i’ve lost all faith in myself…been in a funk, have not taken a pic in ages and not a good pic in even longer…was heading out the other day and decided to not take a camera with me…as i was leaving i heard my inner voice say to me…’well, it’s ok…you have your phone with you if needed’.
Dunno, with street work one should seldom be in a funk. Just step out your door and opportunity is there. If you don’t live in a big city, go to where the people are.
Selection from
De Wallen: Amsterdam’s Redlight District artist’s book by Daniel D. Teoli Jr. (Candid)
When I look at Back Alley’s work I just see your typical photo forum bullshit photos with a few OK keepers mixed in. He doesn’t take chances, he just copies what everyone else on the forum does. When I looked at his blog dates, they were so spread out and infrequent, of course he is in a funk and losing interest.
Compare Cartier-Bresson’s attitude to Back Alley’s…
“I prowled the streets all day, feeling very sprung-up and ready to pounce, determined to ‘trap’ life – to preserve life in the act of living.”
To do great work one must be excited at the prospect of freezing time. Be purpose driven, don’t do photography as an afterthought…do it as the first, foremost and only thought.
A tool Harry Callahan used to combat boredom was to mix things up.
Callahan had no time to be bored and wallow in self-pity. Callahan would go from shooting architecture to nature to nudes to motion blur and abstracts to shooting his wife to color to 35mm to large format to water and reflections to street photography to shadows. All these areas of interest helped make Callahan a better photog, by giving him a variety of projects to approach from a multitude of directions – instead of just working on a single project day in and day out, one way.
Lets look at Back Alley’s post count… 39,992
He is a computer addict. He likes the idea of being a photog and talking about it, but does not seem to like putting in the footwork hitting the pavement. He spends more time fantasizing and tickling the keyboard than pressing the button.
If Back Alley could pick his balls up off the floor and get his ass in gear, he may have a chance. But nothing can come about if he doesn’t spend more time shooting and less time fondling his keyboard.
Now, sometimes it takes time to bring home iconic photos. Weegee talks about taking 2 years to get a great drunk photo. But, during those 2 years looking, Weegee also brought home lots of great photos in many other areas.
The Rangefinder Forum banned me ages ago after only a short stay there, so I can’t answer him on the forum. The guy that runs the Rangefinder Forum knows a lot about camera fondling, but camera masturbation is it…he is a shitty photog. Most of the Rangefinder Forum members are fondlers, so not much help for Back Alley there. For the most part, you got the blind leading the blind at the Rangefinder Forum…justpitiful.
Lets discuss portfolio theory and practice a little before discussing the funk…
Back Alley’s portfolio, it is loaded with crap. He needs to get rid of the crap and focus of great photography. Your work should not only inspire others, it should inspire and impress you as well! If you have lots of garbage in your portfolio, of course you will be discouraged when you look at it.
When someone Google’s your name, only your best images and projects should show up. When a curator looks up your name, you don’t want them to see your non-professional work that you may be ashamed of. Or worse…junk from other photographers mixed in that could be mistaken for your work.
Don’t make the mistake that many photographers do by diluting a portfolio with lots of garbage and personal photos. They will have 20 versions of a so-so photo on Flickr. Just pick one photo. It looks like the photographer doesn’t know what they are doing. It looks like they are using the ‘shotgun approach’ in away that is hurting them, saying “Here, I don’t know if any of these are any good…you pick.”
Now, if your goal is to get ‘likes’ and ‘thumbs up’ then none of this matters. But if you aspire to be above that, if you’re serious about getting your work in museums and public collections – then what you present professionally matters a great deal.
Generally speaking, it will take more than a ‘thumbs up photo career’ to keep you motivated over a lifetime of freezing time. And going beyond the ‘garden variety thumbs up photog’ is one of the tools you can use to keep your interest in photography alive and fresh.
Be careful where you leave online comments if you’re using your real name online or an account that is connected with your name. While it is nice to encourage upcoming photogs, the other person’s photos will show up on your image and web search. I don’t want their pix showing up on a search of my name. So, I had to stop that practice.
Here is an example. I left a comment on a blog and now his photo shows up on an image search for my name. (See photo circled in green.)
