photography show

SIGHT UNSEEN
International Photography by Blind Artists
May 02, 2009 - August 29, 2009

Curated by Douglas McCulloh

http://138.23.124.165/exhibitions/sightunseen/exh_bio_11.lasso

Ralph Baker is a blind street photographer in New York City. Baker shoots, prints, and sells small photographs at public events for immediate money. "Million Man March. That was a fun one. The Million Woman March was also fun. Street parties are fun. Some parades. St. Paddy's Day parade is great. Thanksgiving Day parade is good, too. Fourth of July..." Locations that draw crowds appear as repeated backdrops: Times Square, the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, Central Park.

He shrugs off questions about photography by a blind person. "Yeah, that doesn't make a difference... My camera can see."

Baker began his street shooting in 1966, and has operated ever since without required New York City vendor permits. Baker considers himself an artist. "I'm compelled to take pictures as a photographer... it's not a want." But the police tend view him as an unlicensed general vendor. The resulting periodic trouble with the NYPD leads to his most frequent self-description: "blind common criminal street photographer."

Every single image in this exhibition is one of the photographer's "failures." These are images that people did not want or buy. In a street-based photo economy, a sale equals success; these are washouts, rejects, losers. This is a prime reason these images are of interest. The world is full of perfect, pointless images. These are glorious failures shot by someone who cannot see. In fact, Baker's process of street sales is a culling regimen. Successes, that is to say images that meet with hollow, denatured formal expectations, vanish into someone's life. Failures-read: the unexpected, the oddly revealing-remain in the artist's trove.

Flipping through piles of Baker's collected images, therefore, brings a basic photo dichotomy into high relief. Somewhere in the frame are subjects enacting what image socialization has pounded into them-stand, strike a pose, present a gaze, remain embalmed until the shutter falls. The camera implacably returns their gaze. All seems well. But leaking in from every edge is the unkempt world of lively happenstance. Unbeknownst to the subjects, this camera is blind. Sighted photographers-most especially professionals-know to keep the real world out. Ralph Baker cannot, so the photographs crawl with life.

Baker was interviewed in 2005 by journalist Raphie Frank.

How do you know when you've taken a good shot or not? Well, I only go places where there's a good picture. A person is only part of a picture. The picture is a location or an activity. The picture is a spot.

The pictures that you take, do your subjects know the picture is being taken by someone who can't see them? No. Few people find out that I don't see them.

How do you get that one over? I ask them to stand at the line (on the ground) and smile. Then I press the button and print. Then I collect the twenty.

And they seem to like the pictures? I only do special photos, commemorative photos of locations, times and events. The desire for the photo is already there.