Photographer Spotlight
We at Street-Photography.net have been fans of Richard Bram’s street photography for a long time. We are really happy that he agreed to be our first photographer to be featured in our Photographer Spotlight.
With the spotlight section, we ask street photographers to answer around 10 questions, related to their thinking on street photography. We took a different approach to the questions we asked Richard, as often interviews do not reference previous interviews and build on the answers provided. For this interview our approach references previous interviews that Richard Bram has done. With this in mind, when reading Richard Bram’s answers we would also encourage you to also visit the previous articles we referenced in creating our questions, to get an even more rounded picture of the depth of thinking behind Richard Bram’s street photography.
Richard Bram Interview.
1. On Artistic Foundations and Visual Influence.
- In an interview on StreetHunters, where it is noted that your work often reflects the layered composition reminiscent of Pieter Brueghel’s paintings, with “hundreds of things are going on… yet they’re all gorgeous.”
Q: How do you balance that compositional complexity with visual clarity in street environments with the limitations of photography? As we know you are working with things in the real world whereas a painter can add or move elements, if it suits their composition?
A: That’s the hard part, isn’t it? That’s why street photography is a heartbreak – so many frames, so few photographs. Early on, I got in the habit, if time allowed, of running my eye around the edges of the frame quickly before clicking the shutter. After a while it became second nature and done in a fraction of a second. But it still takes a combination of being awake, alert, in charge of your camera settings, and also lucky. A certain inner sense of composition comes from looking at all those paintings for most of my life.
An example: “Dey Street, New York 2011.” This photo is the cover of my New York book. I was walking near the World Trade Center construction site. I photographed people in front of a hotel, working the scene. After a bit, I saw the three groups of three arrange themselves, put the visual box around them where I wanted, shot 5 frames of this arrangement before the people started moving on. A friend was standing next to me and made some frames at the exact same moment, but they are completely different. He was looking at the reflections of the buildings; I was looking at the people and how to get them all together in that rectangle, and to get a good gesture or two in there as well to enliven it. In only one frame of the couple of dozen did it all come together. That’s the only one that counts.
2. The Evolution of Colour vs Black & White.
- You transitioned to shooting in colour around 2010 to “shake yourself out of complacency.” upphotographers.com
Q: In retrospect, how has working in colour altered your awareness of gesture, light, and narrative compared to your earlier black‑and‑white work?
A: I don’t think it has that much, though it took a while to find my personal voice in colour. It’s just more difficult because there’s so much more that can get in the way. The photograph “Dey Street” above would work well enough in black and white, but I like the addition of the unintended political statement brought by the three people on the right in their red, white and blue colours.
3. Image Manipulation and the difficulty of working in colour.
In an article on Lenscratch you are quoted as saying” Since 2010 I’ve been shooting almost entirely digital colour. It’s much more difficult to do well; there is so much more that can go wrong. The challenge of mastering colour in my personal work (I have always made colour photos for professional work) was difficult, stressful, and worthwhile. Some people might change the colour to something else in Photoshop. I won’t. My pictures are not manipulated, set up or composited. Reality is plenty strange enough.”
This statement raises two questions for me:
Q 1: Why was using colour more difficult in street photography?
Q 2: Why with it now so easy to use photoshop to change any aspect of an image or even add elements that where not there do you not manipulate your images?
A 1: They eye looks at different things first in colour or monochrome. In colour it’s usually red: It’s the colour of blood and grabs the eye if it’s there. In monochrome, it’s usually whatever is brightest. “Mainz, Germany 1996” would have been entirely different in colour. Shot on TMax 400, the eye goes right to the electric spark about to happen between these two people. One doesn’t much notice the out-of-focus little girl in the background. But that little girl was wearing a bright yellow, purple, and pink patterned jacket and would have ruined the photo, taking the eye away. If I’d had slide film, I would have had to move around to hide that jacket and missed the moment. As I said, you have a lot more variables to deal with.
Fourteen years later I made a quick, quiet photograph of a very similar spark, “Couple, Orvieto, 2010.” It has the same energy and sexual tension between the two, but this time, in colour and no bright distractions behind.
