Baltimore Street Portraits

As a young person in the very early 2000s, I began to understand that photography could be an external exercise as much as it could be something that happened only within the bounds of family. So much of my understanding of photography was informed by passed-down family albums full of relatives long gone, essentially strangers. But the world was also full of strangers, and after spending much time in the boom years of the Dot Com era reading photo blogs and learning about storied street photographers, I decided I wanted to try it out for myself. It was ultimately a bust. I could not find a comfortable anonymity, and my self-consciousness with a camera while walking amongst strangers gave me away every time. It does not help that Baltimore is not a city of packed streets in the way that, say, New York is. To photograph is a conspicuous act, and one that draws curiosity and attention. Chagrined, I determined that the only way to engage with the people with whom I shared the street was to stop and ask them if I could. And so, my dabbling in street photography came to an early close, and I began a long journey in street portraiture.

Over the past twenty years, I have asked many hundreds of people if I could take their picture, and I am still surprised by how often the answer is yes. The conspicuousness that once undid me turned out to be a muse. Carrying a camera out in the open announces an interest in experience rather than conceals one, and it has admitted me to moments I would otherwise have had no business witnessing. I go into the world with no expectations, and am always pleased to meet a neighbor, or to sit with a stranger for a while and learn about all manner of things: pigeon-keeping, neighborhood histories, horseback riding, and so on. For a minute or two the two of us are part of each other’s day, and then the street takes us back and we are strangers again.