Fabio's Fabulous Roma

I’d been in Rome about two hours and I was learning what “jet lag” truly means.

My wife and I dropped our suitcases off at the hotel, grabbed our cameras and headed out. When we get to a new city, we try to find one of those double-decker busses that take tourists around to see all the sites. We’ve found this to be a great way to get oriented and plan the places we are going back to.

On this particular morning (which was the middle of the night as far as my body was concerned) I admit that I was listing to one side. But then the bus turned a corner and I had one of the most powerful travel experiences of my life.

I was face to face with the Coliseum.

I remember the fog in my brain clearing instantly – and being completely overwhelmed. This wasn’t a Hollywood set or some tacky theme decoration. This was THE Coliseum. Gladiators fought here. Gala competitions were run here. Guys who ruled the world came here.

My memories of Rome all meld together. We’d be up and out before the sun rose. We’d walk the entire day, walk until our feet burned and then walk some more. There is such a casual beauty in Rome. Touchable history and fascinating people.

Fabio, the second flickr artist I’d like you to meet, says his Rome is something altogether different.

“Already the monuments of Rome are among the highest expressions of architectural history,” he says. “They are photographed by almost everyone. But what about the people who live here? Who sees them?”

Fabio does. He lives in Rome. He’s a barman and a web designer. He’s also one of the finest street photographers I’ve ever seen. We had a long chat the other day, talking about his passion for street photography.

“I love the portraits on the street,” he tells me. “Photographing people in their daily life, I manage to communicate the beauty and complexity of life for everyone. Most everything is spontaneous and natural. Everything is more beautiful, like life itself.”

Here’s another star of flickr that doesn’t have any difficulty communicating his passion for life, and the vibrant tableau around him.

We invited Fabio to share some of his favorite images. His absolute favorite is at the top of this blog. It’s of a woman looking to the east. When I asked him what made it his favorite, I found the nuances of what he discussed fascinating. He talked, not only about the direction the woman is looking, but also the things he chose to leave in the background: the crossed legs, the people – all the busy life going on around this very still looking woman.

When you look at Fabio’s work, you need to pay attention to the things he has included in the image. Yes. The people are fascinating but the beauty of this work to me is that they are all captured in the context of where they are in that exact second. And where they are has a tremendous impact on the overall image.

“You can stop the memories of life with an image,” he explains.


He wanted you to see this violin player as well. Have a good look at the artful cropping here. Many artists would have brought the crop in tight on the subject. Fabio chose to include the textured wall and to place the subject off to one side. What’s he saying? I think he wants us to know where this charming man comes from.

No one poses for Fabio.

“My photos are stolen,” he admits. There’s no further explanation forthcoming. Actually, when you think about it, no explanation is necessary. My sense from having talked with him is that Fabio isn’t interested in taking the same photos others do. He wants people in his images. And he wants them raw.


Does it get much more raw than a mother’s love? As you look at this image, try to reconstruct what it was like to stand there. If you were Fabio, how would you have composed the image? Here the mother is holding her child, attentive. This is a particularly eloquent image because you don’t need to see her face to know what’s happening in her heart. The child holds your attention with its eyes. It is a masterpiece of composition.


Here is an honest streetscape. The image is titled “How to Shoot a Wedding.” Here’s an alternate title: “How to Shoot a Streetscape.” Fabio’s fascination with people comes shining through in this image. The couple kissing are the subject, only because they are the focus of all the other people’s attention. Fabio doesn’t care about the kiss so much as he cares about showing us how other people react to it. Some smile. Some look away. What do you suppose the woman in the backpack is feeling? How about the couple holding hands?

A great streetscape poses questions like this and give the viewer great material for dreaming themselves into the image.


I wanted to finish with my personal favorite from Fabio’s Photostream. It’s entitled “Where the Hell is Jack Sparrow?” Again you will find the outstanding use of negative space and texture to put the subject into his environment. For me the image is all about crisp focus and that perfect instinct for the exact right time to take the shot.

Post-production isn’t a big part of the job for Fabio. “Ten minutes max,” he says. “I work on the contrast, the crop and the tone.”

At this point I am willing to bet fifty bucks that, as he typed this response to my question from his home in Rome, that he shrugged. My impression is that this is not an artist who is about working in the studio, or slaving over a hot computer.

This is a guy who is all about the street and experiencing the rich life that provides the heartbeat of one of the world’s great cities.

I love the mental image I have of Fabio creeping through the streets of Rome, camera in hand, looking for the picture that tells us a story, an image that shares what his Rome was like today.

Have a look at his flickr Photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeyh/

All Photos in this blog segment are by Fabio Jey-Heich and are used with his permission. He reserves all rights.

Photographing Street People in New York

His name is Red.

There's no way he is ever going to read this. He has only an abstract knowledge of email. You'll find him most days around Strawberry Fields, the John Lennon mosaic memorial in New York's Central Park.

My wife and I arrived there on a blisteringly hot summer day and watched hundreds of tourists file past. Some paused to have their pictures taken squatting over the mosiac. Tour after tour came through and I found myself sharing the very dim New Yorker's view of "Herd Tourists." (So many people come and look...but they just don't actually see anything. This is quite unlike myself. I notice everything. Every blade of grass. Every insect in the air. Ahem.)

Sitting on a bench, surrounded by a huge backpack and several shopping bags is Red. His hair hangs well beyond his waist in one unruly mass of dreads. There's a ring in his nose and a stainless steel ball in his ear.

He swears at anyone who tries to take his picture -- but he's a compelling figure. There's this air of dignity about him. No. I'm not making it up. Here's a guy who can fit all his worldly "stuff" into a couple of bags and I am deep into "photographer mode." This means that if I see something or someone that will make for a good image, I will take it.

I admit it: I was trying to figure out how to get his picture without getting myself pounded into the ground by this guy.

But on this particular New York morning, I got a lesson that changed everything about how to photograph strangers.

My wife and I sat on a bench across from the Imagine mosaic (more on that in a later blog) and we were both silently watching Red bum a cigarette from a German tourist. Said German tourist is on the edge of getting seriously freaked out by this particular New Yorker and surrenders the smoke without a fight. Red thanks him and shambles back to his bench. He's a big guy, I think.

"Wow," says my wife. "Look at him."

I don't say anything since I know my woman well enough to figure out where this is going.

"You should go over there and talk to him," she urges.

I snort, desperately hoping to head this off while there exists even the remote possibility that it is indeed "head-offable." What I think is "Are you nuts? Have you heard that guy yell? Do you REALLY think it's a good idea to go up to a street person with a ring in his nose and start talking? Are you freaking nuts???"

But I grunt something that doesn't commit me to anything.

"Don't you want his picture?" she asks.

"No," I lie.

She looks at me in a way that makes me want to be somewhere else far away, gathers up her stuff and without another word goes to talk to him.

I follow because that's what every man should do when his wife does something that has the potential for getting herself knifed by a street person. I am muttering under my breath and praying at the same time.

"Hello, Sir," says my wife, laying her #10 Charming smile on him. She settles in on the bench beside him.

"How you doin'?" says Red.

"Do you mind if we talk with you for a minute?" asks my wife.

Red shrugs. I am trying to recall the precise series of defensive actions taken by Chuck Norris in the last "kick their butt" movie I saw. But I think my days of flying drop kicks are over. (Okay. They never were.)

They get into a conversation. Red explains that he's from Texas, that he served in the military, had aspirations to be a history teacher, has been a roadie for the Grateful Dead and has worked on movies as a grip. He sleeps on the stairs in front of a synagogue..and is only afraid for his safety when the skinheads come around. He's fascinating. Well spoken. Intelligent. An amazing storyteller.

A cynical part of me is wondering if it is all true. But I work with actors every day. This guy isn't acting and there's a ring of truth to the way he speaks. He's not trying to impress anyone. Believe him or not. He doesn't care.

My wife asks if I can take his picture. I hold my breath. Does this woman have NO fear? Hasn't she seen the way he responded to others who tried to take his picture?

"Naw," he says. "Go ahead. Can you guys throw me a couple of bucks?"

We already were going to -- and I start taking pictures. I had this absurd feeling as I did so. Here I am a hefty tourist with an expensive camera, a full belly and new clothes taking pictures of a street person, like he is an exhibit in a zoo. I really don't feel that way. And I really don't want him to think that...and I have a sudden understanding for why he yells at tourists who point their cameras at him and start shooting...like he was a fire hydrant or a building.

Y'know...like I was planning to. It shames me just a little. I can't really explain it any more clearly than that.

Suddenly I wanted to tell people something about Red. That's what the picutre above and this whole blog is about. I really want you to know there is a human being of wonderful depth waiting for you at the John Lennon memorial in Central Park. And I don't want him to come across as just another street crazy. I want to show him to you as a human being.

How is that different from the way I used to do it? To be honest...my most likely course of action before this would be to put on the telephoto lens and "steal" a shot. I would have robbed Red of a fraction of his autonomy...and I would have robbed myself of encountering one of the coolest New Yorkers I have ever met.


Think about it for a second. I would have taken a furtive shot and hoped for the best. I would not have accorded my subject the respect that allowed him to relax. He would have been a "street person" photograph -- instead of a man named Red.

My wife, who makes her own bracelets, took one off of her wrist and presented it to him. (Red has rings, earrings, bits of cloth woven into his massive dreads...) and he took it with genuine respect. He wrapped it around a strand of dreads and admired it with the joyful intensity that only someone who has very little can muster.

We left our umbrella and twenty bucks with our friend that morning. And he left us with a wonderful travel memory and photos that allow us to glimpse his heart.

So if you're travelling to NYC and you happen to see a man with a ring in his nose and dreads down below his waist don't be afraid to sit and pass an hour or two with him. Your time will be well spent. If you remember, tell him David and Sheree will be back to say "hey" one day soon.

And try to start your conversation by calling him "Sir." He'll like that.

Streetscapes and Other Trendy Photography Stuff

There's usually one second ... maybe two ... when you can snap a shot of a street. If you're lucky and skillful, you can wind up with a shot that pulls a series of components together and results in a visual story. Sometimes the story centers around the subject of your photo, it's an "on the fly" portrait where you have captured someone you don't know doing something that is of interest.

One afternoon I decided to take up my camera and see what stories the streets of New Orleans might have to tell me.

This fellow is a Chess Grand Master. He sets up shop beside the French Market and for five bucks he'll play a game with you, and pass along some tips as he kicks the snot out of your chess pieces.

I framed the picture so the chess pieces are really only a small part of the overall shot. I wanted my streetscape to capture his intensity and his excitement as well as his passion about his subject matter. The picture was sharpened and the contrast turned up a little. When you look at the picture, do you get a sense of who this guy is?

Not far from here there was a place that offered Ghost Tours. (We took one of these and it was good fun.) The poster would be incomplete without the guy and the guy woud be incomplete without the poster.

They make a great duo, however. The contrast on the picture was tuned down a little, because I wanted it to be a little more grey to be consistent with the overall theme.

I really don't know if the guy runs the ghost tours or if he was just resting for a moment. But I DO know that the pair make for an interesting graphic that can leave a powerful impression in the eyes of the viewer.

Take a second to look also at the "crooked" nature of the doorway. it would have been simple enough to crop this out, because your eye sees there is something wrong with the balance. I did this deliberately. It's an off-center topic and an off center composition suited it well.

We wound up in a little jazz club on Frenchmen Street called "Ray's Boom Boom Room." The bartender, Marlon, told us there was a band playing that night that featured a couple of guys who'd been around the jazz scene for decades. We're talking Preservation Hall guys.

We had to stay. And I am glad we did because those fellas really kicked.

The toughest shot of the entire trip is right here. This guy is over seventy, rail thin, and he played a big drum. The shot was taken in a crowded club well after the sun went down. The subject of the photo is black. Really black and that made it difficult to tease any kind of detail out of the photo.

To further complicate matters, I was shooting with a telephoto (read WHY in my Deep Sea Fishing entry below) in a dark room, which meant shooting at an ISO of 1600.

We are talking the absolute worst conditions: a black man wearing a white shirt late at night, taking the shot with a telephoto. Geez.

An ISO that sensitive is going to result is lots of grain that needed to be removed. There was no detail in the eyes at all, so I used the Dodge tool to bring them out. The right lens of his glasses had a massive flash on it and that had to be mostly removed. Focus needed to be sharpened and the contrast needed to be pumped and brightened.

It's still not an award winning picture -- but it's close enough to remind me of the night I heard REAL jazz in New Orleans.

Here are the top Three Technicolor Tips I can offer for capturing Streetscapes:

1) You need to use a telephoto lens. You also have to take the time to know HOW to use a telephoto. Remember that you sacrifice a lot of light shooting with one. But there's no way you will get a decent shot of something happening across the street without one.

2) You need to be PRESENT wherever you are. By this I mean that you have to be constantly looking for the picture. I see the street in vertical and horizontal rectangles. You need to be alert for the little things, the elements of the story you want to tell and the precise second that the shot presents itself. But having said that, you should shoot and shoot and keep shooting. The shot you THINK is the one you want often isn't as good as the one you took "just in case."

3) Fill your shot with the story...not the background. Get in as tight as you can on your subject. Leave just a small border in case there's another element of the story you don't see at that exact moment. I guarantee that you'll be pleasantly surprised when you get back to the computer and start working on your photos.

Streetscapes are among the most pleasing shots to me. When they work, they are visual magic. But like every magic trick, you need to do your groundwork in order to make the shot work.