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*STREETPHOTOS
of the
WEEK A several-year private Email Exhibition by G. Mark Smith -- now also available to the public at WWW.StreetPhoto.Com...
*Streetphoto
of the Week #81/
Guitar Busker Blow-By/
Quito, Ecuador
*Streetphoto
of the Week #82/
The Morning After: Coconut Stand with Tourist Blow-By/
Ipanema Beach, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
*Streetphoto
of the Week #83/
Mexico Disembodied HeadScape Blow-By/
Nuevo Progresso, Mexico
*Streetphoto
of the Week #84/
Herenstraat Boot Walkers/
Amsterdam, Holland
*Streetphoto
of the Week #85/
Stop Light Bike Wait/
Amsterdam, Holland
*Streetphoto
of the Week #86/
Amsterdam Tattooed BootScape/
Amsterdam, Holland
*Streetphoto
of the Week #87/
Dam Square BootWalker/
Amsterdam, Holland
*Streetphoto
of the Week #88/
BootBikers in Paradise #1: Amsterdam Cowgirl Canal Cross/
Amsterdam, Holland
*Streetphoto
of the Week #89a/
De Wallen TattooScape/
Amsterdam, Holland
I was taking a swing through the Wallen (the famous Amsterdam Red Light District) on my 2008 mid-Winter in Amsterdam shoot, and it occurred to me that it was high time I finally acquired a decent streetphoto starring that provocative tattoo parlor sign on the district's upper main street, the Oudezijds Achterburgwal. Over the years I've gathered a decent collection of streetphotos on the Achterburgwal, but although notorious, it's not my favorite street to shoot in Amsterdam because it's typically a bit too crowded with gawking tourists and cluttered by more ne’er-do-wells than on a normal Amsterdam street. The North African hard drug dealers work that place and become camera shy quickly and aren't afraid to tell you about it. So on every third or fourth sweep down that street, I'm forced to hold my ground and explain myself to the ne’er-do-wells -- risking my safety and well being, wasting a lot of street time, and blowing my fly-on-the-wall streetphoto cover. On account of this regularity, I've had dozens of mostly-humorous five-to-ten-minute relationships with a lot of Moroccan hard drug dealers over the past quarter century, and although I've been blessed with the opportunity to study them on the cheap in this fashion, they distract me from my camera work and sometimes they unknowingly clutter a street photography free-fire zone I'm stalking. On the day I made StreetPhoto of the Week #89, that Red Light District street was pretty quiet. It was a Tuesday in the middle of the Winter. It was 1 degree Celsius, and a very cold and damp wind chill factor was blowing down the canals from the direction of the North Sea. But I was bundled up fine and after about six or eight minutes and not much opportunity to capture anything more visually bold and intellectually stimulating than a stray gawking tourist -- I was about to give up. I remember laughing to myself and thinking, there's another eight minutes, maybe two or three hours total over all these years, that I've spent at that place trying to get and failing to get a decent streetphoto -- painting that Tattoo sign into my work as the color of Amsterdam and waiting for something to happen around it ... ... ... and then suddenly the magic I work so hard to be around for when it happens, happened. On the verge of giving up and wandering half a block up the District and one canal over to The Zeedyke to stalk my next favorite Wallen spot, in the matter of a few seconds a loud metal-on-metal click rang out, an upper story apartment stairway door popped inward from the street with a thud, a motor scooter fired up, and out of the wall, out of nowhere, in near-perfect composition popped a real Amsterdamer, out on the street and ready to get it done in Amsterdam style -- an ear toward the melody of winter in his ear ... The wait, the whole several hour wait at that place on the Achterburgwal over the last 26 years -- and particularly the last eight minutes wait on that cold and windy morning -- was well worth the decent streetphoto image I came out of the Wallen with early last month. February in Amsterdam, wrapped in a coat and a pair of gloves. Amsterdam painted into the frame showing a naked Amsterdam Tattoo culture of naughty independence and the toleration of such. The things that lure the tourists in. The sex. The bawdy temptations and pointed come-ons. And this streetphoto I ended up with for all that patience also shows the architecture and some of the charm of Amsterdam and the Amsterdamer who graciously decorated the scene at the spur of the moment also hints at the music and motion and pace of the city -- -- -- and his scooter is very Euro-Cool as well...
*Streetphoto
of the Week #89c/
Amsterdam Tattoo Biker #1/
Amsterdam, Holland
*Streetphoto
of the Week #90/
April Fools: Freedom Lives When the State Dies/
Amsterdam, Holland
Probably the most astounding graffiti I've ever witnessed (with a local accent at the end), just where I'd expect to see it ("the 'A' in Amsterdam stands for Anarchy," I was once told by a young Amsterdam woman ). After it showed up, my Dutch friend Bart and I wondered how long it would last. Three weeks later, it was still there! I asked Bart if (post 9-11) he thought there was anyone in the Netherlands security community searching for this guy? He giggled, turned around and shrugged, "Perhaps that's why it's still up there..."
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