Street Photography with Robert M. Johnson

Worcester, Massachusetts in a small city about an hour west of Boston. It's a Rust Belt town, dominated by brick buildings from a previous industrial age. To give my western readers a reference point, Worcester is not unlike Tucson - an interesting and diverse community that isn't afraid to show it's age a little.

Robert M. Johnson is a street photographer who has captured images of life in Worcester and around the country for decades. My wife and I first became aware of his work years ago from an article in a local Worcester magazine. We lived in Worcester at the time, and so we shared our discovery with our friend Damien Gaudet. Damien is himself a talented photographer, so when Robert agreed to answer some questions for the blog, I asked Damien for some help. Damien composed a wonderful set of questions, so I decided to use them exactly as he wrote them.



Before I get to Damien's questions and Robert's replies, I'd like to take a quick moment to say a few words about Robert's work. Across the spectrum of photographic genres, few take a little equipment and as much skill as street photography. It's the art of capturing a moment as it exists, and Robert does this wonderfully. His subjects are intriguing and interesting people, usually in action, always a part of the environment they're interacting with. He ranges from street scenes to shots of television screens that capture iconic moments in history. Robert entitles nearly all his photographs "Street - Documentary," though, as a former Worcesterite and admirer of his work, I believe he could confidently entitle them "Life - Documentary." See more of Robert's photographs on his Flickr page or at his website, Fullframeimages.com.

Here are Damien's questions and Robert's responses. I'd like to thank both of them for their time and generosity, particularly Robert for sharing his art, his experience, and for inspiring us to capture life and share it with others.

Damien - Street photography is candid by nature, but do you set out wandering the city with any specific goals or is your process more organic, with you simply living your day to day life and capturing interesting moments as they happen around you?  What interests you enough to take the picture when you're out on the street?  Is it a face of a passerby, the context of the moment, or something else?

Robert - Street photography has known themes that are often repeated. By viewing hundreds or perhaps thousands of images you can almost pre-program your mind to react to a situation on a subconscious level. The trick is to be so prepared to shoot that it is almost an afterthought. The mental preparation I did back in my prime shooting days out numbered my time on the streets by far. I believe that the reflexes involved in Street photography are very close to that of an athlete. Pure hand, body and eye coordination. Those reflexes do fade over time and a different type of timing takes it's place. 

D - Do you have a preferred lens/camera setup that you use primarily?  Are you trying to keep a low profile with your equipment, or does an interaction with the subject who knows they're being photographed bring something to the image?

R - I have always been a one camera and lens guy. After much experimenting I found that keeping it simple was the best way to go. An SLR with a 50mm lens loaded with TRI-X and I was ready to hit the streets. I am not a shy person and relished the interaction involved in photographing strangers. Candid photography now is almost too easy. The interaction with your subjects can play a useful role in forming a powerful image.

D - Can you describe how your choice of equipment has evolved (or hasn't) over the years?  For example, have you embraced digital over film, or do you use both?  It seems like digital technology would make street photography much more immediate to share, but is that even one of your goals?

R - I think I'm up to my fifth digital camera now. I like the Panasonic LX3. Using it in the wide angle mode at 24mm is a challenge that I enjoy. I have taken to shooting from moving vehicles and that really adds to the random look of my work these days. It can produce some interesting images. It is real easy to shoot tons of crap; the secret is editing your work as it has always been.

D -You also photograph in color.  As someone who has described themselves as a black and white documentary photographer, what made you incorporate the use of color? 

I think I have always had a good eye for color. I added that specific reference to B&W when I put my first photography site up some ten years ago and it stuck. Google Black & White Street Photography and you should find me. 

D -Street photography has come under scrutiny in some parts of the world, especially the U.K., where photographers on the street have had equipment taken by the authorities and even been arrested.  Have you ever encountered a negative experience such as this, and has the response towards you while you're shooting changed since the 70's?  Also, what words of advice would you impart on aspiring street photographers today?  Especially within the context of heightened security and paranoia in our urban areas.

R - I sometimes take the new restrictions as a challenge and shoot from the hip at local stores. Last week I stopped to take pics outside of a power plant and expected visitors. It didn't happen but I thought about it on my way home. Street photographers are doing society a favor documenting everyday life, don't ever forget that!

D - Have you ever been interested in any other avenues of photography, such as traditional portraiture, fine art or commercial work?  If not, what do you get from your documentary images that those other categories wouldn't fulfill?  

R - My first intentions with photography was to take pretty images and get rich. After being exposed to the work of the masters those thoughts soon faded. Instead I chose to get good at a type of photography that for the most part has no monetary value! The best thing that ever happened to me through my photography is my 30 year marriage and three wonderful sons.

