Herbert List on Street Photography

Herbert List was a classically-educated photographer from Hamburg, Germany who traveled widely in the West photographing subjects as broad as dreamy Mediterranean landscapes, Italian streetscapes and male nudes. After attending an exhibition of his photos at the Capitoline Museums this morning, I was impressed by his mastery of lighting, often photographing his subjects with ambient lighting while carefully reading the shadows and framing that make his black-and-white captures both dreamy and intriguing. The view of the sea that I start this post with is a great example, and opener.



What was more interesting, however, was List's street photography. Switching from Rolliflex to a Leica viewfinder camera in the 1960s, List was able to capture the action around him much more quickly, producing active and evocative photos of streetlife. Already a keen traveler and observer, List was able to engage the newfound speed and portability to great effect. Below is an excerpt from the Fahey-Klein Gallery introduction to Herbert List, explaining his adoption of street photography, much of which was done in Italy.

Traveling to Italy in the 1950's, List made several photo essays with a visual approach that was new for him, yet he had always found fascinating. Using a Leica camera, he captured streets scenes of the working-class quarters in Naples. Combining acute observation with intuition, List's work reveals his fervor and enthusiasm to see the miracle in things and their hidden essence. List has said, "Photographs taken spontaneously have often given me more satisfaction than those composed with great care. Apparently the ideas had existed in my subconscious mind for a long time, and I captured their magic almost while passing by." Whether it was children playing in the street, a man selling newspapers, or encounters and flirtations on a piazza, List's images capture a human quality that is charming and full of character. "In alleyways and courtyards, in hovels, cellars, and palaces, he captured the full range of splendor and squalor: children, the aged, artisans and traders, priests, academics, beggars, street singers, lovers, the bereft, gentlemen of elite clubs, and aristocratic ladies." (Max Scheler, Herbert List, The Monograph, Schirmer/Mosel, Munich, 2000)

List once said: "to capture the magic of all phenomena, so that the meaning behind will be revealed in the picture. I photograph what the experts and specialists no longer see, the miraculous in things, their hidden essence." He labored hard to 'capture the essence' of his street scenes, and while it is hard for us (me) to read these essences from this photos without a more thorough look, there are several lessons/questions I wanted to pose, if only to help organize my thoughts on street photography and photojournalism in the city.

1. The success of List's photographs was a combination of camera and cameraman. While the new Leica allowed him to move in close on the action, the lighting, choice of scene/angle, proximity to his subjects and development of the photos are skills he honed over a lifetime.
2. This question is still unanswered for me: how does List (or any other street photographer) creep so close to the action without spoiling the moment? Street scenes are best captured at the wide end of the zoom, giving the photo more depth, but that meant List would have been an arm length's away from the playing kids or the frowning grandmother above. How so, especially if you're holding an bulky SLR?
3. What is the essence of a photograph and how many of us carefully think about it? When we photograph, the object is often the scene. Is there a message that we wish to convey with this scene? If so, is there a better angle/time of day/character/scene that would convey this message more evocatively? That seems to involve an understanding of life patterns where we photograph, itself a lesson taught by patience and keen observation.
   

"Naples - A City Through its Inhabitants". More of List's photos available here.

The Pilgrimage

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Sunday starts at 11am and Largo Argentina, usually the hub of well-dressed Italians transferring between buses, is awash with non-Romans. You can tell the non-Romans and it has very little to do with ethnicity (although, that helps). We just dress differently (or wrongly). A sari or bootleg sports jacket. Maybe a thin wispy shawl. Listening in on the chatter, I can tell they're not speaking Italian. What language they are speaking is much trickier. Wizened old ladies in white saris with crooked teeth and small black crosses tattooed on their foreheads chatter away, second-guessing each other on the right bus to board. Eventually, we do get onto a Linie 40, express to Termini Station and on it, have to squeeze more tightly than most married couples do, that it's a gargantaun effort to validate my 1 Euro ticket. Nobody else even tries to validate their passes--no conductor is going to get through this crowd at any rate. Even if he does, the Pope will intercede--these people look like pilgrims on the way back from Sunday at St. Paul's.

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And so, the pilgrimage begins.


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[Pilgrimage: (1) one who journeys in foreign lands - WAYFARER; (2) one who travels to a shrine or holy place as a devotee. - Merriam-Webster]

In this context, I'm more wayfarer than devotee. Getting to the Rome Mosque (or officially, the Rome Islamic Cultural Center) is a trek for the first-timer. Located on the outskirts of the town amongst soccer and rugby pitches, I attempted to get close to this outfield location by taking a Linie 217 bus from Termini. After snaking through increasingly unfamiliar neighborhoods, I ask an old man in broken Italian for the Via Paroli stop (which was planned out for me by the excellent website of Rome's public transit service)

Anti-Termini

Most European cities I've been to are anchored by a grand railway station (several, in the case of London and Paris), so it was quite a disappointment to come upon Termini and be greeted by a modernist Facade that is nondescript and slightly Fascist. If you did not already know that this was Rome's main station (or a station, at all), then the building (alas) gives no clue. Except for the largest asphalt-covered bus interchange in Rome, which is based right in front of Termini on the grandiose-sounding Piazza dei Cinquecento (loosely translated, Five Hundred Square).

