Interview with Photographer Sheila Welch: “In Cars”

Sheila Welch has a diverse background: involved in the early days of David Mamet’s creation of The Atlantic Theatre, a poet and devoted writing teacher, she also manages to find time to circulate in the world of Wall Street. She’s written a series of “Wall Street poems”, an entire collection of poems providing a view of Wall Street you rarely see, a view from the inside, humorous, insightful, humane. She’s a natural story-teller. Sheila is also a photographer, and is about to have her first photography show at The Lofts at Prince here in New York. She’s been working on the project – called “In Cars” – for a couple of years. Recently, I spoke with her about “In Cars,” how the project came about, and how the show came together.

Sheila O’Malley: I know that poetry and teaching a writing class has been so much a part of your life for such a long time. I was wondering what led you into photography, and what you see as the connection between the two.

Sheila Welch: When I was a kid, I always had a hard time reading. They thought I was … they used a word back then, they don’t use the word now – today it would be “mentally challenged.” They used a much more improper word back then. Turns out I had dyslexia. But I was always visually fascinated with painting and photographs. Because of theatre, I always liked the mood that was evoked in photographs. I was attracted to moody photographs, oftentimes not with any people in them.

I started doing photography when I was fairly young but in the old days of non-digital I always felt like I had to have some understanding of math. I was terrible at math as a kid and very insecure, so I abandoned it because I didn’t feel confident enough. I felt more comfortable writing and so I took that path. My writing has always been very visually-based and imagistic. But as I got older, I realized I had always had this attraction to photography so I decided to take a class at the International Center of Photography. I decided to take a street photography class because I hate street photography and I thought, “Oh! I’ll challenge myself and do something I hate.” The class was taught by a wonderful photographer and great teacher (best I have had) Barron Rachman. As a matter of fact, I ended up working with him far after the class in workshops he held. This project was born out of that class and my work with Barron.

Through the class, I realized that there was a lot more to street photography than the traditional photographers who would go out on the street and find some poor guy who’s drunk and lying on the sidewalk – that was a lot of the older street photography. I had to do a project for class and we had to find one theme that we could explore. So I walked all over Manhattan with my camera looking for things to focus on. Maybe it’ll be reflections in puddles. I started taking pictures of puddles. I experimented with all these different ideas.

Then one day I was up by Bryant Park and I was standing on the corner of 42nd and 6th Avenue, and a taxi pulled up. There was a woman in the back and she was magnificently beautiful and I was really struck by her face through the glass. She was looking for something in her purse, getting money out, and all of a sudden it struck me that there are all these moments in the little world of cars. That is what got me interested in the project, that moment.

SOM: So you decided “Now I am going to hide out at very busy corners throughout the five boroughs of Manhattan?”

SW: That’s exactly what I did. I would stand on street corners. I have to take a lot of photographs to get the picture that’s gonna work. I’m not one of those people who can instantly see the photo and know it and frame it in their mind before they’ve even taken the photograph. That’s not me. So I would stand on street corners and watch cars going by.

The project took on different shapes. I would go to the West Side Highway, where cars are going by very quickly, and try to take a lot of shots in sequence and see what came out the other end of it. One of the things that started to emerge, interestingly enough, was that there’s a certain look that happens to a person’s face when they’re in a car. It’s like they’re in a bubble, like they’re in their own little intimate space. I was trying to catch that moment where the person’s guard is completely down. When you’re in your car, it’s almost like the world outside doesn’t exist. There was an image that started to emerge, this look in people’s eyes when they’re alone, and I want the viewer to interpret it in their own way, but what I was trying to capture was that very human vulnerability. To me, that is what it means to be human, being vulnerable. And being vulnerable means being present. I think some people look at the photographs and think, “He looks so sad”, and other people think, “He looks so peaceful.” I think the photographs will be interpreted differently. I was attracted to that unguarded no-pretense image.

SOM: Did you find that some corners worked better than others? Did you find a sweet spot in Manhattan?

SW: There were a couple of places. It depended on the season and the light. Way uptown on Riverside Drive, in the 90s and 100s, there’s a nice curve in the road, and it was a good place to stand. I did have some people stop and they were very angry at me. I got people who yelled, “Why are you taking my picture?” And I would explain that I was an artist and about the project and they would yell at me, “Get rid of my photograph.” And I would, I would delete it and show them I’ve deleted it.

There was another spot on 34th Street, and when the sun was setting it would cut across and it would create this beautiful orange light on people’s faces. There was a corner in Jersey City over by the Grove Street PATH Station. Very busy and people would turn that corner very slowly so I could get the whole car in the frame. Times Square over by the theatre district was good, because, again, it’s crowded and cars don’t move too quickly. I tried doing other things. I tried going out on the highway. I had my husband drive and I put the back seat down and took pictures out the open window. It didn’t work as well.

SOM: Once you were trying to narrow the photos down for your project, before you were even going to do a show … was it that sense of unguarded moments that made you go, “Oh, this one, yes.” Did you know immediately “This one has got to be in it” or was it more, “Let me see how all these go together?”

SW: It was a little bit of both. This is where Barron and the workshop members I mentioned earlier really helped.

There was one photo I took where people go into the Lincoln Tunnel, and the busses turn there. There was an African-American woman with these beautiful gold earrings on, and I saw her coming, and I thought, “I really want to capture her.” I knew it was going to be a tough shot to capture so I kind of put myself out in the street a little bit. The one criteria I had for every photograph was that they could not be looking at the camera (something Barron steered me to and he was right). As a matter of fact one of the most influential things I learned from Barron was that I needed a criteria – that every photographer develops this as he or she develops a project and or a style. As soon as the person in the car acknowledged me, the mask goes right back up. So I hid behind a truck and luckily I caught her. There were about 12 shots in succession and one of them worked. As soon as I saw that shot, I knew it was going to be one of the ones.

