“Action, emotion, mystery, and/or a story,” says Sean Fryxell to the Phoblographer in an interview when asked about what he looks for in good street photography. “Street photography is extraordinarily difficult because not all actions and stories translate immediately well into a picture. It requires that you think about freeze-framing it just right so there’s mystique.” He continues to state that a photo should stand on its own without an explanation. Indeed, this is how so many of the world’s greatest street photographs have been made.
All images by Sean Fryxell. Used with permission. For more, please visit his Instagram @sfryx and website.
Even if there is a backstory behind it, the backstory shouldn’t be the support structure for the image.
Sean Fryxell
The Story of Sean Fryxell
Sean Fryxell has photography in his genes. Growing up his mom was and still is into photography. He loved when he was given a chance to shoot because wasting film was always a concern in his household. That changed when digital camera around. “…it was freeing to not have to worry about a cost associated with each shot,” Sean tells us. “I could go out and take shots that were interesting to me. No concerns that I was being wasteful.” While this is bound to concern some photographers, Sean put it to good use when exploring abanonded buildings. He became fascinated with their history — and he felt that their entire story wasn’t being told. This is what connected him to street photography.
As Sean grew up, he stopped doing urbex because of health concerns. So he started walking around NYC with a camera. When taking photos of buildings got boring, he turned to street photography.
“I was quickly drawn to the small stories that ordinary people were a part of,” Sean tells us. “However, the moments were gone quickly – faster than I understood how to react.” Eventually he learned how to approach street photography in what he calls “the right way.”
Sean thinks that any camera made within the last decade is more than capable for street photography. He uses a Fujfilm X100v for his work along with a Godox Lux Junior. He walks around 15 to 20 miles when shooting, so he needs something small, light, and durable.
The Art of Street Photography
Sean goes about shooting street photography in a way that would make any photojournalism professor so incredibly proud. “It’s important to remember that you have to remove the context that you had when you took the picture,” he tells us. “You have to put yourself in the viewer’s shoes. Often, they’ll have no or limited context, so the photo really needs to stand out on the image alone or collectively in your series with no context.” That’s to say that the image needs to work better by itself and not have to be part of a photojournalistic story to make sense.
With that said, Sean keeps stories in mind all the time when he shoots. “When I’m out shooting, I do often think about current events and try to be dialed in on capturing how people are living their lives with the weight of the world/situation(s) (or no concern, depends on the person!),” he tells us when we ask about what he ponders about his subjects’ mental health. “I’m always trying to capture things that won’t be around forever.” He did quite a bit of this around the COVID era. Despite the horrors of the world, he is fascinated that people adapt well and still find joy.
So I spent a lot of time photographing people in masks (or people without them around people with masks – from a safe distance per CDC regulations at the time!). They really did serve as a reminder of an ongoing threat. Also, the horrifying remembrance that there are several million people who died from this – but people keep living their lives.
Sean Fryxell
He’s About to Piss Someone Off
AI is something that we ask every single photographer about that we interview. And Sean belives that it’s here to stay. “AI art is basically the evolution of some genres of photography and digital art,” he states. “Photography in its current form will live on within documenting genres. To me, this means we are going to have more stringent ethics regarding editing and maybe even a requirement of verification tools/chips within cameras for news coverage.” In fact, the inclusion of verification chips in cameras are one of the reasons why he’d want to upgrade his camera.
Sean even believes that wedding and family photography will devolve into AI imagery — especially because everyone is using weird camera filters and such. But more importantly, he thinks that the landscape genre is a great example of where other genres are going with AI.
“I’m going to offend some landscape artists by saying this, but the genre in its current form is overwhelmingly not truly representative of what was photographed,” he says. “There’s sky replacement, clone stamping galore, significant lighting changes, and more. I’m not arguing for no editing, but there comes a point where we have to agree that it’s not representative of what was in front of the photographer.” He hopes that people will push for more minimal edits in the future.
AUTHENTICITY STATEMENT
The Phoblographer works with human photographers to verify that they’ve actually created their work through shoots. These are done by providing us assets such as BTS captures, screenshots of post-production, extra photos from the shoot, etc. We do this to help our readers realize that this is authentically human work. Here’s what this photographer provided for us.