Garry Winogrand

Los Angeles, California, 1969

Winogrand worked on the streets of America, photographing unaware citizens as they walked past on the busy streets of cities such as New York and LA, photographing very quickly and intuitively. He used a wide angle lens, so that the people on the edges of the image would not think that they were in the frame. 

I found this image very striking indeed, for the many separate aspects that have come together in one moment to create a statement about society. The three women are the central focus of the image, young and beautiful. Their long bare legs are emphasised by the criss-cross of shadows that stretch to the very edge to the frame, giving the impression that they are neverending. In stark contrast to this is the man in the wheelchair. His immobility is only more obvious when contrasted with their many legs, and he hangs his head, almost in defeat. They all glance at him as they walk by, but their expressions are vacant; he has no place in their world, and they will have undoubtedly walked on without a second thought after this image had been taken.

This may seem like an amazingly lucky shot, but Winogrand would have gone through a selection to get this exact image, to give us a certain impression and see his view of the world. Just like panopticism, we are being subtly controlled to come to a very particular conclusion about the goings on in this scene.

Unlike Weegee's photographs in the cinema, this image was not taken in secret- Winogrand was simply walking down the street with a camera, and took the picture. This may make it seem more like surveillance rather than the voyeuristic tone of Weegee. However, it is not a simple observation of a scene- it is a comment, a visual narrative and part of Winogrand's desire to say something about the world. In many ways it is just as voyeuristic as Weegee's.