About Me

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Toronto, Ontario, Canada
"To take a photograph is to align the head, the eye and the heart. It's a way of life." ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

Friday, October 6, 2023

Photographer Profile ~ Matt Weber

Who knows New York City better than a NYC cabbie? No one. They have seen literally everything -  from the seedy underbelly of this real life Gotham to the glam and glitz of the capital of the world.

The ubiquitous cabs in New York become virtually invisible to the citizens as they go about their daily lives. This fly on the wall existence affords one, with  the right proclivities and skill,  the opportunity to record some remarkably candid moments. 

Former cabbie Matt Weber became a street photographer after seeing some pretty crazy stuff and began to document the pulse and rhythm of the city like no other New York shooter.

"It had nothing to do with wanting to be a street photographer. I was driving a taxi and I saw so many crazy things on the street that I kept saying, “Damn, I’ve got to buy a camera.” Driving a taxicab in 1978 on the night shift at four in the morning in mid- town, if you saw the movie Taxi Driver, that was the world that was out there. There were prostitutes on the corner, Times Square was crazy; it was a dangerous part of town. I was robbed in my taxicab at double gunpoint." ~  Matt Weber



Very few taxi drivers went up to Harlem. I chose to go up to Harlem because I couldn’t disrespect someone and not take them there unless they looked like they’d rob me. I saw some crazy things: knife fights, people having sex on the streets, and all of a sudden I was like, wow, I better get a camera. Then, once I got one, I was constantly looking around and people were like, “This taxi driver can’t keep his eyes on the road!”  ~ Matt Weber



  







 



 
 


























 



 































Wednesday, September 13, 2023

Photographer Profile ~ WILLY RONIS

 

“The Lovers of the Bastille,” 1957, by Willy Ronis

Willy Ronis, the son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, had dreamt of becoming a composer. Tragically, the early death of his father, who ran a photography store and portrait studio, meant he had to start working at a young age to support the family. 


In 1936, tired of spending his days in the family store, he decided to take his camera into the streets of Paris and went on to create a body of work that continues to inspire and captivate. 


Ronis unfairly lived in the shadow of Robert Doisneau and Henri Cartier Bresson for much of his life and did not receive the proper recognition until his twilight years. He is now considered by many to be the father of "Humanist Photography" His sensitivity and humanity can easily be seen in his masterful work. 



 “ ‘Photographing couples on the banks of the Seine in spring — what a cliché!’ But why deprive yourself of the pleasure?” Ronis wrote in his photo album. “Every time I encounter lovers, my camera smiles; let it do its job.”









“The Little Parisian,” 1952.

Credit...Willy Ronis


“Chez Max,” 1947, at an outdoor ball in Joinville-le-Pont outside Paris.
Credit...
Willy Ronis


Credit...Willy Ronis







Café de France, Isle–sur-la-Sorgue, 1979

“My photographs are not an attempt to overcome death and I’m not aware of suffering any existential anxiety. I don’t even know where I’m going, except forward – more or less fortuitously – to the things or people that I love, that interest me or disconcert me.”