The Smokers
I’ve been shooting a lot of smokers lately. Not a lot of people smoke anymore and that’s a good thing. I personally can’t stand being around a heavy smoker. But the camera loves them. The punctuation and the ritual around it make it something the lens never gets tired of seeing.
There’s something about smoking that makes people particularly compelling subjects for street photography.
The cigarette gives the hands something to do. The lighter, the pause, the inhale, the exhale, the little adjustments made while holding a conversation or waiting for someone to arrive. There’s an entire vocabulary of gestures, and none of it seems particularly self-conscious.
A cigarette introduces punctuation into an otherwise ordinary moment. It creates a pause, a small performance, a reason to stand still or turn away or look off into the distance. Smoke drifts through the frame, catches the light, obscures a face, or briefly makes the air itself visible. Even the act of lighting up has its own choreography.
For a photographer interested in the behavior of people in public, that’s a lot to work with.
Street photography is often about noticing what happens between the things people think they’re doing. Someone is waiting for a friend, having a conversation, taking a break from work, or simply passing the time. Add a cigarette, and suddenly there’s another layer of activity. The body settles into a particular posture. The hands become expressive. The face changes. A moment that might otherwise pass unnoticed acquires a little drama.
I’m interested in these ordinary rituals, especially the ones people perform without giving them much thought.
My documentary-style photography often comes out of paying attention to the small, revealing details of everyday life: how people occupy public space, how they present themselves, and how much information can be contained in a seemingly insignificant gesture.
Smoking happens to offer an almost endless supply of those details.
There’s also a visual contradiction I like. Smoking is an activity I have very little affection for, but the photographs can be beautiful. A plume of smoke against a dark coat, a hand cupped around a lighter, a face caught in profile, the glow of a cigarette at dusk. The subject doesn’t have to be something I admire for the image to hold my attention.
That’s one of the pleasures of photographing on the street. You don’t have to approve of what you see. You just have to be interested enough to look.
I’m not trying to make smoking look glamorous, nor am I trying to make an argument about it. I’m interested in what happens in front of the lens: the little arrangements that make an ordinary scene worth looking at twice.
These are some of the photographs I’ve made on the street lately.
Sometimes the most interesting subject is the one you’d rather not sit next to.