©
Joel Meyerowitz
By José Manuel Serrano Esparza
In 1967, five years after
the beginning of his photographic career (which started in 1962, when he saw
Robert Frank getting pictures for a booklet designed by him, a experienced
that meant a turning point in his life, resulting in changing his work as an
art director for street photographer),
© jmse
Joel Meyerowitz, one of
the greatest street photographers ever and pioneering advocate of color, got
in Paris one of his most defining images : " Fallen Man in Paris "
with
a Leica M2
The introduction of
Kodachrome-X colour film ASA 64 in 1962 meant a significant increase in speed
in comparison to the previous Kodachrome II ASA 25 from 1961 and therefore a
great enhancement of the versatility and photographic possibilities shooting handheld
of this legendary chemical emulsion, whose realism, unique colour rendering,
elegance, image aesthetics, archival stability and 140 megapixels are still
unmatched, eighty-three years after the introduction of the first ASA 10 24 x
36 mm format Kodachrome film in 1936.
loaded with Kodachrome-X ISO 64 color film and coupled to a
chromed brass 6 elements
in 4 groups Summaron-M 35 mm f/2.8 lens.
© Joel
Meyerowitz
This picture includes a
myriad of meaningful details and various parallel contexts ruled by the persons
surrounding a man that has fallen to the ground beside the entrance of a
subway station.
However incredible it may
seem, Joel Meyerowitz only made one shot while being next to the underground
station, proving his sensational observation ability, uncommon reaction
quickness and an outstanding timing accuracy on pressing the shutter release button
of his Leica M camera, capturing a decisive moment that would become a timeless
iconic photograph.
© jmse
© jmse
It is an image in which
Meyerowitz greatly develops his talent to capture the dynamic and expressive
potential for street photography, becoming as invisible as possible to find
significant gestures, while striving upon discovering a body language that doesn´t
threaten the persons inside the frame whatsoever, with the unswerving aim of
catching his subjects at their most natural.
© Joel Meyerowitz
The core of the image
action centers on the face up man fallen on the ground and the reactions of the
abundant people surrounding him.
Obviously, the man lying
on the ground needs help, but nobody gives a hand:
- The worker wearing a
clear beret, very dirty jeans, a shirt with its sleeves rolled up and taking a
hammer in his right hand has just gone up the tube station stairs and is clearly
in a hurry. Top priority for him is doing his travail, and advances heedlessly,
avoiding the man fallen on the ground by raising his left leg not to tread on
him, while simultaneously grabbing the wrought iron vertical metallic structure
with his left hand to keep balance. He has already seen the man on
the floor, unconscious and with his eyes closed, but doesn´t pay any attention
to him.
- The young boy clad in
gray attire and walking in the middle of the image, seems to work for a shop
and appears taking some product boxes with a trolley.
He is also rushing his
march to deliver the goods as soon as possible. He´s likewise seen the man
lying on the ground, but now he isn´t even looking at him, because by far, the
most important thing for him is to fulfill the assignment he has been ordered,
and while he hastily turns the wheelbarrow on his left, in the direction of the
camera, his face reveals unwavering resolve to hand over the stuff as quick as
feasible, without any interruption, interference or " waste of time
".
- The woman on a bicycle,
appearing slightly on the left of the picture middle area and with a red
handbag hanging from her right shoulder, is stopped in the middle of a traffic
jam, in the same way as the rest of cars visible in the image.
She is looking backwards
with curiosity, to see the man fallen on the ground and what is happening
around him.
- The young boy walking
towards the camera on the left zone of the photograph (wearing grey jacket,
white shirt, black tie and jeans) has seen the man lying on the ground some
meters before, also without helping any way, walking on fastly, and now has
turned his head staring at the watching people standing on far right of the
image.
- The young woman clad in
black attire, sunglasses and holding a bag in which can be read the word Andre,
is standing on the first step of the subway stairs, without moving, engrossed
on her thoughts.
©
Joel Meyerowitz
Almost everything is in
focus and discernible, from the foreground ( with the back area of the blonde
woman´s head, located on the lower right corner of the image, and the young boy
wearing the grey jacket, black tie and jeans walking quickly on the left) to
the bus and people on the right, the woman on a bicycle and the cars in the background.
In addition, the extensive
depth of field attained inherent to a 35 mm wideangle lens, was highly
effective for this type of street photography picture in synergy with the
hyperfocal technique ( achieving the fastest AF on earth, in spite of shooting
with manual focusing lenses) used by the photographer to get it, since the
slightly out of focus area begins in the third arch on the left, beyond the
cars.
- On their turn, there are
eight people standing on far right of the image, very near the first step of
the subway stairs, looking at the man fallen on the ground, but also without
doing anything, while a mature man wearing glasses is sitting inside the bus,
pensive and utterly unaware of what is happening at a very short distance from
him.
