Bill Cunningham wasn’t that known outside NYC. A documentary made him little more so. It’s funny sad because you never thought he’d die. Or at least not before you! One could be dismissive of his tiny socialite pics for the New York Times. Whether he ever enjoyed taking them we don’t will ever quite know. I rubbed shoulders (well many times) but he always bore the air of that dog label ‘do not pet me I am working’. Very understandably- he was a very busy guy.
The last time I saw Bill was at the Armory Show vernissage this March. Someone started taking photos of him; none too pleased he made that very clear. Ten minutes later I grabbed an aisle photo of someone passing an artwork not sure it would work. Looking up- there was Bill about 15foot away smiling at me as if to say that will work! (There is such a thing as self-flattery I know but not methinks on this occasion). Well: I guess he could also have stopped for a moment of enlightenment and was smiling at that;) The photo had worked out. It’s far easier getting people to stand still while you take 30 seconds to focus.
Bill seemed happiest pounding NY pavements snapping his tiny On the Street pics. He always looked passionate, excited and earnest. He was one of a dying breed who remembered how important was street photographer to the art form.
I spoke to a very influential gallerist at AIPAD (the leading NY photo fair) a few years back who answered my question about that subject with a heavy sigh: “street photography was the bedrock of this fair when it began”, now there is….
You’d think with all the ease of photographing nowadays our world of imagery would become bigger. It most certainly proliferates yet with depth? Integrity? Everyone now has a camera; few ever take a photograph. We have regressed back to Victoriana days of families posing in front of backdrops- framed by scenes interchangeable and meaningless. Great photographers of that era knew detail, though.
The details of life nowadays pass by. Ourselves imagining beaming down to the world from a Times Square projection. We have become the Umberto Eco hyperrealty: seeing ourselves and our friends so often on social media that when present in the flesh we somehow no longer recognize whether they have changed or not.