Termini, however, is still Rome's major public transport hub and between the public buses, regional trains (Trenitalia), trams and the Termini Metro station (which is the only point where Rome's 2 metro lines cross), you can get almost anywhere from here and will probably get here from almost anywhere.

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With some wiki-ing, I found out that the station was named after the Baths of Diocletian, which are located several streets away from the main station entrance. Termini comes from 'thermae', the Latin words for baths.

Source: Wikipedia

Termini does have some redeeming features, though. Inside, the force is still strong and between the high ceilings and free-access train platform, a dense array of shops, the flickering Polari boards (like those in airports!) and the neverending hubbub of commuters and tourists, it's still a place to wile away the remainder of your 75-minute bus ticket while you wait to go home.

La Bella Figura

jHELMER_portraitsJ, originally uploaded by james helmer.

I came across this photo by accident on Flickr today. This man was set on fire by the Khmer Rouge during the Pol Pot regime and now lives by the genocide museum in Cambodia's capital city, Phnom Penh, surviving largely on tourist handouts. This photo got me thinking a lot about the beautiful metropolitan lives we boast about in the world's major cities. In Rome, it's called 'La Bella Figura' - the beautiful figure. Or more generally, the beautiful image. It's about dressing well, behaving appropriately, bringing the right gifts and watching after how you present yourself to the world.

In Rome, you see the the 'bella figura' every day. The tram stop on Via Arenula is a good place to watch this, as commuters either rush between trams or 'stylishly' wait for the next one. They always seem to be dressed in black, with some delightfully colorful scarf and aggressively pointed leather boots. The older ladies shuffle around in faux-fur coat. Everyone looks the part.

And occasionally, like I did today, you run into a wizened old woman in dowdy wear, waiting outside the cafe where you've just gulped down your cappucino, asking for a few euro cents. She'd 'inappropriately' dressed so nobody pays any attention. In fact, like in most cities, I get the impression I'm supposed to ignore her and walk away to carry on with my beautiful life.

Which, of course, I didn't. I put a euro in her outstretched palm. It wasn't about altruism per se. It was about me, and it was about cities. It was about me because my family's always taught me to be generous and emphatic. And it was about cities because cities normally hate the poor and ugly (particularly because they are beset by them) and ignoring them is choosing to live in a dream.

Late to the Market - Trawling Porta Portese

We were late getting up Sunday morning so we only got to the market at about 11. Recommended visiting hours for the flea market was before 9am, which was just about right... because by the time we got there, I was bumping uglies with Sunday-morning Romans and excusing myself in broken Italian as I worked my way past the many bric-a-brac stalls, mostly laid out on huge tablecloths or arranged on some rickety table beneath a beach umbrella.



Porta Portese is Rome's largest and most famous flea market (yet it's been only 12 hours since I heard of it), the equivalent on London's Portobello Road. It's located off the main road running directly from Ponte Girabaldi and up the Trastevere neighborhood, on Via Ippolito Neivo. Trastevere, for those of you saturated by historic Rome, is quintessentially residential--it's supposed to be antithetical to tourist Rome, where the 'real' Romans stay. In fact, the residents of Trastevere have been declaring their 'Romanness' for a long time, claiming to be direct descendents of those Roman sailors who installed the awnings/sunshades of the Colosseum. And walking up the long Viale di Trastevere boulevard towards the market, the residential label seems fair enough. No kitsch tourist shops or grand museums; flanking the boulevard were plain apartment blocks with small shops opening onto the street--bakeries, supermercatos, etc. Food and vegetables are even supposed to be cheaper this side of the Tiber...

Now, back to market again. It started to pour after a while and umbrella-holding hurts the bargain-hunting mood. I ended up with only 1 purchase--a secondhand Cokin 67mm filter ring adapter for 4 euros. I tried bargaining--tre euros, signore!--but the smiling stallkeeper thought I merely misunderstood him. He held up four fingers--quattro euros!

On the whole, the market isn't necessarily your bargain hub. There's a hint that these stallkeepers have seen their fair share of tourists and can gauge your spending power pretty accurately. All in all, going to market on a Sunday is a good social experience, if you're not the Churchgoing sort, and definitely good eye candy! I got that the shot of the antique drawing supplies which made me want to sketch so badly, and the cacti below (we almost bought one if it wasn't for the crowds) is from my friend, Stephanie G., who is also blogging about our Roman escapade at Snailing Rome.