Happy Holidays to all you stupendous and talented and charming BSA readers! We thank you from the bottom of our socks for your support this year. The best way we can think of to celebrate and commemorate the year as we finish it is to bring you 13 FROM 2013 – Just one favorite image from a Street Art or graffiti photographer that brings a story, a remembrance, an insight or a bit of inspiration to the person who took it. For the last 13 days they will share a gem with all of us as we collectively say goodbye and thank you to ’13.
Geoff Hargadon is a photographer and periodic contributor to BSA who takes his shots from the perspective of an artist, collector, and unabashed fan of the Street Art scene. Affable and engaged with his surroundings, Hargadon’s wizened perspective is often looking for something that says more than what it appears to and in the process can be revelatory.
Wynwood Arts District/Art Basel. Miami 2013. (photo © Geoff Hargadon)
Girl on a Skateboard, An Avatar in Wynwood 2013
~Geoff Hargadon
With 400 million photos a day being uploaded to Facebook and Instagram alone, it gets harder and harder to shoot photos that stand above the crowd. I think this is no different in the street art world – maybe it’s even harder. This year I shot fewer street art photos than in years past because I don’t see much sense in capturing work that’s already been captured well by others. There is little to add. Instead I’ve been patiently waiting to document moments that come to me – it could be a random person entering the frame, a shift in the light, a changing composition. In this digital world, where others rush to be the first to capture and post something new, and where time is their enemy, I try to put time on my side.
Let me start with what I think is wrong about this photograph, shot in Miami on December 6, 2013, at 1:20am on NW 2nd Ave, between 24th and 25th: it’s dark, out of focus, the subject is not facing the camera, and, perhaps to the great disappointment of BSA readers, there is no art in the frame.
This is what I think is right about this photograph: it’s dark, out of focus, the subject is not facing the camera, and there is art happening all around the frame, very much responsible for creating the scene itself.
There are only a few of nights out of the year when Wynwood is this chaotic, and at this time of the year it’s because of the massive art scene happening around the art fairs. All of this helped to create the moment when I spotted this girl weaving her skateboard freely between taxis that were hopelessly motionless. She seems carefree, risky, happy, ethereal – many of the things that have drawn me to street art in the first place. She is an Art Basel Miami avatar.
(Further, taxis are so scarce in Miami that I challenge anyone to come up with a photo of four of them in a single frame.)
Location: Wynwood District, Miami. 2013
#13from2013
Check out our Brooklyn Street Art 2013 Images of the Year by Jaime Rojo here.
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