FESTIVAL STREET PHOTOGRAPHY PART V: ELECTRIC ZOO, NYC
by Michael Vazquez
GEAR LIST: Canon 1DXMKII / Zeiss 2/135mm / Sigma 150–600mm C
CLIFF NOTES: Skip the 6 paragraphs, and scroll down to images.
Canon 1DX MK II, Zeiss Milvus 2/135, Sigma 150–600 C
Herewith, smiles from a late-summer weekend by way of a solitary chronicler’s visual notes…more specifically: kind strangers; the dreaded other; the male gaze; the female gaze; lawn-ornamenting higher (and sometimes even higher) primates, invariably coupled; lounging; grooming; grazing; fighting; and occasionally, dancing; the newly re-invented, and the slowly — or rapidly — self-discovering…and one blessed sister, whose festival lottery turn it was to be The Crying Girl — take heart pilgrim, your tears surely purified and revitalized a few precious blades of benign, ever-resilient and sadly chemical-rain-infused grass, trampled underfoot…and thus, with each mortal step, your sadness was diffused towards the vanishing point of new horizons, where rainbows begin.
And so, to use a phrase I often return to (and have seen “borrowed”), herewith, a living diorama of 21st century human life-forms, in this case, playing out the New York incarnation of Electric Zoo, all gathered within an oval confine just across the FDR drive, that public-work-as-existential jettison of seemingly — yet very definitely not — infinite human meditations, induced amidst 60 miles an hour lulls, each lane’s own Formula 500-esque rubber-meets-road acoustic hum temporarily splintered by a cross-river soundclash, happenstance adrenalization via amorphous sub-bass rumblings and alternately cascading, ricocheting, cement-cast reverberations, temporarily jarring the world-too-far-gone-Zen-ish-forgetfulness-of-being enjoyed/tolerated/barely noticed by the behavior-modified workaday dreary-eyed and weekend bleary-eyed alike, heretofore car-gliding like manta rays, now getting a vicarious sense of adventure/FOMO, sonically, plus via that big-screen living billboard of the lives of others.
And perhaps the former, younger-self of whosoever is behind the wheel at any given moment — might pause to meditate on history’s entropy toward the law of averages (and averaged-out lives) and muse on how present festivalgoers’ own future’ might be spent as a commuter, no longer quite, yet always in a way, part of the secret language of music and festivals and for some,yes, mind and empathic excursions. There are festivalgoers of every age on display herein, and that’s as it should be. Save for Narcs, who should be testing pills and sharing their wise counsel with a new generation, and not meeting quotas — pill-testing and harm reduction is a reality that has been effected in many societies which we consider counterparts, and might just have been SOP in the U.S., if our society understood what time it really was. Too bad the potentially instructive anthem of generational relativism-as-parenting-wisdom, “Teach Your Children Well” somehow didn’t have enough of a moral half-life, when bullshit laws like The RAVE Act were passed — by (in many cases, Baby-Boomer) politicians I once actually trusted.
Speaking of trust, Randall’s is also a stone’s-throw neighbor to the dread Rikers Island, place of horrors; indifferent host to the hellish subversion — via the power principle — of a long-forgotten ideal, nay, codification — of human, societal rehabilitation — both for those in captivity and those entrusted to steward human captivity …As a New Yorker, I have no illusions about human brutality, dangerous streets, the hypocrisy of well-intending liberals, and yes, the realities of the at-times, shit, and often dangerous job of being a corrections officer.
Nonetheless, as we‘re fed the turned mayonnaise sandwich that is Cuomo and De Blasio’s turf wars — as if it’s their turf — over closing this facility, and ahem, future (why, exactly?) prison construction projects, one finds hyperbolic inspiration from Johnny Cash: “San Quentin, may you rot and burn in hell”.
I have another hundred-plus more images that’ll be going up soon, so, take heart if you’re someone else I shot during those the 3 — what? — 12-hour (?) days. In this series, as usual, I randomly scattered performers and attendee shots, so there will be DJ shots at the very end, just as there are in the beginning. Like always, if you were unable to attend, this is for YOU. I will also be posting select images exclusively @musicfestivalstreetphotography until such time that I believe Instagram is untenable, a conclusion I am rapidly arriving at.
This next triptych amidst changing light exemplifies why a fast auto-focus and a decent burst-rate are essential. The fog machine provided the gauzy effect, and an interesting challenge to a camera’s capabilities.
