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Table of Contents

Interview with Irina Escoffery

Deborah Cole on Street Photography

Alcatraz

Unicorns on the Adriatic Sea

The Mona Lisa Experience

Street Shooters of January 2021

Alcatraz

Virginia Hines

For me a big attraction of street photography is the opportunity to get out, explore new places, interact with new people. All of that has been tough since Covid invaded the world. Driven to distraction by cabin fever, I’ve been searching out interesting but socially distant places to visit. Recently I decided to visually explore key 2020 themes of isolation, confinement, loss, and social control on Alcatraz. Not only would the excursion be a chance to get out of the house, but the mood seemed perfect for gear I’ve been wanting to use: a Leica M10 Monochrom paired with the reissued vintage f/5.6 Summaron 28mm lens. I expected the high-contrast black and white results to have a noir look that echoed the island’s somber history.

In normal times, Alcatraz is San Francisco’s top tourist destination, attracting several thousand people per day.

But since Covid, visits to the island are far more limited. The upside is that for once, you can travel to Alcatraz on a whim; no need to reserve a spot weeks in advance. In a typical visit, most folks make a beeline for the infamous cellblock. No question, this is the most fascinating part, but it and almost all the other indoor spaces are closed due to Covid. As I’ve visited Alcatraz a few times, I welcomed a reason to wander through the island’s outdoor features, which I’d breezed past on earlier trips. I also challenged myself to rethink what “street photography” means to me. Is it the gear you use? An urban environment? Are people a must in every shot? Do you need to get close (not easy these days)? In the end I decided to practice different ways of capturing people in context without violating their personal space to the point that they’d be uncomfortable in today’s atmosphere of heightened concern about close proximity.

Heading to Alcatraz, street photography opportunities begin even before you arrive on the island, during the 15-minute boat ride across San Francisco Bay.

Although passengers on the Alcatraz ferry are exhorted to remain six feet apart, there are opportunities to shoot fellow passengers, cityscapes, world-famous bridges, seabirds, and various seagoing vessels before you even set foot on the island. The front of the boat is alluring, but signs warn of the “wet zone.” I avoided the prow but still ended up with some salt water splashed on my lens!

Once you’re on the island there are a multitude of visually arresting elements to play with and arrange in the picture space: land, sea, sky, architecture, all manner of watercraft – and people, too!

With this photo I wanted to tell a story of scale, geography, contrasts, and the sense of freedom conveyed by the sailboat. Without the people, though, the picture would be less interesting. You can stretch the definition of street photography quite a bit – as many have done successfully – but I feel that a clear indication of human presence is non-negotiable. For me, street photography is a window into our shared humanity, an inclusive way of breaking through the existential shell and forging connections with the rest of the world. Without the human element, a street photo – excellent though it may be – is challenged to achieve that goal.

A profusion of chain link fencing separates areas that tourists can and cannot explore on Alcatraz, creating opportunities for unusual pictures.

It’s been almost 60 years since men were imprisoned on Alcatraz, but even today, with the island managed by the National Park Service, there’s a strong sense of confinement, limits, and control conveyed by the island’s many chain link fences. Happily for photographers, the fences, shadows, lines, and diagonals provide interesting compositional opportunities. Before my next visit I will seek inspiration from Lee Friedlander’s Chain Link (2017), where each of the book’s 97 images depict the namesake material.

It was a challenge adding a sense of human presence to the prison’s forlorn recreation yard. Hopefully you can spot how I did it.

The recreation yard was a photographic conundrum: how to convey the desolation and sense of lost energy without simply making a picture of emptiness. I got lucky when a visitor scooted out the door and I was able to catch just the barest suggestion of human presence. It’s fascinating how our minds are wired to recognize our own species. Although the man’s crooked arm occupies only a few pixels, people I showed the picture to immediately latched onto this detail.

Looking through a window into a former office, I found a picture that merges Alcatraz’s past and present.

The area around the cellblock’s front gate has eye-level windows that look into some former offices. Although the cellblock is closed to visitors until Covid abates, when the light is right the windows are a fun chance to play with reflections that warp time and space. You can even see San Francisco’s skyline across the Bay!

Windows that divided interior spaces in Alcatraz’s New Industries Building were shot out during the Native American occupation of the island from 1969-1971. The surprising void spaces are a street photographer’s playground. Alas, the area closer to the windows was roped off so I had to work from a distance.

There’s an exception to the Covid-related closure of buildings on Alcatraz: the New Industries Building, former site of the prison laundry and some light manufacturing, remains open for special exhibitions. When I was there, the exhibit was about the 1969-71 Native American occupation. During normal times when the cellblock is open, this building is often closed, so it was a treat to go inside. I was drawn to the picture-making opportunities created by an interior wall of mostly shot-out windows, through which you can glimpse bits and pieces of people pondering the exhibit. Another novel way to photograph people at a safe distance!

The New Industries Building also has a long wall of divided windows facing west. In the late afternoon, the sun shines almost directly in, creating strong shadows full of photographic potential. In the top image of this article, I was, in reality, standing with my back to the sun holding the camera to my eye, but in the shadow puppet theatre that played on the concrete floor you seem to see the ghost of one of Alcatraz’s long-ago inmates.

The ferry trip back to the city is one more chance for some more conventional candid shots at the end of the day.

Like the outbound trip, the return ferry ride back to San Francisco offers more familiar street photography opportunities. I was drawn to a group of construction workers at the end of their shift. They made a nice tableau, backlit through the boat’s windows. Alcatraz is a unique place, more a tourist destination than a typical street photography venue. But strange times call for new approaches, and in the end I enjoyed a fairly socially distant day of shooting and was pleased with some of the photographs I came home with.

Virginia Hines

Virginia Hines began photographing during high school, working part-time for the local daily newspaper. In college at Rice University she studied photography with Geoff Winningham. Later she continued her photographic education with notable artists including Harvey Stein, Bruce Gilden, and Alex and Rebecca Norris Webb. Her photographs have appeared in many print and digital publications, including The Lancet Global Health (March 2020 cover), China Digital Times, Business Insider, Le Monde, New York Magazine, and Barrons, among others, and have been exhibited in group shows across the U.S. and in Europe. You can follow her @vhines_photos on Instagram.

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Articles
January 2021

Interview with Irina Escoffery

Irina kicks off our year of women featured photographers in a special audio interview.

Deborah Cole on Street Photography

Meet a landscape photographer who made a shift to streetscapes and never looked back.

Alcatraz

Covid cabin fever made Virginia Hines escape TO Alcatraz.

Unicorns on the Adriatic Sea

This year something is new. That's the power of perspective.

The Mona Lisa Experience

A flashback to a pre-Covid tourist paradise.

Street Shooters of January 2021

Top contributions from members of our community.

Street Photography Magazine is the journal of street and documentary photography

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