©
Joel Meyerowitz
This feeling of carelessness is fostered by the presence of a cleaning man beside a window, who
(in spite of being slightly out of focus, in the same way as the two lights of
the street lamp on his left) can be glimpsed in far background, over the bus,
thanks to the remarkable resolving power of the Leitz Summaron-M 35 mm f/2.8
lens and the outstanding acutance of Kodachrome 64 color film enabling an
excellent preservation of contours.
On the other hand, it is a
picture oozing vintage look, thanks to the unique image aesthetics, visual
signature and lovely colors yielded by the Leitz Summaron-M 35 mm f/2.8, which
in addition, is a very small, light and comfortable wideangle lens to use
coupled to a Leica M rangefinder camera to react with speed, immediacy and
spontaneity to get the picture shooting handheld and unobtrusively.
Though strongly inspired
by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand, with this legendary
image
Joel Meyerowitz,
a street photographer master having excelled at getting pictures of
disappearing and fragmentary moments of everyday life throughout his
fifty-seven years photographic career. His extensive work has been exhibited
worldwide in nothing more than 350 different museums and galleries, having
currently turned into a reference-class teacher of street photography thanks to
his famous courses all over the world, particularly in New York and Tuscany,
where any enthusiast of Street Photography can have a once in a lifetime
unforgettable experience through the lessons imparted by him and the wise
advice given each participant to find his / her own style and way, the tactics
to kind of becoming invisible, etc.
© jmse
Joel
Meyerowitz goes far beyond the capture of a decisive moment, since the picture
brims with life, chaos, stress to spare, energy exploding in every direction,
there are points of interest all over the surface of the frame, depiction of
the vibrant and hectic daily life in Paris, a precise use of color as a real
visual language to attain vividness and pictorial intensity as well as being a
way of communication, the frenzy of people hastily marching towards their jobs,
there is space for any observer to get into the picture, a fascination for the
flux of existence, being in the street for inspiration.
© Joel Meyerowitz
" Fallen Man in Paris
1967 " image is full of complexities, nuances, interrelationships between
human beings and things, parallel stories, urban world diversity, etc.
Meyerowitz has masterfully
captured a fleeting moment in time, putting inside the frame the many things
simultaneously happening and interacting to each other, the unfolding stream of
events visible in the picture, leveraging his outstanding skill and
experience as a street photographer and his deep insight of human condition.
In this regard, there is a
tremendously powerful triangle made up by the four persons occupying the center
of the picture (the worker with the hammer, the young boy carrying boxes on a
trolley, the woman on the bicycle and the young man nearest to the camera and
wearing a grey jacket, white shirt and black tie.
This is by far the most
significant area of the image, fraught with tension and fidget, whose climax is
reached by the point of the right shoe of the man fallen on the ground, which
is aiming towards the bus on the right, in opposite direction to the left boot
of the worker, which is advancing in the air, almost touching the right side of his waist.
Needless to say that the
out of image feet of the young boy clad in grey jacket and located on the left
of the image also advance in opposite direction to the point of the right shoe
of the man lying on the floor. He is doing his best to walk away from the place
as soon as possible, in the same way as the worker and the other young man
taking product boxes in a trolley.
And the woman on a bicycle
will resume her march when the traffic at a standstill beyond her starts
moving.
© Joel Meyerowitz
Therefore, the apparent
dynamism of middle and left area of the image makes a stark contrast with the
unconscious and motionless man on the floor.
And if it were not enough,
the utterly turned heads looking backwards of both the woman on the bicycle in
the background and the young boy with grey jacket and nearest to the camera
interact visually with the young boy carrying the boxes, to such an extent that
their lower intersection is the man fallen on the ground, whose stretched backwards
arms pervade the image with drama, something boosted by the chains of the
metallic fence spanning from the lowest left area of the picture up to beyond
the workman with the hammer, especially the chain nearest to his left leg, which
seems to be touching the face and stomach of the unconscious man on the floor.
The photograph makes any
observer wonder how long has this man been lying unconscious on the ground,
if he has just fallen or has been unaided in this position for some minutes.
Furthermore, there´s a
second substantial triangle made up by the walking worker with the hammer, the
young boy taking the boxes on a trolley and the young blond man standing near
the back entrance of the bus and whose head protrudes while he has folded a
magazine in his right hand, leaning it on his chin and lips, being pensive and
not looking at the fallen man on the floor.
Simultaneously, a young
boy sitting on the right back seat of the Citroen 2CV visible on the left of
the image is looking through the window of both his car and the white car
nearest to the woman on the bicycle, with a hand on his chin and seeing what is
happening.
Joel
Meyerowitz, one of the most influential artists in the worldwide spreading and
reputation of street photography along with Garry Winogrand, Robert Frank, Lee
Friedlander, Helen Levitt, Diane Arbus and William Klein.
" Fallen Man in Paris
1967 " is undoubtedly one of the best and most defining pictures ever made
in the history of Street Photography, depicting an exceedingly fleeting moment
from the stream of everyday happenings.