Sometimes the subject of a colour photograph can be colour itself as much as the content. “Red Tie, Church Street, New York 2012”is a good example: it’s more than a very stressed man hurrying along the street. The diagonal reds of his tie and the sign behind give a dynamism to the photo that it wouldn’t have had otherwise.
A 2: As I said to LENSCRATCH I simply don’t do it. I stay close to the reality I saw. I’ll burn or dodge slightly as I learned to do in the darkroom, but I won’t change a colour or take something out. In ‘Red Tie’ the man in a red shirt in the right background forms a punctuation that keeps the eye from leaving the frame. If that had been, say, a hi-vis green, it would have been a distraction. If something in the background ruins the photo, so be it; out it goes. There are always more photos.
4. Gesture: Micro to Grand.
- A significant aspect to your images is the notion of the Gesture. You’ve noted that gestures can be sweeping or microscopic, a look, slight tilt of the head, or an expression. StreetHunters
This question has two parts.
Q 1: How did you discover that gesture is important in your image making process?
Q 2: How do you train your eye to detect and prioritize those moments?
A 1: It comes from a beginner taking up public relations photography for a living in 1984. That first year, I began to show up early at big public events. At a political rally I grabbed a spot on the press stand as if I belonged there. I kept out of the way, was polite, but stood my ground. I noticed that the press photographers’ cameras around me all tended to click at the same moments: when the speaker gestured, looked up, did anything besides simply speaking into a microphone. Later as I covered receptions, announcements, awards ceremonies, and other mundane events for PR clients, I realized that I needed something like that to make the photos visually interesting for my clients.
A 2: If you watch people carefully, you’ll see that they repeat their habitual gestures – a certain wave of the hand, tilt of the head, or a sidelong glance. A speaker behind a podium is easy as they stay in the same place. Do this enough and it becomes second nature. IF someone yawns, chances are that they might do it again. I was on the DLR and a man yawned across the car and I missed it, but it was that time of day. I guessed that he might do it again and was ready when he did. “Yawn, DLR, London 2003”
Out on the street, this helps when watching passers-by as potential subjects. You can guess that they could do something that will enliven the frame, even if they don’t at a particular time. You must be alert and often you’ll miss it, but it will increase the odds of getting an interesting photograph. ‘Nails, SoHo, New York, 2011’ is a good example. I saw these two walking toward me, noticing her brightly painted fingernails as she gestured. I didn’t notice all the details as I made the picture, but the man on the left is looking at her hand as her fingers curve together.
5. Anticipation, Rhythm, and the Streets.
- Your approach melds anticipation (staying ready for repeated gestures) and patience (waiting on a street corner). How do you sense the rhythm of a scene—knowing when to wait in place and when to follow movement? StreetHunters
Q: Has that rhythm changed across London, New York, or Mexico?
A: I don’t think so. Wherever I am, I work the same way, quietly, quickly, and as unobtrusively as possible. You have to make yourself quiet inside and observe what’s happening around you, making it familiar, even while being alert to picture possibilities..
A good example is “Bottle, Oaxaca, México 1998.” There is no way I can ‘blend in’ around the mercado in the center of town. However, I sat down on a stoop and quietly watched people going about their business. At first people like the security guard looked at me, but when I did essentially nothing but watch the world go by, he went back to his thoughts. The little girl with the bottle didn’t notice me nor did the lady passing by with her shopping. If they did, they decided I wasn’t worth paying attention to. This was a good thing, and I was able to quickly make a photograph that I was pleased with.
There are a couple of corners in New York City’s SoHo where I have hung out a bit if it’s the right time of day and the light is obliging. Several of the photos in the New York book were made there, like “Nails” or “Sno-Cone, SoHo, New York 2011.” However, I’m not usually one for that sort of ‘fishing,’ patiently standing around one place for a long time. I admit to being a bit impatient and rarely linger very long in one place, preferring to move around as light changes, or if it isn’t working for me at that moment. I have no set pattern other than my mood on a particular day. Some days I can hang out, other days not.
