 How's it, how's it, guys? Thank you ever so much for being back here. Today, we are going to be looking at the street photography of William Klein. And if you want to create unique photographs that have your own voice, that don't conform to any rules, then William Klein and the lessons that we can get from looking at his photographs are a perfect place to start. I know that you love to discover new photographers and it's so wonderful to have you sitting here with me in my lounge and we get to talk about these great things. So William Klein, hugely influential photographer. Some consider him to be one of the Godfathers of modern street photography. And if you are looking for a great place to get started with William Klein, then this book here, the William Klein ABC, is a fantastic resource because he does work in so many genres and so many different mediums in photography. That it's kind of hard to know where to start. But today, as I mentioned, we're going to be focusing on street photography and whether or not you've been taking street photographs for 10 days or 10 years or 100 years, then we have something to learn from William Klein because his approach to photography is unique and certainly if you are looking to break fear the shackles of rules and restrictions that you think might be on, it placed upon you for whatever reason, then he's a great place to get started. So the first lesson that we can gather from William Klein's photography comes from a quote which I'm going to read because in case I get it wrong, it says, be yourself. I much prefer seeing something, even if it is clumsy, that doesn't look like somebody else's work. And that's it in a nutshell, really, isn't it? It's like, so long as it's kind of different, so long as it's not like everything else that goes along, then the technical aspects of photography, all those kind of rules and things don't really matter so much. He's kind of going, well, just so long as it's different, so long as you're not conforming to everything, then that's okay, that kind of trumps everything else. And I pretty much agree with that. I think if you're going to experiment with photography and develop your photography, kind of push yourself a little bit forward, sometimes you need to go beyond those restrictions that we put upon ourselves. Because you find a lot that happens when you start not worrying about being technically perfect. There is a lot in William Klein's photography that isn't technically perfect. And certainly in sort of the 1950s when he started getting all the work that he was doing in the streets around New York, there's, I can imagine that they would be challenging to a lot of people because there's lots of things going on there that don't necessarily conform to rules. People are drifting off the edge of the frame. Their face is cut in half. There are technical issues, blurry movements and things of those sort of nature. But all of this is contributing to William Klein's style. And we'll get onto how he creates this kind of look of his images in a little while. But certainly one of the things, if you take anything from this initial look about being different, it's just to kind of not worry about what other people say is correct. Do something that comes from your own gut that makes sense to you. Don't be worried about conforming to society norms. Take a moment, look at these photographs. See them in the context of what they would have been like in the 1950s and how challenging they could have been for you. The second lesson that we're gonna get from Klein's photography is this idea of his style, how his photographs look the way that they do. And you may have noticed at this point that everything in his photographs feels like it's kind of in your face. So this is like that, like you are part of this crowd, this energetic hustle and bustle of people who are walking in the streets. And it's like when you turn around, when you're in a city surrounded by people and you turn around and there's something going on behind you. And Klein's photography is exactly like that. He's in the milieu, the milieu, I don't know, is that the right word? He's in the crowd, right? He's in this crowd of people. And he's taking photographs. He's not trying to hide the fact that he's taking photographs. But when he began taking pictures, they were a radical departure from the work of many of his contemporaries, including the fabled Henri Cartier-Bresson. Cartier-Bresson kept this distance almost as if he was a ghost walking amongst the people of the streets of the world, whereas Klein made no pretense that he was there and he was coming after you with that camera. John, sing us some Placido Domingo. Klein is there. He's part of it. He's in, he's rolling with the punches. He's taking the photographs. He's influencing and being influenced by the scene. He's just having fun. He's not trying to disguise the fact that he's taking photographs. He's just in there. The irony was, William took his pictures using a camera he'd bought from Cartier-Bresson. It shows so ably and so well how photography can be so different with a different author and a different photographer behind the camera. Isn't that wonderful that it's such a good example of like how the gear, it doesn't really matter. You know, you have the same camera being used by Cartier-Bresson and being used by, I was about to say Robert Frank. It's not Robert Frank at all, is it? It's William, it's not even William A. Augustine. Why am I talking as William Klein? Yes, all of them use the same camera. And I say you have the same camera that's used by Cartier-Bresson and then by Klein with two very different results. So it just goes to show that, you know, you can have the same tools but get completely different images come from them. So if reinforcement was needed that it's not the gear then that is absolutely that. If this is the first time that you are watching a photographic eye video, then welcome, welcome, a special welcome to you. Thank you ever so much for watching and I hope you're enjoying this look at the photography of William Klein. I'm sure everybody else who is here who normally watches these videos would also like to say hi. So say hi in the comments below and let us know where you're from. Anyway, back to William Klein. Of course, having now said that, I'm gonna talk about a piece again. He's talking about sort of wide angle lenses. One of the feelings that you get because these scenes are all encompassed, they're all around us is obviously, William Klein needs to photograph with a wide angle lens. He's quite close. Now one of the benefits of doing this of course