On Incidental Collections and Street Photography

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Over the last several years, I have spent an enormous amount of time looking back over my trove of photographs and, on several occasions, I have come to realize that I inadvertently and repeatedly gravitate toward certain specific imagery over the years.  Once I identified one of these suspect themes, I began to corral these photographs into a category labeled “Incidental Collections.” 

I know this curiosity is something that happens to almost all photographers, maybe especially ones that work in high volume.  Word is that humans are creatures of habit; it could be as simple as that. Or maybe I am just not that clever and fall into old practices, maybe in hopes of stimulating something new.

But I also think that the nature of street photography demands a certain amount of one’s unconscious mind to be at work. Often, the speed at which one needs to photograph fleeting scenes requires almost a muscle memory reaction. On a good day, at a full pace, on a crowded street, your body can be taken for a ride by your camera and primal intuition. It is one of the things I love about photographing.  Developing a skill set to frame and successfully execute the desired photograph within those microseconds can be a never-ending endeavor and the most admirable of street photographers likely rival professional athletes in their kinetic intelligence. 

Sometimes though, there is nothing better than dumb luck.  But with this honed attention, the photographer is able to collaborate with luck.  James Agee explained this collaboration as luck being in a “semi-domesticated” state, battling or in partnership, with the happiest of victories ending in a draw. Luck can always be helped along. A quote by Andre Breton about Henri Cartier-Bresson sums this up well:

“Actually it’s true that he’s not waiting for anyone since he’s not made any appointment, but the very fact that he’s adopting this ultra-receptive posture means that by this he wants to help chance along, how should I say, to put himself in a state of grace with chance, so that something might happen, so that someone might drop in.”

But back to the subject of Incidental Collections… I believe these certain unconscious creative intuitions, for one reason or another, can lead to the repeated and inadvertent photographing of particular subject matter: in the case of this series, “Old Glory,” the American flag. It presents itself in several of my photographic series. It is obviously not the most original or overly complex theme in photographic history, but the flag presented itself hundreds upon hundreds of times in my photo archive, which was enough to catch my attention.

A surface level analysis of why I am drawn to photographing “Old Glory” so extensively over the years, (besides that my subconscious must be remarkably patriotic) is likely I keep attempting to make a photograph of the American flag as striking as those taken by some of my favorite photographers— specifically a couple in Robert Frank’s “The Americans.” There is no escaping the influence of all that came before you and, when handled well, I think that is a great thing. 

In a deeper dive though, I believe most of my Incidentals act as more of a slow and semi-conscious meditation on a subject. As simple as the American flag is as an image, it is a loaded icon.  I do not believe there is a way of separating ourselves emotionally as Americans from the American flag. From a young age, we are taught to pledge allegiance to it. Many Americans have served or have had family members serve in foreign wars under it, and many Americans have also protested those same wars under it. As Americans we become inflamed, often for very different reasons, by the context in which the flag is present and for what cause it is utilized. Our flag bore witness to America’s most honorable and most disgraceful moments in its history. 

For many of these reasons, when allowed to reflect on the American flag it often forces us to think of who we are as Americans, what America is supposed to symbolize and how it often falls short of those symbolic values. My photo series, “This Country of Ours,” attempts to contemplate some of these same issues and leads with a photograph including the American flag, probably my favorite of “Old Glory” that I have made.

Other Incidental Collections I have accumulated fall into a similar category as the American flag, seemingly simple imagery that can make for heavy themes.  “Holy Ghosts” is a collection of Christian and Christian-related photos. This unplanned series, like “Old Glory,” contains photographs over the span of 15 years, without any image having any conscious connection to one another, but a theme my camera repeatedly found its way in front of.  Other collections played out similarly: “Friedlander Shadows,” a series around self-portraiture, and “The Long Nap,” the result of combining two of these collections, people sleeping and cemeteries, creating a debatably light-hearted meditation on death.  

Time can have an unpredicted impact on creative outcomes.  Consciously or unconsciously, allowing for a subject to be on a slow simmer for years at a time, can result in a different melding of creative flavors, possible ideas and outcomes; maybe more rich and concentrated as well (just like sauce, if the metaphor wasn’t clear).  But now that I have become quite consciously aware of these inadvertent tendencies toward particular imagery, what to do? It will no longer be a semi-conscious encounter, if it ever fully was. Will deliberately photographing these themes amount to different types of photos on the subjects or will I begin to pass them up altogether? And should I pass them up, being I have been playing them out for a decade and a half? Maybe in my attempts to avoid these Incidental Collections, I will discover in 15 years I inadvertently made brand-new, semi-consciously belabored themes.  I don’t know, and ultimately it really doesn’t matter. Besides, there are certainly more pressing issues, especially when it comes to the matter of “Old Glory” and the country she represents. 

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And Now: A few interesting and less commonly observed national etiquette codes related to the American Flag:

From Section 1 of Title 4 of the United States Code (4 U.S.C. § 1 et seq)

-The flag should not be used as "wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery", or for covering a speaker's desk, draping a platform, or for any decoration in general (exception for coffins). 

-The flag should never be used for any advertising purpose. It should not be embroidered, printed, or otherwise impressed on such articles as cushions, handkerchiefs, napkins, boxes, or anything intended to be discarded after temporary use. Advertising signs should not be attached to the staff or halyard.

-The flag should not be used as part of a costume or athletic uniform

 -The flag should never have placed on it, or attached to it, any mark, insignia, letter, word, number, figure, or drawing of any kind.

-The flag should not be draped over the hood, top, sides, or back of a vehicle, railroad train, or boat.

-When the flag is displayed over a street, it should be hung vertically, with the union to the north or east. If the street runs north-south, the stars should face east. For streets running east-west, the stars should face north. If the flag is suspended over a sidewalk, the flag's union should be farthest from the building and the stars facing away from it.