the streets
issue one Summer 2016
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Your Street 2 65
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T A B L E
O F
INTRODUCTION 4 STREET ART 5 6 Thomas Meiss 12 Chris Van Laak 18 Serrone Khan INTERSECTION 45 46 #Hooplah 57 A Cup of Humanity 60 Hope
San Fran, NYC, Vancouver Thailand, Burma, India
Atlanta
C O N T E N T S
24 Missy Tomlin 31 Russell Streur 38 Antonio Dabraio NYC
New Orleans Chicago, Atlanta, Venice
65 Taken Word 74 Autumn. Love. Cycle 78 Your Street
EDITOR and CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Meredith M Howard CREATIVE and DIGITAL ASSISTANT: Eva Howard Special thanks to Dot Paul CONTRIBUTORS: Antonio Dabraio Isabella Gomez Serrone Khan Chris Van Laak
Thomas Meiss Russell Streur Jerry Syder Missy Tomlin
Contact THE STREETS info@thestreetsmag.com www.thestreetsmag.com All work is copyrighted to the author or artist. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used or reproduced without permission from THE STREETS.
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“You look awesome!” I say that to someone on the street right after I have taken their picture. I love their outfit...or their hair...or the way they walk. I always notice interesting people. Put several photographers on the same street corner, and they will take pictures of completely different things. One will notice the architecture. One will notice the puddles. One will see the whole scene come together as a work of art. In this inaugural publication of THE STREETS, six photographers share their view of the world. They answer a few questions about their style and comment on their photos so we can see the streets in a new way through their eyes. In everyday life, we walk by strangers without a thought, but the camera gives us an excuse to stop and engage. I thought it would be interesting to have more than just a brief conversation with someone on the street and to walk a little further with them. One college student caught my eye with her hula-hooping. I then followed a path to find answers about homelessness, because as one subject informed me while chatting on Broad Street, “You are standing in my living room.” Jerry Syder also provides different perspectives on the same topic by relaying his stories from the streets of London. In an effort to help those who live in places we like to photograph, I thought it only appropriate to donate a portion of the proceeds of this magazine to Atlanta Mission. What do you see when you walk down the street? People? Buildings? Art? Hopefully, THE STREETS will help you to see more. Let’s start walking...
Meredith
Editor and Creative Director
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Street Art
Photograph by Meredith M Howard New York City
Can people be art? Can a door be art? Can a peeling advertisement be art?
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Thomas Meiss P h o t o g r a p h e r
Where do you live and what are 3 words to describe your city?
Atlanta: hot, diverse, and tree-canopied. Also, a great town for foodies and getting better all the time. What are your favorite things to do?
Play with my beautiful dogs, listen to music, and study film (watch them, read about them, and dig deep into genres and directors’s bodies of work.) Why did you get into photography?
Couldn’t help it. Just did. Who or what inspires your style of photography?
Contemporary illustration and graphic design. Also jazz. What is your favorite street and why?
My ideal street has lots of funky restaurants, a great book store, and a record store or two. Good for the soul, as well as colorful and well-weathered, thus making it ideal for my kind of street shooting. 6
I was at a street festival in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, so I got loads of wildly colorful photos. Ironically, my favorite of that day is this one, with an almost monochromatic palette. I love the interaction of the textures of the tent fabric with the silhouettes behind it. Thomas Meiss
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On this side street (in Anytown, U.S.A.) my eye was drawn to the combined textures of the air conditioner grill and its plastic wrapping. A perfectly colored pedestrian’s reflection added the finishing touch. Thomas Meiss 8
When I took this picture in Soho (NY), I was struck by the contrast between the commercial billboards and the obelisk of the church (offstage right). After spending a good amount of time in Lightroom, I ended up with a photo I love because of how the multiple intersecting and overlapping planes somehow produce - to my eyes anyway - a very flat, and somewhat disorienting image. Thomas Meiss 99
This subway station entrance in Vancouver provided a beautifully colored frame. 10
All I had to do was wait for the commuters to take their proper places.
Thomas Meiss 1111
Chris Van Laak P h o t o g r a p h e r
Where do you live and what are 3 words to describe your city? than a week ago, I ss Le ). rds wo ee thr the are ese (th s” ce pla Lately I’ve been living “in between Taipei, a city that is in cks ksa ruc o tw m fro gs gin lon be my d moved, that means unpacke ace. still “new to me” in the first pl
What are your favorite things to do? The most obvious answer would be “traveling and trying out new things”. Besides constant movement and new activities, not much has been constant in the last couple of months, and nothing has been done constantly enough to be considered a fave thing to do.
Why did you get into photography? That’s pretty easy. I saw a DSLR on a big Indian online marketplace, which was so much cheaper than in my home country. And I thought, we ll I see places other migh
t be interested in. From that moment onwards, I’ve just enjoyed fiddling with my cam and I got more and more into it.
Who or what inspires your style of photography? I don’t look much at what other photographers are doing. Maybe I’m too lazy to do that, but I also believe that a certain carelessness helps to find a style of one’s own. Well, very simple, the things I see, inspire me a lot. Walking around in a new place, a new culture, and not understanding many iring. things around me, is very insp 12
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Streetphotography captures interesting interactions of everyday life and composes them in the frame. Well, sometimes there is no interaction between the subjects of a photo, and sometimes there is no background that contributes to composition. Sometimes something very ordinary appears in the frame, a tired face at the end of the day, a face in focus among many faces out of focus, and this one thing becomes meaningful. Photography is able to transcend the most ordinary things in situations of everyday life. This is what I like about it. Chris Van Laak Bangkok, Thailand. March 2016
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Do you want to see more? go to www.thestreetsmag.com and buy the secret key code...
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Art by dain_nyc Photograph by Missy Tomlin
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