Others I took I wasn’t sure and that was where the workshop came in, and I would bring all the shots in, and everybody had an opinion which was great, and that helped me understand the criteria I wanted to apply to every photograph. Some photos that I never thought would have been a part of it, as I started to shape the collection, it became clear, “Oh, no, this one HAS to be included.”

SOM: Can you give me an example?

SW: There was one that I took in Jersey City on Montgomery Street. There’s a woman in the front seat and in the back seat, at first you can’t quite make it out, there’s a gentleman. She is clutching the wheel. She has on beautiful pink nail polish. She’s looking in the rear view mirror at him in the back seat. At first I thought, that’s really not a vulnerable moment. But as I started to take more and more photographs, I went back and looked at it, and I went, “Wow, no, it actually is really vulnerable.” But it’s a different kind of vulnerable moment. There’s this whole DRAMA going on in that car. I didn’t know what it was, but there was SOMETHING going on. The photograph wasn’t a great one technically, because it was a little underexposed, so I had to really work to make it work. I thought at first, “Too bad, this was a moment I missed” because technically I blew it. But the more I worked on it, I saw: There is another element here. There’s this whole personal drama going on in cars.

SOM: Would you see people fighting? Or singing? Or picking their nose?

SW: There was one of this young couple. You’re not sure if they’re singing or laughing, but they’re very animated. You can tell they’re very much in love with each other. That was another kind of vulnerability captured. It’s a joyous moment.

SOM: Talk about the decision to create a show and how that came about. I know it was a long process.

SW: It was a very anxiety-producing process. I wanted to put myself out there. I had worked at The Writers Studio as a poetry teacher and a writing teacher for a number of years. I had written poetry for a long time and never had a tremendous amount of success publishing. I always had success reading my work. It almost became a performance piece. I had this whole series of poems about Wall Street and those always went over well.

SOM: I love those poems.

SW: But I wanted to re-define myself, so putting this show together – It was a process that was going to be so involved and I knew it was going to force me to think about my work as an artist, and try to think of this project as a statement and artistic expression. I knew it was going to force me to think. One thing I did first, before I started creating the show: I wanted to see if anybody else out there was doing something like this. Interestingly enough, I did find a couple of photography projects about cars. There’s one series from a photographer of people in their cars on Route 66, but it’s a little different. It’s quite lovely but the photographer isn’t necessarily looking for vulnerability, or the intimate moments with the mask down. He was trying to capture slices of life…

SOM: On a famous road.

SW: Yeah, and he does it really well.

There was another series of photos I saw in Brooklyn, where they hang photographers’ work on the park’s fence down in the Heights. The photos I saw there were taken in India, and they were front shots only, of cars coming at you. The photos were very processed. My photos are not. One of the things I was after was to not have them feel processed. The colors aren’t blown out, there’s not a lot of contrast, I’m not adding saturation. What I was after was the feeling that the camera wasn’t there at all. In the photos from India, the camera was present, and so was the presence of the photographer having manipulated the colors. They were beautiful photographs but it wasn’t what I was after. I realized there are other people interested in what is going on in cars but their approach was different. And that was a good thing.

The printing was the hardest thing. I was stressing about the printing and I was trying to do it myself but I don’t have the experience yet for that. I ended up using a printer in Williamsburg, Ken Allen Studios, and they were fantastic. They worked with me to find the right editing, the right paper, they really helped me to customize them to bring out the best photo that was there. It was a wonderful experience. We picked a very matte finish. I didn’t want the photos to be glossy in any way. I didn’t want to draw attention to me as the photographer.

SOM: How did you find the gallery location?

SW: An artist friend, Glenn Palmer-Smith. He’s a painter and he and his friend put a show on there, it’s called The Lofts at Prince. I lucked out.

SOM: What is involved in hanging the pictures?

SW: I’m using my husband because he does architecture restoration and he hangs a lot of artwork for clients. At first I was going to frame all of them but it’s unbelievably expensive so I thought, for this first show, I’m not going to frame them. But what we did do was put a white border around each photo, a frame around it in the way it got printed. I wrestled with: Do I put them on a wire? I thought about putting black paper on the wall to represent a street, but then thought, Nah, that’s too conceptual. They’re going to be very simply hung. Some of them are big, and we’re going to hang the larger ones on one wall, probably against a black matte. And the smaller ones are going to be hung on one wall and placed as if you’re looking at traffic. They’ll be overlaid with each other.

SOM: Where are all the photographs now?

SW: They are in my study. They’re packaged up and no one is allowed to go near them.

SOM: What’s next for you?

SW: I have another project that I’m working on. I’m calling it Gesture right now. I’ve been walking the streets and I’ve noticed that we reveal ourselves in our body language and I’ve become fascinated with this. One day I was out with my camera and there was a gentleman standing in front of a hotdog stand, and he had curled his foot under his leg, and there was something about it that I thought was so revealing. There was another man at the same hotdog stand, and he waited in line with his hand over his mouth. I don’t know what the project is yet, but I’m interested in it. I don’t know where it’s going to go. John Travolta said that his acting technique was to find the physicality of the character before anything else. It’s so easy for gestures to seem fake, or not sincere. I’m interested in the vulnerability of what is revealed.

“In Cars”, Photographer Sheila Welch

April 1, 6-9 pm (Wine Reception)
April 2, 1-8 pm
The Lofts at Prince, 177 Prince Street, 2nd Floor (between Thompson & Sullivan)