Customer Reviews

On City Streets: Chicago, 1964-2004 (Center for American Places - Center Books on American Places)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
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If you are a fan of Robert Frank this is your new American photographer . Where Frank ushered in his vision of America from across the country Stochl captures his vision on the seeming lonely streets of Chicago . Focusing his leica on the almost but never touching human figures he leaves you with powerful images of our loneliness in daily commute. A true reason to call this city Shy Town.

Stochl appears to think in black in white, lending the gravity of the form to the people and streets of Chicago he captures here with such memorable directness. The often stylish, but always competent, compositions seemed intuitively matched to their subject matter in each case, often highlighting the subjects' sometimes dramatic, sometimes disjointed relationships to their surroundings. Stochl seems to effortlessly combine bracingly direct naturalism with appropriate, innovative composition. You will not find more substanial or more accomplished contemporary U.S. photography.

Very interesting story about this Chicago street photographer along with some great images. The book is quite brief. I would have liked to have seen more of his work.

I became interested in Gary Stochl's book when I first read about the book a few of weeks ago - a small collection of photographs that Mr. Stochl took on the streets of Chicago over four decades. Street photography! One of my favorite genre which has a long history, an especially abundant number of outstanding practitioners and its own language, even dialects. A look back at the masters of this genre suggest that a Leica camera and black and white images are prerequisites. But if Mr.Stochl has learned from Frank and Cartier-Bresson - as the book cover states - he must have missed a few classes.

Street photographers are invisible. They are (usually) not involved observers but neither are they snap-and-run types. Mr. Stochl comes across as a shy, hesitant photographer (too many from behind images without any compelling reason) who often relies on random snaps as opposed to narrative-driven ones like, for example, Helen Levitt's (or the above mentioned masters') classics. In my view, Stochl's images are like free jazz: a passing style that did not really make a lasting legacy.

However, we all ought to express ourselves in some way; be that picture taking, quilt making, poems or just good conversations. Therefore I congratulate Gary Stochl for this publication.