Matt Weber (Street photography), Portraits, Subway

NYC 2010

Because of my switch to color film, I found myself staring at twenty rolls of black & White film for the past six months. I’m not a complete fool. I know that even if I’m having fun with color, the black & White stuff has to be processed. I never believed that Winogrand waited a year to develop all his film. He shot so much that a huge backlog was inevitable. When he photographed that guy with the broken glasses and blood streaming down his face, at a Vietnam protest, I think there’s a good chance that he wanted to see those frames that same night…Who knows. I’m not use to finding image after image, which I have no recollection of.

This is one of those pictures from last April…

All Photos © Matt Weber

Matt Weber (Street photography), Color, Men of New York, Portraits, Subway

“Not Just Another Suit” 2010

Here’s a fellow who has definitely arrived and wants to make sure you know. He might be a tough guy who has had some success on Wall Street. Then again considering he got on the train a couple of blocks from police headquarters, he might have a gold shield to go with his gold watch and chain…He didn’t like me very much…I can’t blame him.

All Photos © Matt Weber

Matt Weber (Street photography), 9/11 Related, Men of New York, Portraits, Subway

Subway “9/11 Hero” 2005

There are all sorts of heroes in this world. There are the athletes that some of us root for as kids or even worse, still do as adults. Then there are the underpaid nurses who care for us when we get old, barely making ends meet, as they meet our rear ends with a towel…This fellow spent time at ground zero, and whether or not he had to deal with body parts, he surely had to breath those noxious fumes which lingered for several months. The smell of all the metal, plastics and who knows what burning, was so vile that breathing it on a daily basis, could make even the toughest people sick. His eyes seemed to have seen the worst of it, and I think he gave a lot more than most of us did after the terrible massacre on 9/11…making him a true hero.

All Photos © Matt Weber

Matt Weber (Street photography), Portraits

“The Greatest Generation” Dobbs Ferry N.Y. 1997

Tom Brokaw labeled them “The Greatest Generation” and I can’t argue with that. The people sitting on this bench were all adults during WW II and I’m guessing that most of them did their part.

This morning was Memorial day and I was watching heartbroken parents crying at the graves of their kids. This was one documentary that was very hard to watch. I think that it is important to pay respect to the countless soldiers who have died for our country. The thing that makes me mad today is that so many have died based on BULLSHIT A.K.A. “bad intel.” As much as Bush & Cheney were to blame, I think the person who bothers me the most is, Colin Powell. He was the guy you could “trust” and he used that trust to make the upcoming war seem OK…It worked on me. I figured he wouldn’t lie and I had a very young child at the time. The mushroom cloud scenario he described was enough to make me, a lifelong anti war liberal, reluctantly agree that we should make a preemptive  attack and I still don’t forgive him for that. He knew better and decided that loyalty to his superiors was more important than loyalty to his troops. He did the thing any good company man would do, but sacrificed thousands of young Americans in the process… His newly found guilt and regrets are not nearly enough to make me forgive him…

All Photos © Matt Weber

Matt Weber (Street photography), Color, Men of New York, Portraits

NYC 2009

As a novice when it comes to shooting color, I like this picture because the color is used sparingly. After a quarter century of just shooting without too much thought, this additional element (color) is challenging my last couple of brain cells. Normally I would have been pleased with all the rectangles and triangles in this picture, but the yellow helmet has added a focal point which wouldn’t have existed in black & white, and I guess it might even be…better? Ah, such confusion this has wrought on my soul…

All Photos © Matt Weber

Matt Weber (Street photography), Portraits

“Jesus Freak” Philadelphia 2009

It’s weird looking into the eyes of the insane. What made him not only believe there’s a god, but also believe that this god loves us? Sound familiar? He also states that without a doubt, we will all perish on May 21st 2011. (Perhaps an act of god’s love for us) Unfortunately heaven is not that big, and has one of those signs you see in restaurants, stating: “Maximum Capacity 200,000,000” which he said amounts to 3% of this planets population. The remaining 97% of us will be “left behind” to face many earthquakes and forest fires which will kill us over several years, before we are sent underground to the place where the man with red skin and horns lives. I asked him several times if maybe god might have second thoughts about killing us, and each time he replied, God never lies!

May 21st 2011 is the day my dad will turn 75 and I had been hoping to celebrate…Oh well.

All Photos © Matt Weber

Matt Weber (Street photography), Old New York, Portraits

“The Chaser” 1987

Back in the ’70s & ’80s there was a certain group of tow truck drivers that were known as chasers. This was a sick lot of crazy hot-rodders with souped up trucks that screamed around New York at over 100 mph! The first to get to a wrecked car, would claim the wreck for his body shop. Since a totaled Mercedes might be upwards of $10K to repair, the chasers would take almost any risk to get to the accident first. Red lights rarely slowed them down, and eventually it became obvious that these psychos were causing almost as many accidents as they were collecting. Finally the city figured out a way to control the chasers and I guess that’s a good thing.

They were a bunch of badass mother f*ckers though…

All Photos © Matt Weber