Picture of the Month — Street Artist by NYI Graduate Jim Mannes

This month, NYI Associate Dean Jerry Rice has written the Photo of the Month Review. Jerry's keen eye can help readers decipher any type of photograph. A lifelong lover of fine photography, when Jerry talks about photographs, everyone at NYI listens. We know you'll enjoy Jerry's observations on this month's photograph.

At NYI we teach our students a simple Three-Step Method for setting up every photograph they shoot:

• Step 1. Know your subject.
• Step 2. Focus attention on your subject.
• Step 3. Simplify.

This simple Three-Step Method is the secret of every successful photograph ever taken. We teach our students to consider these three steps every time they look into the viewfinder. To consider them before they press the shutter button.

When our students mail in their photographs for analysis by their instructor, the instructor starts by commenting on what we call the three Guidelines. Of course, the instructor analyzes other elements of the picture too — focus, exposure, filters, etc. But the key to every good photo — and the essential element of every great photo — is adherence to these three Guidelines.

How do they work? How can you apply them? It's beyond the scope of this Web site to teach you every nuance, but you will get an inkling from the Photo of the Month Analysis that follows.

Street Artist

Photo by NYI Graduate Jim Mannes

Most people, at this late date, will affirm that photography can be art. The preposterous claim against photography, once wide spread, has all but disappeared with the long acceptance of photographs to be shown in prestigious museums, art galleries, in private collections, in public displays, and elsewhere. The fact that auction prices for photography have reached astonishingly high levels seems to be the "proof of the pudding."

One point often made by those antagonistic toward photography is that it is largely mechanical reproduction. Photography, admittedly, does not have the same spark of creativity found in painting or sculpture. We photographers do not create our pictures from "whole cloth", so to speak. We do not start with Rodin's block of marble, with Wyeth's bare canvas, with Nevelson's wooden crates.

But we do bring a sense of presence to our work. We create a feeling of realism. We make our viewers feel that they are right there in the actual scene, that we are not looking at pictorial representations but at the real actual thing.

Painting and sculpture lack this sense of presence, and it is this sense of presence that forms the basis of this Picture of the Month. The photograph was made by NYI Student Jim Mannes of Great Falls, Montana.

The three NYI Guidelines apply, of course — strong subject matter, focusing of attention on the subject, and then simplifying the picture by eliminating the unnecessary items and retaining the needed ones. But this month we should concentrate strongly on the 2nd Guideline (focusing attention on the subject). In short, what did Jim Mannes do to achieve his effects?

He used what is perhaps photography's strongest tool, the sense of presence, to make us feel that we are almost sitting at the street artist's side as she draws (probably with colored chalks). Her subject, probably a prominent 18th century figure, is shown in monumental size and stands in great contrast to the artist herself.

We see the subject of the drawing clearly; the face of the artist remains a mystery to us, though. Would the photographer, Mannes, have accomplished much by showing us the artist's face as well? We don't think so. For there is an enigmatic smile on the portrait subject's face. He knows what the street artist looks like, we do not, and it's his big secret, no?

Is there some inherent symbolism here, too? What about the empty artist's camp stool? Does it belong to the street artist or someone else? We just don't know. And what's the mysterious pile next to the stool; it's not clearly seen, but we think that the photographer wanted it that way.