In a new place, it takes a couple of days to get beyond the ‘I’ve never seen that before – take a picture of it!’ (not that there is anything wrong with that) and settle in enough to observe everyday street life unfold. When it becomes familiar enough, one can see beyond the strangeness. That’s when pictures can happen for me and something out of the ordinary can go into the rectangle. That’s how I work, no matter where I am in the world, at home or away.
Last May I was coming out of a restaurant in Italy with a group of fellow photographers. There was a group of young people hanging out on a warm evening, chatting and drinking beer and we all started making pictures. As I went up the street heading for my hotel, I saw up ahead two girls, one checking her makeup in her phone. I walked up quickly and made two photos before they noticed. We all laughed. This was “Makeup, Livorno, 2025” but could have been anywhere. I made a similar photo in SoHo, New York, ”Lip Gloss, SoHo, New York 2021.” The young woman noticed me and asked “Is it a good one?” “Yes, great!” I replied and showed it to her.
6. Editing as Story Building.
- “Mostly I am looking for single images. I do not consciously categorize photos as I’m shooting. The series are a way of organizing them later.” BirdInFlight.com
Q: As you state you are mostly looking for single images, how then do you go about putting those single images into a larger frame to make the photobooks that you have created?
A: I have two different approaches. The first is mining, seeking gems amidst the vast ore of the image library. “Richard Bram: NEW YORK,” my first hard-cover book, was made this way. I’d marked the best photographs in the archive, tried to make book dummies from them but wasn’t satisfied with the results. I was too close to them. In 2016 David Carol and Ashly Stohl, the publishers of Peanut Press, approached me and wondered if I’d be interested in publishing with them. I said yes and took about 100 small prints over to David’s flat. We began throwing them around the table and he asked me to pick out my 10 favourites. “Only 10?” but I did. Then he asked me to pull out the next 10, and we did this until they were in several little piles in order. David picked up about 70 and I left them with him. A week later, I received an edited, sequenced proposal. We went back-and-forth a bit but settled on what became the 51 that are in the book, in an order very different from my earlier ideas. That’s what a truly good editor can do: see the potential in a work without being emotionally invested in it in the same way that I was.
Another result of mining is my zine “The Red Cube,” published by Bump Books in 2021. It began from a photo I made in New York on the fly, “Liberty Crown 2020.” I posted it to Instagram that evening and got a good response. This made me wonder ‘How many images do I have with that sculpture in it?’ I slowly went back through my digital archive and realized that there were over 600 frames. Sometimes the sculpture was the subject, but in most, it was an object in the background of a street photo. There was an echo of Hokusai’s “36 Views of Mt. Fuji” and Joel Meyerowitz’s “Empire State or “St. Louis and the Arch.” Most of those 600 were nothing special, but there were enough that I thought good enough. I printed out about 40 as 5x7s and took them over to David Solomons, publisher of Bump Books. We threw these around a table and settled on 35 that he later edited further to 25 to fit the zine format. I was very pleased with the result; it sold out. As always, there were a few favourites that had to be cut, but such is life.
The second approach is the project. An idea or concept comes to mind and then you go out seeking just those images to give it shape and life. This is much less common for me. I’m not usually that organized. However, an early project came to me around 1990: One of my gigs was photographing street festivals taking place during hot summer evenings in my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. I went out at night with a camera and a flash (a rare thing) looking for “Big Hair & True Love.” Over about 5 years I photographed beer gardens, street fests, and the State Fair, recording the couples in public and the particular hairstyles of the era. Though never fully published, I worked and re-worked the results into a book dummy that I think is as complete as it will ever be.
The other definitive project is something very different that I’m in the midst of now, “Limehouse Reach,” a landscape project made up of views of the Thames from our terrace. The light, air and water are ever-changing, even magical. Turner and Whistler painted within 100 yards of where we live and the magical light that went onto their canvases still appears before my lens on the Thames.
