Mystery of the StreetUmbo (Otto Umbehr) German
1928
First Impressions:
This photograph was intriguing because of the angle in which is was shot, clearly upside down, but then you see the shadows of the people cast behind them, almost larger than life, and then there is the sullen man off to the left hand corner, it makes you wonder what these people were doing, what relations they had to each other, and what the artist was doing to capture this moment.
What I've Learned:
This artist was trying to show an eerie world, where what is real and what is fiction meshes into each other and can not be seen with the blind eye, he is trying to make you confused and have to think about the meaning.
This picture contains no confusion of itself. The artist is making a semantic link between the Street name and the subject. Umber means shadow. So in 'Shadow Street' the artist has noticed the long evening shadows and climbed to a high balcony to photograph the shadows from directly overhead. The anthropological content is totally foreshortened and the shadows they cast are depicted in sharp contrast. Times were very hard in 1928. Is the artist saying the shadow was more meaningful than the subject? Yet the artist includes enough detail, the brush and shovel of the workmen, the flat case and small purse of the pedestrians, to enable us to identify the menial occupations and mundane purposes of these citizens. I get a feeling of resignation, almost hopelessness from this photo. Kind regards, Crowbard.
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