used to. :-)

Scott Ferguson replied:

Comment posted: 23/07/2026

Thanks Gary, I think the answer is right there in the post -- no doubt, like the 1960's hippies, many of today's 3rd or 4th generation punks will go 'straight' and live more conventional lives, with jobs, mortgages and families, but at least some of them, like Angel Idealism (who was an early 2nd Gen"No Wave" post punk back in the day and is still at it) and the guy in front of the "Physical Graffiti" building will keep living that lifestyle. As a street photographer, I do end up photographing a lot of people who are young adults, partly because I'm looking for people who grab my attention in interesting ways and I think many of them are aspiring musicians who want to stand out visually and have a fair amount of time on their hands during the day and thus have time to hang out in parks. I also have a theory that musicians in particular, spend a fair amount of time working on their image, including looking in the mirror a lot and have a sense of how to pose for the camera, not unlike actors. I'd be perfectly happy to shoot more people in their 40's, 50's and 60's, and I do when I make a connection, but there aren't as many of them out and about. Same with people who work in offices.

Gary replied:

Comment posted: 23/07/2026

Thank you. You know these folks.

Scott Ferguson replied:

Comment posted: 23/07/2026

Thanks Gerard, I love 'code switching' between color and b&w, and the Hasselblad is an amazing camera system that allows that from one frame to the next. Sometimes I have a specific idea for why I want b&w or color, other times it's just to see different looks of the same image or event or person. From time to time I'll take out two 35mm cameras, one with b&w the other with color and swap back and forth. There was a time when I wanted to be a writer, but found that life too solitary and moved into a profession that is a little more like joining a traveling circus. I think I'm finding ways to make my new creative outlet, still photography, a bit of a social, rather than solitary, endeavor. But even when I was shooting almost exclusively landscapes up in the Canadian Rockies when I first started shooting film a couple of years ago, I was constantly running into people who were interested in the unusual cameras I was using.

Scott Ferguson replied:

Comment posted: 24/07/2026

Hey Jeffery, Thanks for the lovely comments! And I love to have someone describe themselves as a 'fan' of my work! Especially someone who is a talented photographer themselves and looked at far more people's photographs than I could ever hope to! While I'm in awe of Diane Arbus's body of work and the 'auteur' style of photography that makes her work unmistakable and undeniable, last summer I went to a giant show that covered her full career at the Armory in NYC -- reprints but authorized and done under the supervision of her estate -- I was interested in her ability to get intimate access to people, many of whom were on the margins of society in the 50's & 60's, and at the same time a little perplexed by how clinical and judgmental the point of view of so many of the photographs felt. It's a little like the subjects themselves were judging themselves as outsiders and presenting themselves a bit provocatively -- not as they saw themselves, but as they saw themselves being seen by society. That's a little convoluted, but some of the people seem to be trying their best to look 'unflattering' for lack of a better word. I felt the same what when I looked at the work of Arbus's mentor Lisette Model -- her photos share that somewhat clinical and judgmental point of view. I feel like I'm trying to show a bit of the inner person and not just the public 'mask' they adopt for a snapshot -- but in the light of their pride and joy of who they are, not their guilt and shame. My mentor and hero in this approach is Jamal Shabazz, who I think approaches his subjects in a similar way, and his great 1980's photos of black NYC are clearly the point of view of an insider who is a peer of the people he is photographing. I might be a little different in age and background from a lot of the people I shoot, but I like to approach shooting from the point of view that I'm one of them too. And I'm having a blast! From time to time, I've had people photograph me at the same time as I'm photographing them, and my wife pointed out that I always have a giant smile in those photos taken at the moment I snap the shutter. Thanks Jeffery!