Joel Meyerowitz is an American street, portrait and landscape photographer (however I will only be looking at his street photography as it applies to my project). Inspired by Henri Cartier-Bresson and Eugene Atget, he appears in the film 'Finding Vivian Maier' alongside 'Aftermath: The World Trade Centre Archive' with Martin Parr which is where I first discovered his photographs. I really like his work because of all the inetresting people/behaviours he captures. Every one of his street images has a kind if narrative of someone, using some examples from above where a man looks like he is trying to multi-task on a busy street, or the couple who are kissing as everybody else walks past, blurred perhaps to emphasise the special moment in between the two. A clever part of the images is that Meyerowitz uses the background to subtly add to the scene/narrative that he is capturing, with the crowd in the couple image and the busy streets in the bottom left image. This is a technique I will use in my own photos because I want to create the same effect of creating a sort of narrative. I also want to use Meyerowitz's colour scheme because he uses the white balance of the camera very well. His images are not as saturated as Parr's, which at this point in my project, I prefer however I will still experiment with saturation in my camera settings to see which colour method I prefer.

Meyerowitz is different from Parr aside from basic subject matter because he photographs people, but in todays age of smart phones and technology where people naturally pose for the camera and get self conscious easily. From his podcast, I gathered that I should wait and read the subjects body language until about 30 seconds in where they stop posing and become more natural so I can fully document the reality of the person. He talks a lot about finding out his subjects 'secret', and talking about how he aims for the person to show their 'secret' to the camera. I like this idea as I think it is a good metaphor for what I want to try and do in my next photoshoot: have my photographs be so personal that they almost display all of the subjects secrets. He states that he wants to portray the subjects vulnerability though his images. To do this he says we have to "give up our ego and our self conciousness", which will be a big challenge for me because I find it hard to get so close to people and photograph strangers in this style, but I am excited to try it now I have listened to this podcast because he gave some really good advice as to how to get over this fear. This will also help me to use Martin Parr's style of being so close with the subjects.

Also in this podcast, he states: "We (photographers) are walking around trying to find something interesting. We are trying unify all of the things we see in an organised way so that it makes for an interesting moment. The viewer starts to read the photograph, however the text is open ended. We begin to assemble a narrative of the events that are happening in the frame that tell us about ehe photographer perception as well as our own interests with this: so the viewer almost communicates with the artist." By saying this, I think he is commenting on how most of the time the photograph reflects the photographer just as much as the subject matter, because it shows you how the photographer sees things and narrates their own perspective.

Another useful piece of information I got from this podcast was that Meyerowitz travels to the place he wants to make a shoot in because he thinks there will be interesting subject matter there. For example, he said he went to make lots of shoots in New York City because of the diversity and sheer amount of people there. He didn't go to New York because his work was about the place, just so that he could photograph all the interesting people and behaviours that happen to be there. I like this because I have been struggling to differentiate my image from being about the place and not the subject, as I want the place not to really matter in the images as much as the subject matter. In my Oxford and Stone photoshoots (shoots 1 and 2) this was the main criticism as it appeared like I had made the photographed with the intention of photographing the place not the subject matter, so Meyerowitz's work and advice in this podcast will help me not to do this in my future shoots.

When scrolling through my instagram feed I came across this question posted on one of Meyerowitz's photographs. I thought it was a really interesting question that related to my work and was happy to see that he had replied to it. A problem I have been having recently is a negative reaction of people when I take my camera out with me, as they are wary of it. In todays society a camera could mean so much, as nobody knows the reason you are taking the picture it could be for a negative reason, compared to before the 70's when nobody knew really what they looked like, and social media didn't exist to create a negative response to your photo making. In Meyerowitz's response, he reports about having feint moves, and open manner and facial expression to counter the negative responses he sometimes gets on the street. He also mentions his book: 'How I Make Photographs' which is the second time I have come across the name when doing research about him. I looked at the book online and decided that it would be a very compelling read and be very beneficial to my project, so I bought it.

I purchased his book on Amazon because from the tweet I thought it could really help me move forward with my project, with confidence and subject matter. Above are some images that I took of the book, just the front and back covers and the content page so that I could explain he rest here. 

There were 20 chapters in the book, each giving a different piece of advice on how to build confidence and reach your potential  a street photographer. In chapter one, he talks about building that confidence and ways of expressing yourself through photography. He states that "in photography, hesitation is loss", and "as soon as it arises, do it, go for the picture." 

In the second chapter, the be inspired section, he says that to be successful as a street photographer you need to immerse yourself in th literature of photography. This is something I have worked on after reading this book, looking at books such as street photography now and Bystander because these two book talk so much about the history and base literature of street photography through classic photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dianne Arbus and Robert Frank. Research has already been a key part of my project, but only on Parr and Maier so looking at other books helped contextualise my work further. In this section he also talks about Arbus and Cartier-Bresson.

The biggest advice that I took away from this book was probably in the 'own the street' section, chapter 3. Being good humoured, having open body language means people will less likely react negatively to you taking their picture as they won't see you as a threat. I will definitely use this as I think its important to be confident in this way also sit builds trust with your subject matter and by doing this you can also read their body language to see if they are uncomfortable with me taking the photo. He states: "we must be humble enough to recognise that we are all human beings, and we come in every shape, size and colour. you're not making fun of anybody, you're telling it like it is."

own the street section:

ebrace the every day section:

anticipant the moment section:

"t5hings are going to happen. you can almost predict movements, gestures and actions"

"once you begin making a portrait, a special energy between you and the subject comes into being. you have entered their private existence and engaged with them, and they have accepted your move"

find the story section:

let all your images tell tales

"they have the potential to tell stories, not in a conventional narrative way but in a way that is informed by instantaneous vision"