{"id":10847,"date":"2013-03-14T19:50:10","date_gmt":"2013-03-15T02:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=10847"},"modified":"2013-03-16T05:25:14","modified_gmt":"2013-03-16T12:25:14","slug":"the-random-and-jazzy-color-street-photography-of-todd-gross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/14\/the-random-and-jazzy-color-street-photography-of-todd-gross\/","title":{"rendered":"The Random and Jazzy Color Street Photography of Todd Gross"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photograph by Todd Gross<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Eric’s Note<\/strong>: I am not sure how I stumbled upon the work of Todd Gross<\/a>, but when I first saw his images- I was hooked. Not only are his images colorful and vibrant, but they are quite surreal, wacky, and in Todd’s words– jazzy. Not only does he have a talent for spotting and photographing interesting characters, but also colorful “still life” photos on the street. Check out his fresh color work and thoughts in the feature below.<\/em><\/p>\n

Todd<\/strong>: I am a 42-year old lifelong (townie!) resident of Queens, New York and Forest Hills High School drop-out. That’s the same school the Ramones didn’t got to. Love those guys. I saw Tommy buying flowers for his Mom at a local deli… once.<\/p>\n

As a kid I was obsessed with collecting Mad magazines. Alfred E Neuman was my guy. I wrote and drew my own rip-off, called Nutso. Unfortunately, I lacked talent. My drawing skills were for shit. I couldn’t even make it to stick-figure level. We’re talking more like… blobs. Also, this being the early ’80s there was Atari and Intellivision to play, so I eventually grew discouraged and gave it up. But I knew I wanted to get involved with some sort of visual art at some point.<\/p>\n


\n\"02\"<\/p>\n

Flash forward to the mid-90s and thanks to a couple of angels, I had a well-paying gig at ABC, coordinating camera crews and tape couriers from the newsroom. Always intrigued by cameras, now I could afford one. I picked up a Pentax Spotmatic and off I went.<\/p>\n

Honestly, I didn’t really shoot (mostly b&w) all that much. I was probably discouraged by the fact that my prints ended up mostly unseen, stuffed into a dresser drawer.<\/p>\n

\"03\"<\/p>\n

By 2001, like seemingly just about everyone on Earth, I ended up as a professional typist, shifting digits around, buildin’ some web sites. As most of these gigs went back then, there was a ton of down-time spent surfing the web. I discovered some blogs where folks (mostly local nyc web worker type cats) were posting photos made with digital\u00c2\u00a0cameras.<\/p>\n

A newish thing at the time. I thought, wow, cool. I got really excited about pictures of parked cars, mannequins, garbage on the street–stuff like that. These images inspired me to order a little ($100 cheap!) digi-cam.<\/p>\n

\"04\"<\/p>\n

I built my ‘photo-blog’\u00c2\u00a0quarlo.com<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0and started posting pics taken with my crappy camera. After a couple months, I started to get feedback by email!? Some people liked what I was doing? That was an eye-opener. Why would someone take the time to write me about the photos? There weren’t even any words on the site. None, no captions, nothing. I didn’t even attach my name to it in the beginning. But, I realized I had an outlet for my creativity. I had an audience.<\/p>\n

Previously, I felt frustrated, that I didn’t have a way to get the crazy shit in my head out. Now, I did. I found myself completely submerged in this random, jazz-like, often luck defined form of photography, that encouraged adventurousness, taking chances and interacting with people. I was into it.<\/p>\n

\"05\"<\/p>\n

I shot obsessively for five years, switching back to film early on. I just liked the look of film better. Film was film, like a movie. Digital reminded me of video or the look of daytime soap operas.<\/p>\n

I was very happy doing what I was doing but then I made the mistake of taking a job at a photo-lab scanning film, printing other people’s pics. Now I got to be around photography all-day! Not an ideal situation for me. I think it’s best to keep work and photography separate.<\/p>\n

\"06\"<\/p>\n

The summer of 2005 was a hot one here in NYC and I\u00c2\u00a0experienced\u00c2\u00a0a personal perfect storm of sorts that slowed my output. The intense heat, my girl of the time incinerating my heart, the uninspiring dead-end job and general photo-fatigue all combined, slowed my output. I fell into a bit of a funk. I dropped the ball and eventually stopped shooting altogether.<\/p>\n

From that time to say, 2010, there really wasn’t a day that went by where I didn’t think of photography or wonder why I wasn’t doing it. Gradually though, my situation improved, mentally and emotionally. I found myself in a better place, bought an iPhone and suddenly had a camera with my wherever I went.<\/p>\n

\"07\"<\/p>\n

A trip to Chicago in early 2011 convinced me I had my mojo back. It’s hard to say what did the trick exactly, but I took a picture of a hotel room lamp that I was happy with.<\/p>\n

So, when I got back home, I bought a Nikon DSLR. Now, I shoot with that and the film cam I used for my favorite pre-break shots, a Nikon N80.<\/p>\n

\"08\"<\/p>\n

As far as what I’m looking for on the streets, if anything, it’s to produce images that synthesize my love of Mad magazine and Pink Floyd album covers. One part head-in-the-clouds, mysterious, nobody knows where you are stoner vibe and one mid-century, borscht belt flavored satirist.<\/p>\n

Anyhow, I hope I don’t let myself get side-tracked again. I mean look, now my shit is going to be featured on Eric Kim’s blog!<\/p>\n

Fini. The end.<\/p>\n

More photos by Todd<\/h2>\n

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Follow Todd<\/h2>\n