Mason Resnick interviews himself!!!

PPI: How long have you been doing Street Photography?
Since the summer of 1976.

PPI: What got you interested in SP?
I’d been taking a photography course at Queens College in New York with a documentary photographer named Herb Goro. He’d just been hired to run a summer program for the Germain School of Photography in downtown Manhattan, and developed a series of two-week “Master Workshops.” One of the master photographers was Garry Winogrand, who I’d never heard of. Herb told me that, based on the pictures I’d taken from him, that I should take Winogrand’s workshop. “He’ll turn your life upside down,” he told me. He was right.

PPI: Who are your big photographic influences?
Garry Winogrand, of course. His pictures may seem cliché’d now, but he was the first to shoot like that. He invented those cliches, like tilted horizons. Also Elliot Erwitt, Todd Papageorge, Tony Ray-Jones, Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson. And John Brownlow! He’s been a huge advocate for Street Photography and through his e-mail list has helped put it back on the radar of the photography world.

PPI: Do you try to be “invisible” when you shoot, or do you approach people and ask to take their pictures? Either way, how do you handle approaching people?
I don’t ask, but I don’t try to be invisible. I’m usually walking one way, they’re walking toward me, and the interaction is extremely brief. Once in a while, someone will look at me a bit confused, but I just smile, sometimes say “thank you,” sometimes just nod. In general, people don’t expect you to be taking their picture, and usually it just doesn’t register.

PPI: Have you ever been stopped by someone you've just photographed? How did you handle that situation? Got any good anecdotes?
I’ve been stopped, but not as many times as one would think. One time a guy who had a suspicious bulge in his jacket demanded I give him my film. No problem. I’d just loaded so it wasn’t as if I would lose important shots. I gave it to him, then ran. Last fall, a woman asked me why I took her picture. I told her I’m doing a project of people on the street. “Do you mind that I took your photo?” I asked. “As a matter of fact, I do,” she said. “OK, I’ll make sure to destroy the negative when I get this roll developed.” She accepted that.