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Matinee: 'Brian Day: Photographic Impact'
14 September 2019
Saturday matinees long ago let us escape from the ordinary world to the island of the Swiss Family Robinson or the mutinous decks of the Bounty. Why not, we thought, escape the usual fare here with Saturday matinees of our favorite photography films?
So we're pleased to present the 309th in our series of Saturday matinees today: Brian Day: Photographic Impact.
This 5:22 production by Medium Allure is from Grit Detroit, a Web series of six stories focusing on the people, businesses, artists and organizations of the metro Detroit area. This episode focuses on photographer Brian Day, who just happens to be a third generation Detroit native. Talk about grit.
In the video, we take a walk with Day through the streets of Detroit as he frames one shot after another with his digital Leica M (it appears). He's shooting black-and-white in the color age, he admits. But "the value of the images still resonates over time," he says.
The appeal of a particular camera or approach, he says, is the photographer's thing, not the viewer's. There are, he's learned, different tools for different jobs.
We're not sure what he means. But he's a personable guy to walk around with. He waves at his subjects and laughs as they go by. And that sort of charm does resonate.
A peek at his portfolio Planet Hollywood gives you an idea of how his black-and-white images resonate, too. Color would add nothing to them.
But, as he says, the goal of photography is to create an image and the people who see what you've created couldn't care less what tool you used to do it. With the exception of envious photographers, perhaps.
The appeal of a particular camera or approach, he says, is the photographer's thing, not the viewer's. There are, he's learned, different tools for different jobs.
He illustrates that point by trading that compact street camera for a 4x5 Calumet view camera perched solidly on a tripod. Large format photography, he says, is a meditative experience. It slows him down to focus on the process instead of the image.
He's screwed up a lot of shots, he laughs, but it's been therapeutic and he really enjoys it.
We see him in his darkroom developing sheet film with his Air Pods on.
We'll let him tell you how he got started in photography. It's a funny story. And how he got into street photography.
We're going to look back at Detroit in 20 to 30 years, he predicts, and see a shift as dramatic as the 1960s riots.
He can't imagine what comes next but he's up for the challenge. Spoken like a native Detroiter.