E.E. Smith’s surveillance-like photographs of
pedestrians on American streets ask us to question our notions of
privacy. Who are these people, we ask? Why are they being
photographed, and what information can be gleaned by these grainy,
evocative images? As the national discourse on security threatens to
overrun basic individual rights, we are forced to wonder who is being
protected, who is being persecuted, but most importantly, how can we
tell the difference.
by taking street photographs, chance images, which depict people
individually and in groups walking, working, listening to their iPods,
talking on their cell phones, unaware of her camera. Ironically, their
assumption of anonymity is maintained, even as their privacy is
breached. From this raw data, she makes oil prints, cropping and
editing, enlarging the snapshots to 24 x 18” and printing on
hand-prepared watercolor paper. By making her own photo-sensitive
coating for the paper, Smith replaces the confident clarity of the
traditional silver print with greasy printer’s ink.
The blurred and somewhat abstracted images presented in Street Watch call into question what kinds of information can be conveyed by
photography and hints at more sinister uses of questionable “facts.”
With the widespread use of invisible surveillance techniques and our
country’s increasing obsession with illegal immigration and national
identity, street surveillance raises basic questions about the
difference between being an inhabitant and a citizen.