7. External Resistance and Respect.
- You mentioned encountering more resistance to being photographed in parts of Europe due to privacy concerns. “On the European continent, there is more resistance to being photographed on the street, especially in France, Germany and some other countries as well. ‘Privacy laws’ have convinced the average person on the street that taking pictures of them is either against the law or something bad or suspicious. This hasn’t stopped me, but I encounter more resistance.” BirdInFlight.com
Q: How has that shaped your approach in those places?
A: I’m a bit Bolshie about this. I mostly take whatever pictures I wish and don’t worry about it. However, if someone sees me and says “Don’t take my picture” I don’t. People have the right to say no. It may also be that, being fast and quiet, I may have already done so before they notice me. I made a photo of a couple in New York, “Millenium Hilton, New York 2010.” [Yes, it’s mis-spelled – the hotel did that, not me.] I liked the way they were in their own little space with the quotidian world going on behind them. Just after I clicked the shutter, the young man said to me in a German accent “You are supposed to ask permission first!” Being in New York where there are no laws against making photos in a public place, I explained to him that no, I didn’t. He was unsatisfied but I stood my ground, did not delete it, and walked on my way. Fifteen years later it’s not been shown often but I’m sure that his dignity wasn’t impaired in the least.
The legal proscriptions in both Germany and France are more about not publishing without permission as actually clicking a shutter. With all of that, still one must be street-smart. If you sense an air of hostility when you put a camera to your eye, it’s best not to do so. Discretion is the better part of valour.
it is interesting, though: Germany has very strict privacy laws. (Personally I think these were enacted as self-protection laws for politicians and lawyers in spite of public pronouncements to the contrary.) but in 2020 I had a major retrospective exhibition in Mannheim, Germany. As a small provocation I put 5 people photos made in Germany in the mix, including “Mainz, Germany 1996″ referred to above. There were no objections from the viewing public nor in the press reviews about the show.
I also note that when taking pictures with a phone almost no one notices, but if you use a camera they do, even though the phone picture may be sharper, better, and perhaps more intrusive.
8. Cross-Discipline Inspiration.
– become visually literate. Go to the library, take a course on art history (not just photography history)
– Read a lot photo books, art books, literature, politics, science.
– Don’t just live in the photography ghetto.
Q: Can you say why you believe this cross-discipline fusion of ideas is going to be beneficial for street photographers?
A: You mentioned Breughel above, but another good example of this is “Burger King, New York 2014”. Here is a woman being harried by her children. It reminds me of a small painting I’ve often seen in The National Gallery here in London, Hieronymus Bosch’s ‘Christ Mocked.’ In both images the protagonist of the picture is being tormented in one way or another by near-demonic figures.
“Millenium Hilton” is another – the way the couple is separated in the foreground from the world outside is similar to the spatial arrangement in Renaissance religious paintings, with the protagonists in a ‘sacred space’ in the foreground and the mundane world passing by in the background. This photo relates to one I took at Paris Photo “Bench, Paris Photo 2025” just a few weeks ago and even more directly to a photograph, “Couple, Prague 1996,” I made nearly 30 years ago.
Knowing art history helps you recognize when you have a good picture. It isn’t about copying an old example, but using the knowledge of these to see when you have made something that can unconsciously echo ancient tropes.
9. Cities as Characters.
- You’ve described New York as “dense,” “more neuroses per square metre,” and London as “calmer, quieter.” While we know you have worked in many places each with their own energy. BirdInFlight.com
Q: The way you describe London and New York makes me want to know, how does the nature of each city/location change the nature of the images you make in different locations?
A: I don’t think it changes my approach much as such. Most of the photos are identifiable as one place or another. There is a certain general appearance to a great city. New York, London, Paris, Bangkok, or Tokyo each have their own look. Small towns have their own character as well, and one can often detect the country if not the city in the photographs. I’m looking for gesture, for interaction, and that happens everywhere. The particular character of people in a certain place will colour the photograph, of course, but the subject matter that I choose to record, the way people interact with each other on the street is similar everywhere.
I often find that photographs will rhyme rather than match, like the three photos of business people taken in different locations at different times, “Wall Street, New York, 2010,” “Dubai, 2007,” and“Canary Wharf, London, 2018.” The location is different, but the nature of the photographs is the same.