D - You have a substantial list of links on your website to other's work and organizations that support the arts.  Are there any photographers or artists that you look to for inspiration on a regular basis? 

R- I am always amazed with the quality of work that I encounter on Flickr. I have had some contacts with most of the sites and photographers that I have on my link page and can say that I respect all of them. (Here's a link to Robert's Flickr contacts page.)

The Mission Creeps!

I'm very, very excited to be featuring an interview with The Mission Creeps here on Making Owls Cool!  The Mission Creeps are one of our favorite bands. It's not often that I go to see one band and end up leaving a dedicated fan of another, but The Mission Creeps got me. We first heard them a few years ago when they played with Phoenix band The Love Me Nots and we were hooked.  They do spooky music that is energetic and they're great live.

I set up this interview with bassist, Miss Frankie Stein, a little while back. Guitarist/singer James Arr's responses are better than the questions and they even sent a long this awesome image by Tucson artist Mel Dominguez of the band and an owl! They'll be playing in Colorado April 7th-9th, so check them if you get the chance and you can buy their albums, "Dark Cells" and "In Sickness and In Health" here on their website.

How about we begin with a brief history of The Mission Creeps. When did you form? Where did the name come from? Who's in the band?

We started about 5 years ago over some pints of Guiness. We didn't know anyone else at that time who had even heard of bands like The Ghastly Ones or Los Straightjackets. Once we discovered our mutual love of surf and spooky music, the rest is history.

I had the name The Mission Creeps mulling around in my head, waiting  for the right project. It's a military term that means being on an assured path of self-destruction which no one can do anything about - and that was just like every band I had ever been in, so I wanted to start a band called that.

Many people don't get that 'creeps' is a verb.

The core of the band is myself, James Arrr, and Miss Frankie Stein. We currently are playing with Rikki Styxx on drums. She is from L.A. via Denver and works as a great fit for us. We have had many people come and go in the Mission Creeps and it always provides some measure of
unpredictability and excitement.

As I read reviews and profiles of The Mission Creeps online, it is immediately apparent that people have a tough time describing your sound. I'm going to be the Cowardly Questioner and ask you to do it. How would you describe your sound? Feel free to include influences, technical aspects (like equipment and recording techniques) or whatever else you think is relevant.

That's a good thing, right?

For the most part, our sound is composed of all the things and bands that we are fans of and that includes a lot of cinematic influences. We aren't 'trying' to get a specific sound, but we do like to focus on 'the songs' and the stories or ideas behind them.

I play guitar through lots of reverb and that can lend itself to a 'surf' guitar kind of sound, and there is no doubt that we are big fans of surf music. But we are not a 'surf band', especially since we
have vocals.

The sound has changed over time from a more mellow sound with a lot of instrumentation, including congas, percussion, accordion, and keyboards in addition to our current guitar, bass, drums set up. This has been partially a necessity for touring economically and on a lighter carbon footprint but also for keeping people on the same page.

We like the intensity of playing as a power trio and how it is easier to maintain the integrity of how the songs are written. We do still throw in other instrumentation in the studio such as melodica,
mellotron, weird noise generator, and sampler now and then.

If you put together any show with any line-up, including current or defunct bands, who would you want to play with and at what venue?

Frankie's first "dream" for the band was to play with Deadbolt. She told me this within 5 minutes of our Guinness and band-starting conversation. Six months later, we opened for Deadbolt in Vegas.

Since then, we've been very lucky to play shows like Tiki Oasis 8 kick off party on the deck at the Bali Hai at night, looking right out over the ocean. Santa Fe Film Festival was another great one. We've gotten to play with and meet and talk with Peter Murphy.

We also got to play a few dream shows on our US tour last Fall. One was on the lower East-Side in NY over Labor Day weekend with Des Roar and Doppelganger where we met Kerry Davis of Two Tears.

The energy in NY was so raw. There was that tension in the air of people wondering what the Hell we were about and also us being nervous about how we'd go over in the Big Apple. And it turned out to be a blast.

The other dream show was in Atlanta with Andre Williams and The Goldstars.  He influenced us not to give up on following our love of music, EVER. At 74, he's still walking the walk and talking the talk.

There are other acts we've played with, dug, and hit it off with. Last year we brought seven of them together for Friki Tiki Garage Festival and Scooter Rally here in Tucson. It was like putting on our own dream show. Lords of Altamont headlined. We may put another festival together this September.

Of course, we'd also love to play a DREAM, dream show with Joy Division or Sisters of Mercy or The Cramps or The Stooges in a tiny venue where everyone gets a sound check.

You played a steampunk-themed New Years party in Bisbee and you also played the Wild, Wild West Steampunk convention in Tucson. Can you tell us a little about steampunk or the steampunk scene in the southwest?

