It is slightly ironic that when I started taking my photography almost as a full time job, about 6 / 7 years ago, I thought that the area that I was lacking was portrait work. And, by that, I meant candids, on the street.
Mick Yates. Streets of Aswan. 1975.
Yet, as I work my way through scanning my slides from the 1960s, I find that I have always been fascinated by people on the streets.
Mick Yates. Streets of Aswan. 1975.
All of the original slides (Agfa CT 18) are, of course, in colour, and I have ‘restored’ them.
I have converted a few to black and white, as illustrated here.
Mick Yates. Streets of Aswan. 1975.
Of course, these often appeared during vacations, so on one level are ‘travel pictures’. Yet, with the benefit of age, they have become historical artefacts – ‘documentary/ if you will.
Mick Yates. Streets of Aswan. 1975.
We were in Aswan on 6th October, the day of Celebration of the history over Israel just two years earlier. The photograph above shows a flypast of Egyptian Air Force Migs.
Mick Yates. Streets of Cairo. 1975.
I have probably erred on the side of keeping too many of the photographs, but as I have mentioned elsewhere, in the ‘old days’ I only used to take one photograph of any scene. There was none of this ‘safety shot’ stuff that we all do with digital.
Mick Yates. Streets of Cairo. 1975.
Some are not as technically sharp as one might expect today. But I find it quite a powerful series. Would be fun to go back and see what we find, today.