10. On Playfulness and Humour.
- In your New York series, there’s humour, angst, romance—all captured in fleeting moments. Fraction Magazine
Q: How do you balance the humorous with the profound in a single frame? Is humour a conscious tool or a happy accident?
This question comes from reading an article on Fraction Magazine exploring how your work weaves together romance, humour, and angst
A: It’s difficult, and I certainly don’t manage to do it often. It depends on what you mean by humourous. I used to make a lot more photos that were ‘funny – ha, ha’, visual jokes, people unintentionally interacting with backgrounds. Some of my early London Underground series from my first few years here are like this. “Angel, London, 1998” or “Gunslinger, Euston, 2000.” I still make photographs that amuse me, like “Service, 10thAvenue, New York 2011” “Winking, 8thAvenue, New York 2016,” or“Even Santa has to Walk the Dog 2011.” After all, the world needs more laughter.
But from the beginning, I tended to look for ‘funny – as in out-of-place’ photos, like “Clown, Louisville, 1991.” meaning curious, odd, perhaps wry. Today I’m looking for more of the latter, with gesture, body language, and human interaction and emotion all part of it. A recent photo, “Mechanical Bull, Indianapolis 2025” is along that line. For me it’s sort of funny, but a touch sad at the same time.
11. Technical Question.
- Final question is a technical question related to your camera choice. I know you work with Leica M rangefinders and the Leica Q. I know that a lot of street and documentary photographers use these cameras and I am always curious.
This question is in two parts:
Q: How does using these cameras affect your image making process?
Q: Why they choose to use what is perceived as expensive cameras for street photography?
A: I bought my first Leica in 1987. I had been working with the Louisville Orchestra and my Nikon F2 SLR was simply too loud for the job. I realized that I needed a quieter camera. At that moment an old, well-used 1955 M3 rangefinder with a 35mm lens showed up at my local camera store for $300. I picked it up and it felt comfortable in the hand. It had the quietest shutter I’d ever heard. Also, the first cameras I’d ever played with were rangefinders: my Dad’s Argus C3 then later Mom’s Yashica Electro35. Once you are used to it, it’s incredibly fast and focusing is dead accurate. Thus the Leica was instantly familiar.
Soon the M3 became the favourite for my personal work as well: small, quiet, and unobtrusive. Because you’re not looking through the taking lens as you do with an SLR, there is never any blackout when the mirror moves out of the way. You can see things before they move into the viewfinder’s frame lines. This helps you anticipate just when to push that shutter.
My preference for this camera is based on over 40 years using analogue equipment. For me, they are the right tool for the job; an experienced workman should have the best tools he or she can afford. Because I wanted an internal light meter I moved along to later models, going from the M3 to the M5 (which I lost one dark night in the back of a black cab) to the M6. I held off after that for 12 years until the M9 came out, the first good digital M camera. I bought one in 2010 and made a tool-driven decision to switch to colour in my personal work. I have upgraded camera bodies, but they use all the lenses I’ve had for decades. Buying good glass is expensive and a serious investment. That 1959 35mm lens from my original M3 can be used on my 2017 M10 today. Over time I’ve collected the good set of used M lenses that I use today.
Now technology has moved on in remarkable ways. The mirrorless camera, auto-focus, and other advances have made so much of this easier and more certain. The auto-focus on my now 10-year-old Q-1 is incredibly fast and it’s also a great street camera. But I continue to use the M10, usually with a 35mm lens, but I use different focal lengths depending on need or my mood.
Ultimately it doesn’t matter what camera you use as long as you’re happy with the results. A lot of street photographers swear by Fuji, Sony, Ricoh, or an iPhone and make great photographs with them. In the end the photograph is all that matters.
Richard, I want to thank you for agreeing to take part in the Street-Photography.net first ever spotlight on a street photographer.
For us it is a great privilege that you are happy to be involved.
Michael
To see more of Richard Bram’s street photography, please visit his website at: www.richardbramphoto.com