Click on photo to enlarge
I like his photo and it is not a hardship on me to have his image show up in my search, still it confuses things. Even worse, I don’t want an image search of my name to show up lots of bad work that is not mine and dilutes my portfolio. It also works the same if you have your images used by others. Their images can show up in an image search for you and your images.
I made the mistake of putting some of my lower end photos on Wiki Commons. Someone used it and did a bad job on exposure and now it shows up in an image search of my name. (See the photo circled in red.) Same with another person that chopped up one of my photos. The butchered photo shows up in my search.
This is what the photo circled in red should look like.
You want to keep a body of work focused and not all over the place…be consistent. If your work is eclectic, like Harry Callahan’s work, then your focus in your portfolio is to just show outstanding photography.
My work is in 125+ museum and curated collections around the world. When a curator looks up my name I don’t want them to have to sift through lots of junk and be turned off. So keep a clean and focused profile with Google, Bing, AVG and Yahoo.
If you don’t have individually focused portfolios, make them. I have 45+ Tumblrs. Every project gets a Tumblr of its own. Some photogs on Flickr have thousands of pix and no focused portfolio. You will lose a curator right there. No one is going to spend half a day looking through your jumbled up work – a focused portfolio is a must.
You should be Googleing your name every week and looking at the images and searches connected with your name. If you don’t like what you see…change your M.O. Also have a complete BIO or CV easily available on the net. Don’t make the curators work too hard. A search of my name produces my bio first thing.
I see some websites where the photog was trying to be cute by designing an ‘artsy’ website. Some of them are very tough to navigate and are soooo slow. I just give up after a short time before I move on. No shortage of photog websites out there to view. Make it easy for curators to like your work. No one cares about your cute website if it does not work.
Some photographers like to do testing or illustrated tutorials online. In the beginning I used any old photo for the tests. Like clockwork the low end test photos started to show up in my search results. So, if I do any testing that is connected to my name I use decent photos now or I post results anonymously if I don’t want the photos to come up in my search results.
A comparison test of a silver gelatin print versus an inkjet print.
Left vintage silver gelatin print on Agfa Brovira paper 1972. Right inkjet print on Hahnemühle Ultra Smooth Matte paper 2012.
Now for the funk…
Here is the deal. When your in a funk, be open and push yourself by shooting in new venues.
Jay Maisel sums it up…
“If you’re out there shooting, things will happen for you. If your not out there, you’ll only hear about it.”
Try shooting around the clock. Some photogs only shoot at golden or blue hour. Try something different.
Walking around all day yielded very little, then when it turned night I got The Lost Princess. (above). I never know when I will get a keeper, but one thing is for sure, if I’m not out there hitting the pavement with camera in-hand, I won’t get a thing.
It is very important to realize the importance of the in-hand aspect of camera carrying. These camera fondlers that carry a cam on a big, bulky shoulder strap are cutting their chances at getting the stealthy shot. Keep your cam on the wrist with a thin, plain wrist strap.
Time and time again Jay’s wisdom holds true. Many of my best photos are based in his credo.
As I age it sometimes is hard to keep up the pace of my younger days. My feet, ankles and knees start giving out. But, I still do the best I can to be a witness to life…and document it.
This was a one shot wonder. In the few blinks of an eye it was gone. You must always be ready…time waits for no one.
Same with the next shot, gone in an instant!
Even if one is not able to get out, photographs can still be made. I shot this from the TV. Some photogs even produce museum pieces from their TV!
I’m still waiting to get a TV shot into a museum collection!
The key is to be able to shoot without having to think…it must be second nature.
If you don’t have the basics down…shoot your TV screen. Although there comes a time when we all have to put priciples into practice.
Once you have the basics down and you get out there… things will happen for you!
Once you are at one with your cam…the world is your oyster!
I went out for 10 minutes to test a used camera at lunchtime…now Faces of Gentrification is in a few museums’ collections.
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If I wanted to, I could just shoot infrared flash and have enough material to keep me busy…
As long as you have your camera in-hand, opportunity is possible. And I don’t have to hide behind invisible infrared flash to get the shot either…
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Street photography is like fishing – you can put in the time and still not reel anything in. So, I have a number of projects that I shoot ‘off the cuff’ to keep me motivated by pressing the button through dry spells.