The Steampunk scene is pretty fascinating and still unfolding as its own separate subculture. For that reason, it isn't so rigid in peoples' expectations of what it should be, including musically.

Some of our lyrical themes lend themselves to futuristic, dystopic imagery, and of course we are fans of HG Wells, Jules Verne, and Orwell.

It's a bit of a natural fit for us to experiment with. And it is nice to be involved right now, but not be trapped by it at the same time. Though we're likely a bit more on the Punk side of Steampunk, anything goes.

Tucson is a cool town. What's it like being a band based in Tucson? I'm wondering if the town has influenced your music and, if so, how?

Tucson for musicians has its pluses and minuses. We're still learning as we go.

We have figured out that the space in the desert lends itself to our music and bands from other cities have taken notice and remarked about it to us. We try to maintain that and not clutter things up which is easy to lose sight of and also difficult to communicate when we're working with other people.

You're a pretty busy band. Your third release, Dark Cells, came out last year and your website says you're working on new material. What can we expect from The Mission Creeps in 2011?

Experimentation is a continuous process for us. We're trying new ways to record and represent the music. We've written a ton of new material lately and are really excited about releasing and supporting a new album.

The songs are pretty gritty, having toured more and gotten more angry at things we see happening in the world around us. While not getting too politically or socially-specific, things seem pretty grim
sometimes. We prefer to be sincere and acknowledge it and find acatharsis in it that other people can relate to, rather than gloss over it.

Of course we like to throw in a good danceable song as well to stick with our motto that "It's always a scary fun time."

We just filmed two new videos with local Directors, one for Monster and one for a new song called Any Good Zombie. We are really stoked to see the final product.

April 7-9, we're doing a run of shows in Colorado - Pueblo, Co.Springs, and Denver.

We have an unreleased take of Monster that will be featured on Rue Morgue Magazine's free downloadable compilation, out May 1, followed by an album in June and summer shows in L.A. and New York.

You mentioned in an e-mail that you "have a few owl stories." Lets hear 'em! Any other scary or creepy stories from shows or on the road?

When we first met things were so exciting and moving a million miles an hour. We had just finished going to a killer and very inspiring show featuring the Flametrick Subs from Austin, TX. We were heading back to our practice space at the end of the night to our respective cars, when a giant white owl swooped down and landed right in front of our car. We had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting it.

We just sat there looking at it and it looked right at us for what seemed like a very long time. Then it flew away. We've heard several interpretations along the lines of, "Stop, look around you. You are in the midst of spiritual chaos and you need to recenter yourselves." Maybe it just stopped there for a pit stop. It is hard to tell with owls since they don't speak.

But believe it or not we have a few MORE owl stories too. So it is  definitely a theme or icon that has presented itself at some very odd times in our existence as a band.

Q&A with HikeArizona.com founder, Joe Bartels

 My wife, Erin, and I drove into Arizona three years ago. We left Massachusetts and moved to a place we'd never even visited. When we arrived, I took one look at the desert mountains said to her, "I want to go walk around out there."

Fast forward two months to my teaching orientation at Arizona State. I met the dude who ended up being my most consistent hiking partner, and he told me about a few hikes to try. He also told me to check out a website called Hike Arizona.

I checked out the site and it was incredible - it was beyond guidebooks, beyond trails.com, and (get this...) FREE! In addition to maps and hike descriptions, Hike Arizona (or HAZ, as it's abbreviated on the site) offers the benefits of a community of like-minded people who share an interest encompassed in the website's title itself. The description of HAZ on the site is both concise and accurate:
"HikeArizona.COM is the largest maintained collection of Hikes, GPS Routes, Photos & Triplogs. Data for other outdoor activities such as jogging, running, biking, horseback trail riding, backpacking, off-road 4x4 trips, climbing, kayaking, fishing, skiing, diving, & canyoneering are welcome too! Although a majority of the data is for Arizona other US states are welcome. Outside of the U.S. is possible too via generic posting."

Fast forward three years and I've done a lot of "walking around out there." I've spent more hours on trails in the last three years of my life than in the previous twenty-seven and I would guess that I've found 90% of the trails I've hiked on HAZ. Knowing this, I became fascinated by HAZ itself and I found myself interested in the story of the website on which I've spent so many hours.

HikeArizona.com was created by a fellow by the name Joe Bartels who, in the spirit of the HAZ community, provides tons of outdoor insight via forums and descriptions of many, many hikes. Joe was kind enough to answer my questions about the HAZ website and Arizona hiking. The following are my questions and his responses. Of course, I'd like to thank Joe for his time and effort in indulging my interests.

Q&A with HAZ Founder, Joe Bartels

Eric: How did you get the idea to create Hike Arizona? How did HAZ get started?

