DESCRIPTION WITHOUT PLACE.

criticism. decorum. innards. bric-a-brac. nostalgia. nausea. polemics. diatribes. litanies. symphonies. polaroids.

Email
Images
Hobby

AX

mattlehrer:

Waiting in Grand Central Station (2003) by James Maher via MUG.

My first job after college, I worked in the MetLife building above Grand Central. My understanding of the phrase “it’s like Grand Central Station in here” became very tangible. I remember watching the juxtaposition of those waiting for someone next to the clock against the ballet of hurried commuters avoiding each other while coming down the escalator (off frame left) everyday, probably even the day this was taken.

Also, if you didn’t know this was taken in 2003, what year would you guess? It feels timeless. I’m not sure I could narrow it down from any year in the last 60+.

This is fascinating. I’ve always loved guessing the year in which a photo was taken, and it’s easiest when the photo is of a crowd. Landscapes, and even shots of deserted gas stations, lonely highways, and rundown buildings, are much more challenging. Great photographers too make guessing the landscape or portrait’s date a terrible betting game. Walker Evans, William Eggleston, and Diane Arbus have each covered almost the entire 20th century, and it is these photographers who stymie my attempts to make a chronology out of everything. With an Eggleston photo, I can be decades off. And that I think is the point. Great photographers remind us man is nothing more than a novice when it comes to time.

If we look at just the focused character, the image betrays few clues, and presents a bit of a challenge. But 2003 makes perfect sense. The fact that no men are in hats puts us into the 1970s. In the upper right corner, the woman with the student-style backpack (being used for travel) means we’re dealing with at least the late-80s. But just below her, the woman framing her two friends in a cell-phone pic (no one holds a digital camera that close to someone’s face) is classic 2003-2010. I would say closer to 2003 only because I would expect 3 or 4 such poses simultaneously from a 2010 crowd. Where are the people staring into their iPhones?

I’m sure in 2020 the photograph of a cellphone photographer from 2003 will inspire a similar reaction to someone considering the images of families posed for a daguerreotype. Did it really take that long to generate an image with a cellphone?

6 Aug 2010 / 17 notes