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World Photo

Lindy Drew: Shooting on the Street by Zofin Taher Photographer Lindy Drew brings her camera with her to document the streets, showing how you can capture rare slices of life that might otherwise go unnoticed.  Here are a number of her shots from Shooting on the Street. Article rating: 9.21

While walking through the world, the eye is naturally drawn to the beautiful, the interesting, the different and the colorful. Looking at these images through a lens draws them out, and transforms even the most seemingly mundane view into something magnificent. There is no better way to take the normal things and make them memorable, no other way to recall the world for the strange and visually fascinating place it can be. Photographer Lindy Drew shares the world through the lens while walking, driving, and getting inspiration from anything that captures her eye, and the results are pictures worth saving.  There is nothing better to do on a lazy afternoon, the walk from work to the subway, or that long drive through the desert in the southwest than take out your camera and click away. Sometimes you get the best pictures just from being out there and shooting on the street.

The Newsstand

Living in New York Lindy used to walk down 42nd street, midtown, to get to her photography classes, and soon realized that a vendor’s workspace, his office, is completely different from the cubicle so many people work in during the day. Using a 35mm camera she started taking pictures of the newsstands dotted along the street, and tried to “fill the frame with loads of information since my eye is drawn to clutter.” She revisited the same newsstands and the result was a color photograph shot with a medium format camera, which she Photoshopped into black and white to combat the flatness she felt emanated from the color version of the pictures. The most important thing to keep in mind, Lindy reminded me, is that “the final image would be a product of trial and error.” Taking many pictures of different vendors all over midtown gave her the picture seen here.

The T-Bird Motel

Taken over New Year’s in 2005, while driving from Charleston to Atlanta, this picture is a great example of how so many things we pass by, images we take for granted everyday, make visually arresting pictures. Shot with the Nikon D70 Lindy stopped for this picture for “the classic feel of the sign.” For Lindy motel signs are “unique American treasures,” indeed, most of her work has the feel of Americana, from the immigrants, to the bikers, to the American flag. Moreover, being a world-traveler herself, Lindy feels like “the motel represents accommodations for wanderers and road trippers, and I identify with that from traveling and staying in hostels around the world.”

The Nut to Nut

Inspired by her own newsstand pictures, and using the energy of New York City, some of Lindy’s pictures come from just hanging out in the world and being close to people in packed spaces. Taken in Harlem, where there is lots of noise, people, and movement, Lindy’s preference is to “single out people who are quiet and interesting and may just be observers themselves.” Using the digital Canon Powershot S400, Lindy found this vendor who “confronted the camera as much as I confronted him” Here she uses colors, the lighting, and the angle, to show how zany people can be. Simply by going out of her way in the crowds of the city, Lindy found a memorable shot.

The Pawnshop

Driving around North Charleston, Lindy’s eye was drawn to the graphic qualities of this storefront. Growing up as the daughter of an art teacher for elementary school children, Lindy says she tends to make photos with interesting “line, shape, form, and color.” An important aspect of taking pictures in new places is safety, and for Lindy it’s important to “use your instincts and show respect” to the neighborhoods you photograph. Still, this picture conveys so much because it’s taken on the “outskirts where there’s history and flavor, and not everything is perfect and clean.” It is in the older, and less gentrified areas, that Lindy finds these “visual treasures”, places where you might feel like you are unsafe, but “you’ll never know what you’ll learn about others and yourself.” Taken with a Nikon D70, while driving through the city and then pulling over to compose the image, this picture conveys so much because it's taken on the "outskirts where there's history and flavor, and not everything is perfect and clean."  Sometimes being in places unfamiliar and slightly scary turn out to be the most visually rewarding.

The Rough Riders on Harley’s

Lindy’s first published piece from Images: Tucson at the Millennium, this photograph was captured at a biker rally in Tucson, AZ, as part of a documentary class assignment. Choosing to shoot bikers, Lindy took dozens of shots of this family, which forced her “to make a commitment to [the] subject matter.” This picture was composed to be one of a little boy holding onto the driver, but just at that moment the mother’s arm came into the shot and it turned out to be an unexpected surprise. Life gets in the way of what the perfect shot in your head might be, but makes it even better at times. Also, taking many pictures is an excellent way of achieving those few you’ll really like.

The Diner

While driving around at night shooting motels, letting herself get lost so she could see places she'd never been to before, Lindy came across this diner in the Bronx and immediately wanted to capture its “loneliness, emptiness, vibrancy and [the] invitation from all the neon lights to stare at it.” Shooting on the street happens best when you get out there and let yourself take anything that speaks to you in that moment, igniting your photographer’s soul. Using a 35 mm Nikon N80 on a tripod, this picture involved driving in the middle of the night, loud music, and best of all, a friend along for “the adventure.”

Getting out into the world, with a camera, an open-eye, and best of all the need to click away, gave Lindy Drew pictures which allow her to remember, enjoy, and share the people and places she has been a part of. Assessing situations is important, sometimes as important as getting permission for the shots, but most of all, without picking up the camera and going out on the street, these great pictures wouldn’t have been taken at all. 

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