John Szarkowski

LaSalle Street

When going through the photography book of John Szarkowski, there were a ton of landscape photo's that were all in all quite beautiful, but his few social landscapes are what I believed to be some of his best pieces of art. Within all of his social landscapes there seemed to be a certain stillness to each and every one of them, whether the subject matter was truly at a standstill or not. The photograph of LaSalle Street is the one that I found to be the most successful. Although the people who are waiting to cross the street are still, and silent in a sense, the surrounding area is not. The people in the background are blurred from being in motion, and the look of some of the cars in the background seem to be in motion to, but without the extent of the blur found within the people. The ability of Szarkowski to have such stillness in such a moving scene is quite impressive. He was able to make it seem as though the people were in essence frozen in time, or at least slowed down compared to the rest of the world. He was able to make it appear as though he was able to slow down time just for those people alone. The best part about this picture is the look on each of the peoples faces. They all seem to be in deep thought about something, and it makes you question what exactly is on their minds. Maybe that was his inspiration for making it seem as though time was frozen. As if they were trying to figure out what was going on within the chaotic world that surrounded them.