A little known book on street photography was made something along these lines…Smokers and Sleepers.
One of my boredom projects is shooting people while yawning…candid. It is good practice for fast shooting…a yawn does not last very long.
Kissing is another area that can produce some nice candid photo ops while on the street.
…I’m not that fussy about what they are kissing either…
People pointing is another good subject for fast shooting.
I have lots of pointing pix, but don’t want to put them in here. I don’t want to sign my name to them online since they will dilute my portfolio of good work. They are something you would find on your average photo forum and nothing special. I only shoot em for fast shooting practice and out of boredom. And if something great comes about then I will keep it.
In addition to my boredom projects, I have many serious projects to shoot for.
A project gives a photog direction and purpose. A project can showcase the photogs talents. Many great photogs are known for landmark projects they have done.
The great Zig Ziglar talked about this – “Do you want to be a wandering generality or a meaningful specific.”
In my own photo life I seldom shoot anymore unless it IS for a project or to put a shot into a institutional collection or my portfolio. I can’t afford wasting time shooting stuff that will go nowhere, just no time to fool around. Even if I stopped taking photos today I have 4+ years of photos I have not even looked through yet and tons of artists’ books to finish.
If I wanted to shoot the garden variety camera fondler photos on the photo forums I could shoot day and night 7 days a week. So, how is there any time to be bored when it comes to photography?
Here is a list of some of my completed and in-progress artist’s book projects I’m working on. If the project is a major one it usually ends up as an artists’ book. I’d advise any funked-up photogs out there to find a project and devote themselves fully to it.
A Family Portrait – 1971
Engaging the Enemy Frigate – 2011
Anecdote – 2011
Imitation of Life – 2011
Pocket Art (Series 1 to 3) – 2012
Dye Transfer Printing from the 1950’s – 2012
Dye Stability Testing of Color Imaging Media – 2012
Portfolio 25 – 2013
Pocket Art (Series 4 to 7) – 2013
Peephole: Peering Into the World of 1970’s Hollywood and L.A. – 2013
Portfolio: Peering Into the World of 1970’s Hollywood and L.A. – 2013
Twenty-Six Roadkills – 2013
Cutters: There is nothing I hate more than myself. – 2014
Encyclopedia of Photographic & Fine Art Ink Jet- Printing Media – 12 Volume Set – 2014 (f)
De Wallen: Amsterdam’s Red Light District – 2015
Pocket Art IR – 2015
Bikers’ Mardi Gras – 2015
Gender Benders from the 1970’s – 2015
Tonality – 2015
Skinned Alive – 2016
The End of an Era – 2016
Temple of Dreams – 2016
Meet on the Street…Shoot at the Home – 2016
Her Last Day Alive – 2016 (b)
A Day in the Life of a Drag Queen – 2016 (b)
Gone! Up in Smoke – 2017 (b)
Piercing Darkness – 2017 (a) (d)
The Americans…60 years after Frank – 2017 (a) (d)
Dye Stability Testing of Color Imaging Media: Edition 2 – 2017 (b)
Whoop-Whoop – 2018 (b)
Gay Bar – 2018 (b)
Women are Beautiful: Beyond Snapshot Aesthetics – 2018 (d)
180 – The Circular Fisheye at Large – 2018 (b)
180 – The Circular Fisheye at Large II – (e)
Big Mouth – 2018 (d)
Charmed – 2018 (d)
Moo! – Forthcoming (e)
Girls of the Beat Generation: The Mix – Forthcoming (c)
Girls of the Beat Generation: The Bodies – Forthcoming (c)
Raw: Girls of the Beat Generation – Forthcoming (c)
Girls of the Beat Generation: Hairstyles from the 1940’s-1960’s – Forthcoming (c)
The Rainbow Girls of the Beat Generation – Forthcoming (c)
Girls of the Beat Generation: Outtakes – Forthcoming (c)
Girls of the Beat Generation: 6 Volume Master Set – Forthcoming (c)
Presenting Photography to Curators and Museums – Forthcoming (c)
Freezing Time: Vernacular Snapshot Aesthetics II – Forthcoming (c)
Manhattan 180 – Forthcoming (e)
In Their Day – Forthcoming (c)
Double Take – