David Snider's Street Photos

David Snider

Even before the digital age of instantaneous snapshots and quotes, journalists have for a long time acted in many ways as historians.  With every photo, video, and audio bite, journalists preserve history by freezing various moments in time.  While telling an honest story and informing the public are two responsibilities of a journalist, keeping history alive is another major job.  Looking through David Snider’s album, I could not help but think of the lives of each person he photographed.  Snider’s intentions to capture natural moments in time created the “ultimate realization of photography's power to record the river of life.”  

When I studied the first photo, I was immediately drawn to the skater gliding away at Rockefeller Plaza on a cold New York day.  However, after a few moments my eyes began to drift to the onlookers in the photo: the girl sitting on the ledge, the group of men on the top left corner with their backs turned to the camera, or the bundled up observer standing just a few feet away from the skater.  Even though these people are unidentifiable, there is a story behind each and every one of them.  There is no way to know what was going through their minds when this photo was taken.  This picture might have been the last documented image for some of these people.  There are a million and a half inferences that can be made.  The best photos are the ones with stories that can be read between the lines.

Another photo that caught my attention was the one of the man sleeping on a bench outside of a French train station in Tours.  He looks so exhausted to be willing to sleep in such an awkward and uncomfortable position.  He might even be awake, and talking on a cell phone (his mouth is open).  His black bag is another feature that can leave the imagination racing.  It appears there is a large, peculiar object in the bag.  My first instinct was that it was an accordion, and this finely suited fellow is a performer of sorts.  Needless to say, this image leaves the viewer with a lot of questions.

After taking nearly 150 images this weekend for my project on panhandling, I was struck by all the features that I did not notice the first time around.  Each and every photo contains so many stories and so many emotions.  It is the photographer’s job to capture these moments before they are lost in time.


A 4802 Web Extra


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