By way of further digression, engendered via the T-shirt in the next image …Here’s to you, Marilyn Mosby, Baltimore State Attorney, and your harm-reduction approach to sensible prioritization of cannabis, a position evolved to via a sociometrically sound recognition of a general, historio-barometric (read: Hegelian) wave. And while such announcements are usually made by ambitious prosecutors, well, bloody, duh, so be it.
Finally, to those who would counter Mosby’s announcement — yet would also, one hopes, be open to reasonable arguments — by noting that Baltimore already has stopped prosecuting cannabis possession, then perhaps amidst the approximately 4,800 current, existing convictions cited in-report (est. 1K in circuit court and 3.8K in district court) there might be sourced a few examples worthy of their re-consideration, and possible arrival at a policy akin to the State Attorney’s directive, simply via the legitimacy of sheer statistical inevitability (to speak in cold technocratic terms, if these be the pseudo-lingua franca policy vernacular, the elixing tongue of record) of massive errors amidst overprosecution, and the attendant devastating real-life consequences, dating back to at least 2011. And so, these cases will be under review by various judges.
And here’s to the persons for whom Veteran’s Day is exactly that.
Amidst portraits take in-situ, (see the gentleman above) some of the shots in this series only look like portraits (whatever that exactly means), when in fact (2 of the 3 next shots of the bearded DJ dude in his aunt’s schmatte, for example) it’s actually a moving subject, shot from a long distance, which is why I like long lenses — I get the best of several visual surveys. My two go-to lenses are the Canon 100–400mm IS II USM and the Sigma 150–600 C . From my own usage, as all-day, everyday lenses, these are not overkill; they’re absolutely essential.
Doin’ the Lord’s work in their own revival tent of sorts, the ladies at the glitter counter were serving all EZOO pilgrims, and pilgrimage they did. The confident artistry with which they discharged this temporal (read: sacred) trust — mixing colors whilst Zenly meditating on, and eventually kenning their visage canvases and the personas informing same, subsequently going through a repertoire of emotives — was akin to a jazz session’s framed groove and inspired improvisation, through the visual music of tone/shade/tint/dye/stain/blush/flush/bloom/clash/fabulize, all within the hues of life itself. Perhaps there are no right angles in nature, but there are lots of beautiful, sparkling phenomena.
Keeping this team of pro artists on their feet for pretty much the entire festival, the living canvases came from a variety of existential facticites: for some, it’s the first stop after entering the festival (well, maybe second, after quick portapotty stash-rearranging that some might need to sort out); for others, it’s a perfect sunset ritual: having a cocktail in the make-up chair, getting ready for the evening’s performances, like a starlet on-set at dawn; for all it’s added sensory data and sensual escape into enhancing the enhanced vibe; a festival-pastime; a pit-stop that does wonders.
Throughout my wanderings, perhaps no booth in the entire festival felt as human; rich with, well, vibes, ranging from minor insecurities through insouciant affirmations all rendered relatively giddy amidst a playful renewal, or rather, remixing. It’s a righteous enough deed, this facilitating of a thousand-plus strangers’ face-first entry into the much-needed respite that even dingy, golf-ball-spiked Randall’s Island can offer.
That said, I wish NYC festivals would take greater advantage of the camping to be had upstate. I liked Panorama, and worked with them on the magazine for their inaugural edition, and know that what they will eventually bring to Queens — if they can deal with powers that be — it will be dynamite, something this city could really use…though I’m still kinda tired of urban festivals, and would love some upstate NY camping time. Extra-credit reading, an essay I wrote for the inaugural edition of Coachella’s annual CAMP magazine, as the contributing editor:
These are (with the exception of 1 photo in this entire series) uncropped, out-of-camera JPEGS reduced from 20MB to 200KB and in some cases, lightly sharpened — all in Microsoft Word (as opposed to a photo editing program) as a way of testing the IQ of the best camera I’ve ever used, the Canon 1DXMKII.
Process Notes: Throughout this series, I’ve included several shots of the same subject, dually through my indecisiveness (see the black and white and color — and even or two inverse versions of the same shot); and because they manifest why I like being able to capture as many frames per second as possible: it’s about the moments between the moments that are only captured if you never stop paying attention, and if your camera can keep up with your eye, especially in fog-machine purgatory, with the colors sometimes changing every beat (or even more quickly).
