Mark Street

I only go out shooting still photographs when I’m really depressed.   It’s like I have to be in a real funk to pick up that camera. All through high school I loved shooting, developing in the darkroom, hunching over prints.  At some point I moved to film, but I think a part of me feels like a failed photographer; I wish I could go back to it but I feel it’s too late.  On a cool spring day I was editing film at home in Brooklyn and getting nowhere; the whole thing seemed off and wrong.  I picked up a still camera and took the subway into Chelsea, looking for, well, I don’t know what.  I trained the camera on a subway stop and clicked off images of whoever appeared in the frame.  Amazing how many people are obsessed with their texts these days.  No one is looking up.  My friend and colleague Joe Lawton says that people don’t smoke enough, either, there’s not enough texture in the air.  A thin, handsome middle aged man appeared in the frame, intent on his handheld like everyone else; hold it… was that Phillip Glass?  I thought so but I couldn’t be sure.  It looked like him, sort of, but maybe he was just another anonymous New Yorker trying to figure out his next meeting.  No, it was Philip Glass—I felt like a stalker as I watched him scroll though his messages, oblivious.  I never really clicked with his music, but I like that he’s out there, and respect the way he’s pursued a singular vision with verve and insight for so many years.   Then I took this photograph and my reverie was over.  I’m glad that he was there that day.