is that when you are photographing the wide angle lens that you can have all this stuff here but you can have all the things going on in the background in the same frame as well. And a lot of people, a lot of people are not aware of how much that lens can see, right? You know, we all sort of know this. People tend to think that if you are photographing at somebody then they are going to kind of fill the frame because that's what they tend to do on their smartphones. But when you use that wide angle lens you can start to layer things together. You can start to include so much more and get the interestingness that's going on in the background to be part of the image. So it's a great method and I would certainly encourage you to use it. It does require you to be a little bit closer to people than possibly you might feel a little bit comfortable with. But so long as you are not aggressive, so long as you're not in their face to say, oh, I'm going to take a picture. You know, I've had, I was walking through Chinatown in London once and a guy shoved a camera like literally boom, like almost like here in my face. And there's like that. Okay, maybe he's looking for these kinds of reactions but I think that's two in your face. I think you need to be just, especially in this day and age where people do look at you oddly if you walk around with a real camera rather than a smartphone which I think they would just ignore you completely is that you need to kind of, I think, just tread lightly. You know, just be open and be obvious about what it is that you're doing and engage people with the photographs. Street photography is not necessarily just all about kind of, you know, being like Cardi Bresson and not getting involved and standing aloof back from the thing and just seeing the wonderfulness that happens. But it can also be talking to the people. William Klein's a huge believer in talking to people about themselves, finding out about themselves because obviously when you show an interest in people then they open themselves up to you and there's no law that says you can't just talk to people on the street and be interested in them. So if you feel under this misconception that you do street photography, you mustn't interact at all, then just don't worry about it, man. Just do your own thing. A wonderful example of this is this photograph of this young lady where she's in the foreground and she is absolutely hamming it up for the camera. She is doing her thing. She's doing what kind of young ladies do which is, you know, hey, young, hi, I'm having a good time. And in the background you've got her mom and her dad who are kind of watching on and doing their thing but they have no idea. They have no idea that they are being photographed at the same time as their daughter. So use that, use that technique to your advantage. The third lesson is neatly attach this idea of talking to people and that is to let people be themselves. And it sounds like an odd thing to say, like, you know, if you're a street photographer or you're taking photographs of people or a documentary photographer or have it is, why wouldn't you let people be themselves? And I think that kind of falls into this idea where you have that very famous photograph which is on the cover of this book which you may have seen, so I'll hold it up but I'll put it up on the screen for you anyway. Cause that's not going to focus on because that's silly. Why would it, it's focusing on me. Anyway, so this very famous photograph of the young boy with the gun. He, William Klein, let those kids play up that role. That child was putting on a facade. He put on a role, he took on a role that he kind of went, I am going to be the man. I am going to be the big grown up, the in your face kind of, you know, sort of fear me kind of thing. And that's what he did. He was like, he was playing up and you can see the little boy next to him looks a little bit fearful and things like that. But then, and again, William Klein is, he uses contact sheets in his art a lot and this is, I'm extremely thankful for doing this. You can see the photograph, the next frame, the kids are all laughing and smiling and stuff. So it was just an act, it was a mask that somebody put on because he's interacting with them. And so that's kind of the thing. If somebody starts hamming it up for the camera or being silly or putting on an air of something when you're trying to photograph in the street, whatever, embrace it. See what happens. See what happens if you roll with that. It happens a lot or it happened a lot to me when I was growing up as a student out in the streets that there would be groups of kids and youth and stuff who would see it and they would start reacting to you. And that's okay, go with it. Embrace the fact that they are happy and they're having fun. Just, you know, it is there. Life happens and just your job as a photographer who's interested in this kind of thing is just to photograph it. To see what happens. So I'm gonna give you a little bonus tip. A bonus lesson, if you will. It is that is that Klein is quite happy to experiment in camera as well, but he's also happy to experiment in the dark room. You can see this in a number of his photographs. There are these kind of bleached out, not bleached out. They're sort of, you know, watery blacks. So that's when you actually take like a soft focus filter and quite often it was just actually a cigarette, you know, the cellophane from a cigarette packet that you put underneath the enlarger lens and that makes the blacks bleed into all the other sort of bits of the print. You can try all these little experiments. Don't be concerned about, you know, how to make your photographs look like everybody else's. William Klein is a fantastic photographer and certainly a genius at not conforming to any rules and any regulations. If you look up, I think, you know, in the dictionary, you say, look, who's opposed to child for just doing their own thing? Then it would be Klein. And his work, as I mentioned earlier, goes beyond just street photography. He spent a lot of time working for Vogue. He's made films. He's made all sorts of things. I would highly recommend that you go and you check out all of his diverse photography because it is so, so, so interesting. And if you'd like me to do a feature on his fashion photography, which also is outstanding, then just let me know in the comments below. That would be fantastic. Another photographer who was equally home in a huge range of genres was Edward Steichen. And I put a link to his video right here. So go and check it out and thank you ever so much for being here.