Joe: In 1986 my father and I moved from Norman, Oklahoma (go Sooners!). Dad was an architect with a PhD in clinical psychology. He loved to design and build houses that made people feel great with Frank Lloyd Wright accents. Arizona Highways was always on the coffee table. My dreams on the other hand were California bound. Dad was an extremely fair guy. We first rolled into Phoenix and stayed for about a week. With highs topping 117 daily he agreed California was looking negotiable! After a couple weeks in Santa Cruz it turned out Scottsdale had better schools.

Back to the desert and I was a junior at Saguaro High School in Scottsdale. I had an English class in what they call a prefab. From my desk I could see the Four Peaks. I had no interest in hiking what so ever. On occasions my sister would practically beg me to go hiking with her and her friends. Personally I thought she was nuts and joked about it too.

That winter the Four Peaks got a nice amount of snow. I recall sitting there looking out the window. The idea that a guy could sit in the desert and look out the window at snow boggled my mind. Hiking out there was the furthest thing from my mind. Seriously... it wasn't that cool.

About ten years later I started realizing the Four Peaks weren't in New Mexico. I began speculating if I could get to these mountains and back in one day. The internet was just surfacing at this point. I tried finding information. After months of periodic checking I came across a French guy that had hiked the Four Peaks. Extremely excited I emailed him. The return was almost shocking. He demanded I stop contacting him.

It just seemed so wrong. I only wrote him once asking basic information. Had he ignored me HAZ may never have materialized. It became my mission to figure these peaks out. I vowed to myself to make it easier for the next guy. November 20th 1996 HAZ was born.

 E: Any interesting statistics or facts about the site? What features are most utilized? Any features users could use more effectively?

J: HAZ got it's first major bump around two year later in 1998 with a mention on the local NBC morning show. This was the beginning of five years of growing pains. The drastic rise in site usage left me searching for ways to meet bandwidth issues and the onslaught of questions. After frustrations with Microsoft expenses and learning curves I became a Linux geek by necessity. What I spent tens of thousands of dollars on Microsoft turned out to be free and almost easy on Linux. Things really picked up in 1999 when I got a handle on databases.

The most popular feature on site is “Triplogs”. It's an easy way to record your time, distance and memories. It's also one of those things most can slip by the boss at work as reading and writing is a quite activity. Every weekday from about 11am to 1pm the site gets a major rise in viewers. Some really dig into posting details on Triplogs while others prefer to hide their memories or exclude them from posting on the home page.

Posting and viewing photos is the second most popular feature. Since day one members have received unlimited storage and access. Some are casual point-n-shoot hikers. A few are leading up-and-coming photographers. We have printed two calendars from member rated photos. In addition several members have been published in local and national calendars to magazines such as Arizona Highways and National Geographic. The most recent request involved a mural in a church and five members.

The main focus of the site is content. I've despised “link” sites from the inception of the internet. Another twist is I never spam or abuse the good will of viewers. Over thirteen years later, I'm confident these simple principles are working for everybody. The site is loaded with quirks and even some good old FLW design in honor of dad. Popular sites like Google and such have dreary profile pages. So I threw in some squatty FLW design characteristics to enthuse the eye.

 E: Unlike many websites with forums, it seems to me that the HAZ forum conversations remain pretty civil. I've seen a few tense threads, but not many. What keeps the HAZ community so friendly?

J: The “HAZ Forum” is really a distant entity from the core site. It only receives a smidgen of views daily comparatively. It reminds me a little of the bar at Cheers. More of a place to hang out. You know... some times you wanna go where everybody knows your name. Like Cheers some just sit back and view it. Over the years several have commented that the forum is remarkably well behaved compared to other internet tangles. The site in general is meant to be family friendly. Respect is not something you ask for in life. Like everything else, you get back what you put into it.

 E: What are the best hikes in Arizona that every AZ outdoors enthusiast has to do?

J: The most popular hike on site is the “Flatiron” by a hefty margin. Some say it's not for everybody. Likewise I've seen plenty of eighty year olds and children conquer it time and time again. Picking a key hike for the masses is not an easy task. Most hike for a destination, exercise or just for the company. Wildflowers cleanse the soul and bring people together with greater power than anything I've witnessed in life.

 E: What is your personal favorite hike and why?

J: My all time favorite hike remains “Upper Woods Canyon”. It's a non technical canyon that reminds me what falling in love is all about. On the other hand, the Phoenix Preserves, which most consider boring, suits me just fine. Granted there are no hundred feet sandstone walls or vibrant green algae pools. Still the important elements are included. Destinations are numerous, exercise doesn't have eyes and anything is good with good company.

 E: Any crazy, scary, unusual, or noteworthy experiences out in the wilderness you'd like to share?

J: It's all on HAZ =)