William Crawford’s New Photography

Photo of steeple against royal blue sky — *Flying Steeples*. A fast moving weather front produced these rushing clouds.

My photography employs minimalist classical shooting techniques which offer a throwback alternative to computer driven modern photography. This approach carries the label Forensic Foraging in a nod to the plodding techniques of early crime scene pictorial work. Forensic Foraging is not in direct competition with any other shooting approach. It is only a carefully considered recognition that the basic techniques which made photography great in the first place can still have considerable relevance in today’s digital world.

Photo of weathered person sitting on bus — *A Well-Traveled Passenger*. Shooting on public conveyance has always been productive for me, here on a San Francisco bus.

Photo of fuzzy dice hanging over gear shift — *Windshield Dice*. I like to move in tight for a shot to create a cramped closeup with detail.

Photo of brightly colored tattoos covering a man's arm — *Forearm Art*. Moving through a crowded street festival I pushed my shutter from waist high as I passed a motorcycle guy.

I seek to lift everyday subjects up into pleasing eye candy by recording them in a visual frame. I closely follow Gary Winogrand’s dictate to shoot a scene just to see how it looks in a photograph. I practice a diverse form of street photography which utilizes heavy color saturation, creative framing, funky angles, and reversion to monochrome when indicated. I do not own any post-processing or AI software.

Photo of splash of red against black brick — *Dead Red Abstract*. Vivid colors with contrast are my trademarks.

Bright red poles behind streetlight — *Mixed Motif Art*. Abstractions occur randomly but creative framing can make a big difference.

Photo of red brick building — *County Jail Backside*. Lines, geometric shapes, saturated color, and the sky inhabit many of my images.

Not surprisingly I venerate the work of Stephen Shore, Bill Eggleston, Fred Herzog, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, and Vivian Maier. Additionally, I owe my very existence as a photographer to the Pulitzer Prize winning shooters who mentored me in Vietnam.

House with flagpole in yard with US flag and Confederate flag on it — *A Nation Divided*. Living in the American South I sometimes shoot a dichotomy of social and political symbols.

I cut my teeth on Tri-X film as a combat photographer in the Jungle War. Only much later, when I found the pioneer color work of Stephen Shore and Bill Eggleston, did I adopt the heavy color saturation that leaps out of my work today. Traveling street photography as exhibited by Shore in his little cult series, Amarillo Postcards, piqued my current fascination with polychrome. The so-called New York School of color experimentation became my guiding light and it morphed into my latter day minimalist approach, Forensic Foraging.

Black and white photo of man in Jeep smoking — *Keeping Cancer Alive*. Passing autos have yielded tons of material over the years.

The decision of when to revert to monochrome for a given image is usually an easy one for me. When black and white is strongly indicated, I simply see the scene or subject in monochrome. This happens in my brain automatically and I have little conscious control over it. That is to say, simply, that I recognize over ninety percent of those frames as I am shooting them.

I am foremost a photojournalist. This approach nudges me to consider a newspaper approach first. Some critics say that factual reporting is best supported by traditional black and white photographs. My veneration for Walker Evans and Bill Christenberry builds further momentum for this notion. Combat photos from Vietnam still provide additional inspiration.

Black and white photo of man with joint in his mouth — *A Red Hot Drummer Cops a Reefer*.

Black and white photo of black man playing keyboard — *Red Hot Jazz Man Pounds His Keyboard in Deep Sultry Shadows*. The funky musical mood would have been lost if published in color. The unidentified North Carolina musician’s dark profile jumps out to the viewer in black and white.

But all original art photography was monochrome. Some situations just demand black and white. The ambiance and truth of some images just cry out for high contrast monochrome. Color was never really an option. I saw them in monochrome from the first blink.

Black and white photo of woman in shirt that says "Act like a lady, think like a boss" — *Mystery Woman*. Some portraits work best using monochrome with extreme shadows.

I am extremely eclectic in my work. I have long travelled the country looking for the mundane to elevate for the viewer. I initially take photographs only for myself but then I eventually share some of them. Viewers get to decide if I ever cross over the artistic threshold.

Close up photo of a mannequin's made-up face — *Gypsy Woman*. I view mannequins as fair game for street portraits.

Photo of window with teal frame in pinkish/red house — *Reflections*. Sometimes light on glass is better than the real thing.

Nowadays old age has me working mostly in North Carolina. I shoot with vintage Nikon gear often favoring a 17-35 mm lens. I like to get low down and in close. I strongly believe that I don’t need a high-end venue to get a solid image. Beauty and things of interest abound all around us. I seek to bring this out with my camera.

Based in Winston Salem, N.C., William Crawford has published four books which contain both photography and short stories. The short story plots spring from his travels and often involve photography. They also reflect his respect for Rod Serling and “The Twilight Zone.” They are available at Amazon.com. See more of Crawford’s work at bcraw44 on Instagram or at William C. Crawford on Pinterest. His work has also been featured earlier in Streetlight Magazine: on December 4, 2017 and November 16, 2020.