It´s also a very
meaningful image showing a number of significant " gestures " and a
very personal style of getting pictures in which every aspect and element plays
an equal, vital role, complemented by a steady aesthetic exploration of form
and composition, and above all a constant fight for looking an instant of
astonishment drawn from the daily ordinary existence.
It is likewise a highly
representative image of Meyerowitz´s early color production, which amazed even
the legendary maestro John Szarkowski, visionary curator of photography at the
New York Museum of Modern Art between 1962 and 1991 and supreme master of the
art of looking at photographs, who had already included one of his pictures in
" The Photographer Eye " exhibition held in 1964, three years before
getting this quintessential picture in Paris.
© Joel Meyerowitz
Furthermore, " Fallen
Man in Paris 1967 " embodies Meyerowitz´s lingering appeal for urban life
regarding its gestural energy and fragmentation, the relish of walking around
and seeing all the interactions, the interrelationships between things and
people, the way people cluster together, separate and push forward.
Though this photograph was
made in a fraction of a second, it had to undoubtedly be an instant of
tremendous emotional intensity in which the photographer was able to discern
something fairly interesting for him, a remarkable consciousness of the moment
that he saw unfolding in front of him.
And in this regard, if at
first sight the mystery of the fallen man on the ground makes any observer ask
a lot of questions on what has happened to him and how long he has been in that
position, a further even more important mystery is why the surrounding people
next to the Paris subway station are not helping him.
The genesis of this
picture stems from living and breathing for photography, the diachronic abode
of his author, engaged with it throughout fifty-seven years of his lifetime, an
idyl being instrumental in his development of a sixth sense about the way in
which things happen in the street, a living entity in constant change as to the behavior of the persons, the weight of the shadows, the quality and trajectory
of lights, the saturation, texture, nuances and subtleties of colors, the
unpredictability reigning supreme, scads of things simultaneously taking
place, etc.
Back zone of a
24 x 36 mm format Leica M2 camera. As has been often explained by Joel
Meyerowitz, one of the great advantages of Leica M rangefinder cameras is that
unlike slr cameras ( featuring the viewfinder on middle top of the back area, so the
vision of the other eye and what happens outside the frame is blocked), they
have got the VF and its eyepiece on back extreme top left area of the camera,
enabling the photographer to preserve the binocular nature of the human being,
so he / she can see what is taking place inside the frame and outside it, and
understanding much better that the world continues outside the frame. Besides,
the viewfinder is obviously the most important tool in composing an image, and
Leica M cameras boast frame-lines making possible to see out of their
boundaries, giving the photographers the ability to change their composition to
exactly what they want the image to be, being able to see persons and things
walking into the frame or walking out of it, because an slr camera, whether
analogue or digital, blacks out everything outside the frame, so a rangefinder
camera gives you much more freedom. Needless to say that it would have been
virtually impossible to get the picture " Man Fallen in Paris 1967 "
with a single reflex camera, because a Leica M is much less intimidating,
hugely more discreet, its shutter release noise is much lower, its hyperfocal
focus is much faster than any AF on earth and the shutter lag (time elapsed
between the instant in which the shutter release button is pressed and the
exposure) is much shorter, approximately 16 ms in a Leica M2.
Anyway, this picture is
first and foremost the consequence of pure photographic instinct and talent to
utterly take advantage of observation to know when exactly to press the shutter
release button of the camera and put inside the frame all the elements that
will define the image, in which each and every one detail is of paramount
importance for Meyerowitz, always moving and struggling for getting relevant
instants, as well as being constantly learning to hone his skill and timing as
a photographer to be in the right place at the right time, in the middle of an
observable and sensory reality, and accurately know when reacting in a split
second and shoot, even in the least likely places, capturing alluring urban
life on the fly, without thinking too much.
The once in
a lifetime " Fallen Man in Paris 1967 " iconic picture made by
Meyerowitz fifty-two years ago is one of the most compelling images ever
created in the History of Photography and has turned for decades into a visual
icon able per se to beget vocations in umpteen street photographers and
photojournalists all over the world.
© jmse
It is a split second in
which the photographer mustn´t hesitate at that precise moment, since it is an
irrepeatable context that will disappear in the following fraction of a second.
Additionally, this image
was fruit of tons of intuition and passion in Meyerowitz, who was then finding
his way as a photographer, paying utmost attention to usual daily life in the
streets of different cities to find very brief moments of perception fraught
with extraordinary developments enhancing both his motivation and his concept
of photography as really ideas, looking at the world and seeing in it what
you are connected to.
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When we talk about 'the decisive moment' in photography, the name of Catier Bresson usually comes to mind. But this photograph definitely falls into that category. Meyerowitz caught the moment perfectly with the person stepping over the fallen man. A decisive moment.
ReplyDeleteAdrianella del Vescovo wrote:
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, great analysis