sauntering and photoblogging: a suspicious art

Meg Nakagawa's recent discussion of copyright issues around photography and the use of photographs on blogs: http://notawomanoffewwords.blogspot.com/2006/08/copyrights-pros-and-cons.html
made me reflect on something that happened to me the other week. I tend to do a lot of photography in the alleyways in my neighborhood. As visitors to my blog will see, I photograph vehicles, incinerators, old tires and whatever else I find interesting. One night last week around 7pm I was approached by someone who asked me if I lived "on the block." When I replied that I didn't, he asked whether I was "looking to move" there. When I replied that I was just passing through he looked suspiciously at me and said, "we like to find out who new people are." I told him that I'd lived in the neighborhood for several years but this didn't seem to satisfy him much. Glancing up and down at me, he walked off.

That was pretty much it. While I understand that residents have good reason for keeping an eye on unfamiliar people in the alleyway, at the same time it seems to me that there's a general suspicion of people who saunter around (that's what I tend to do) whether taking photos or not. But in my case, there was a cynicism and sarcasm in the man's words that seemed disproportionate. I think that what bugged me was the feeling that one has to have some clear, "legitimate" purpose when walking through public space in order to be perceived as unthreatening. I'm not sure whether this man saw my camera but it got me thinking about both the issue of taking photographs in public spaces and also about walking through public space to do that. I wonder if folk are more suspicious about people taking photographs these days? None of this is directly related to Meg's discussion, which concerns copyright issues more than walking through public space, but her post made me reflect on these issues. Have other photobloggers had similar (or different) experiences?

saved by the holy dollar

This is the window of a Dollar Store up on Snelling near University in Saint Paul. The emphasis on the spiritual nature of the dollar--that holiest of symbols in contemporary capitalist culture, to be sure--suggests all sorts of associations between religion and consumer desire.















What does it mean to be "saved" in today's culture? Amid the relentless faith in money and commodities in capitalist culture, salvation acquires an increasingly commercial character to the point where visual spectacles depicting consumerism as a route to personal salvation are entirely in keeping with the signs and symbols that structure our everyday environments.
Taken August 11.