Walker Evans Hungry Eye
Those of us who are of an older generation and can remember using a camera, whose lens and body was made of plastic and manufactured by Kodak, known as a Brownie, and using 120 film; then graduating in later years to a pre-1972, 35mm Zeiss/Voigtländer range finder camera, can today truly appreciate mobile photography.
While I have also worked with and owned at some point in time a Canon F1n single lens reflex camera, Hasselbald and various size formats of view cameras, I not only appreciate the technological advances in digital and mobile photography, I also think of my teachers. Wondering what my heroes, my mentors, those who have thought me so much about photography, what would they make of today’s technology and how might they use it.
Though I cannot speak for the dead, yet I have an idea what Irving Penn or Edward Evans might have done. Evans, before his death, experimented with Polaroid SX-70 and my Sensei, Irving Penn, who constantly pushed himself and his art, I am sure he would have fully embraced mobile photography and taught us a thing or two.
There are other individuals who I not only admire, but also count among my teachers, like Dorothea Lange, Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton and several more heroes and I think about them too. I can only believe they too would have made use of mobile devises for capturing images, as they were too much in love with photography.
And while we will never know and can therefore only speculate on the question of ‘What if,’ I wish to pay tribute to their bravery and for their vision; for they have left behind a rich legacy that has given others and myself included, a foundation for ones visual voice. So here is my tribute what I perceive Walker Evans might have created with his self-portrait, after I added one of my old cameras and a roll of 120 film onto the cover of his book “The Hungry Eye,” before applying a couple of turns though the application Decim8 on an iPad.
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