Beyond narrative sequences (of which I could have included many more, and will post at a later date) some of the still images were actually resultant of being able to shoot 14 frames per second — and while I’m also pleased to note that a lot of these shots were taken in a single shot, this doesn’t really matter. What matters is having gear that sees what you do, and more. That said, many folks would agree that for most everything you shoot, you’ll be more than okay at 4–6 frames per second.
It’s just as valuable to slow things down sometimes, and so I also shot this series with a manual-focus lens — the Zeiss Milvus 2/135. That said, you already own a manual-focus lens — just switch to “MF” and see what happens. When using the Zeiss, I was able to (re-)develop muscle memory fairly quickly — again, thanks to my first love, a manual-focus-only film camera, the Vivitar XV-1 that I used to shoot my high school’s yearbook photos with, from the annual fashion show to the football team, during a time when the winningest coach in American high school football history — the late Bennie Edens — mentored legendary NFL cornerback Eric Allen (see NFL Films’ greatest interception run-back in history).
And you know? Moving to San Diego from New York — in the middle of your junior year — ain’t easy. The aforementioned first camera became a great ally, giving purpose to my lonely days, blah, blah, blah, whilst also facilitating the making of friends — and setting me on a dharmically rewarding life course: a dream, sometimes deferred, sometimes out of focus, never out of sight.
Anyway, when I shot this over Labor Day weekend, I was going to include standard-issue notes about buying used gear — the idea being that in doing so, you can instantly buy-up into first-rate gear with far more best-shot-enabling features and incredible image quality. And even up until recently, suggesting the acquisition of used gear as one’s first major purchase was the soundest advice I could give in earnest and from experience. And it still is — to an extent.
That said, in the half-year since I shot this series, there’ve been (duh) enough mirrorless cameras for which the retail price on a brand new model rivals and surpasses the value of previously (and still, duh) highly-regarded used DSLR gear, with these new models delivering pro-quality features for another generation — especially a digitally-native generation, for whom there is far less adoption to possibly new norms required (like going from an optical viewfinder to an electronic viewfinder), because for most persons, it is now merely about a leap from one screen to another. And so, the money that I was gonna suggest you use buying great used gear, can also be spent getting a new camera from any major, and also re-emerging camera maker, including the rumored-this-week affordably-slash-aggressively-priced Canon P model, from their new EOS R series…unless it’s just a rumor.
For me, while I’ll be hoarding contemporary gear — specifically, a back-up (and another after that) for the camera I currently use — an electronic viewfinder is best as an amazing new camera option for a very specific utility, previously unavailable to me: a brand new range and survey of night time photography options outside of photo pits and other brightly lit areas. Simply put, it will facilitate my style of street photography during evenings at festivals — which is a fascinating new adventure for me. Again, it’s about gear that sees what you see — and, a little more than you can.
So, you could say that for me the difference between a DSLR with an optical viewfinder (my cherished, battle-proven 1DXMKII) and a mirrorless cam with an EVF is literally and quite beneficially, the diff twixt night and day. And by way of massive irony, the increasing manufacture of multi-controller lenses and adapter rings that now enable me — someone who’s never been totally comfortable with a digital interface (from the early days of VCRs and digital watches) and has always missed the three easily changeable essentials of his first film camera — to now manipulate same via a lens ring, just like I used to do with aperture, only now I can also control ISO and shutter speed and a few other items. And I can continue to use contemporary lenses I own, which is a nice bit of future-proofing. I never expected the future to also deliver such a welcomed return — and major upgrade — to traditional lens functions and controls.
All of this said, if you’re on a super-tight budget, please know that there is an embarrassment of riches for all kind of used gear: DLSR and mirrorless, and so I wish you luck with your next camera. I don’t know that I’m the best person to give advice, however you’re welcome to contact me via Instagram (@musicfestivalstreetphotography). It doesn’t mater how many miles your very own new (used) camera has logged; what matters are the new journeys you will take for yourself, wherever you go or stay. Practicing what I preach, I shot this Coachella “40 Shots In 40 Minutes” series on a (still great) Canon 20D, from which I posted unprocessed, out-of-camera JPEGs, mildly and naturally sun-bleached sans filters to suggest nostalgia. Nostalgia will be an upcoming subject for my next photo safari, taking place on the high seas.
Notes on tone: This is a blog. My blog. You can start your own HERE.
Extra-Credit Viewing & Reading:
