SIGHT UNSEEN catalog - California Museum of Photography ...

8
ralph baker New York
Ralph Baker is a blind street photographer
in New York City. Baker shoots, prints, and
sells small photographs at public events for
immediate money. “Million Man March.
That was a fun one. The Million Woman
March was also fun. Street parties are fun.
Some parades. St. Paddy’s Day parade is
great. Thanksgiving Day parade is good,
too. Fourth of July…” Locations that draw
crowds appear as repeated backdrops:
Times Square, the Christmas tree at
Rockefeller Center, Central Park.
He shrugs off questions about photography
by a blind person. “Yeah, that doesn’t make
a difference… My camera can see.”
Baker began his street shooting in 1966, and
has operated ever since without required
New York City vendor permits. Baker
considers himself an artist. “I’m compelled
to take pictures as a photographer… it’s
not a want.” But the police tend view him as
an unlicensed general vendor. The resulting
periodic trouble with the NYPD leads to
his most frequent self-description: “blind
common criminal street photographer.”
Every single image in this exhibition is one
of the photographer’s “failures.” These are
images that people did not want or buy.
In a street-based photo economy, a sale
equals success; these are washouts, rejects,
losers. This is a prime reason these images
are of interest. The world is full of perfect,
pointless images. These are glorious failures
shot by someone who cannot see. In fact,
Baker’s process of street sales is a culling
regimen. Successes, that is to say images
that meet with hollow, denatured formal
expectations, vanish into someone’s life.
Failures—read: the unexpected, the oddly
revealing—remain in the artist’s trove.
Untitled
Flipping through piles of Baker’s collected
images, therefore, brings a basic photo
dichotomy into high relief. Somewhere
in the frame are subjects enacting what
image socialization has pounded into
them—stand, strike a pose, present a gaze,
remain embalmed until the shutter falls.
The camera implacably returns their gaze.
All seems well. But leaking in from every
edge is the unkempt world of lively happenstance.
Unbeknownst to the subjects,
this camera is blind. Sighted photographers—most
especially professionals—know
to keep the real world out. Ralph
Baker cannot, so the photographs
crawl with life.
Baker was interviewed in 2005 by
journalist Raphie Frank.
How do you know when you’ve
taken a good shot or not? Well, I
only go places where there’s a good
picture. A person is only part of a
picture. The picture is a location or
an activity. The picture is a spot.
The pictures that you take, do
your subjects know the picture
is being taken by someone who
can’t see them? No. Few people
find out that I don’t see them.
How do you get that one over? I
ask them to stand at the line [on
the ground] and smile. Then I press the
button and print. Then I collect the twenty.
And they seem to like the pictures? I only
do special photos, commemorative photos
of locations, times and events. The desire
for the photo is already there.