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mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} </style> <br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">I’ve been trying to find something not too mawkish to say about the photographer Bill Cunningham (op cit in this blog) who died on June 24, aged 87.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TUZvxBZjvx..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TUZvxBZjvx..." width="426" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">I loved his artfully artless photographs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>He worked for </span><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The New York Times for about 40 years, and was a cross between a street photographer and a fashion photographer, snapping the fashionable people out in public in Manhattan. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He did some other stuff as well, at parties and balls, but it’s the street stuff that matters.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fUonh9Wtii..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fUonh9Wtii..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Cunningham wasn’t one of the great New York walkers (he actually got around by bike mostly) but he was certainly on foot when he took his pictures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">   </span>He was certainly a kind of urban explorer, and probably an anthropologist, and maybe even a psychogeographer.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_wVhS2KyK9..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_wVhS2KyK9..." width="426" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">He may not have been looking for, in Debord’s terms, </span><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“zones of distinct psychic atmosphere” </span><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">but he certainly knew where to go to find people who were looking good and wearing fabulous clothes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>And of course he often photographed them while they were walking.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eUeeRmMDOf..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eUeeRmMDOf..." width="308" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hAJx2-b1iR..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hAJx2-b1iR..." width="352" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">I never saw him when I lived in New York, but I know others who did, some of whom wished he’d take their photograph, but he never did – and I know some snappy dressers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-indent: .5in; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">He seemed to have had the trick, and maybe we should say gift, of appearing benign and good-natured when he photographed his subjects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>If he wanted to take your picture then you didn’t feel threatened or maligned, you knew you looked good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Compare and contrast with that other great New York street photographer Bruce Gilden, who creates this effect:.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qXTjzObgA2..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qXTjzObgA2..." width="426" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Even so I’m not sure there are many men who could get away with the kind of thing that’s going on in the picture below:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7T9XkCMkUX..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7T9XkCMkUX..." width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "geneva"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 200%;">If most of us tried to photography the feet and shoes of a bunch of women standing on the street in Manhattan, I’m pretty sure the cops would be called.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I think you could probably talk your way out of it, though I wouldn’t advise you to say you were a flaneur, much less a psychogeographer.</span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheHol..." height="1" width="1" alt=""/>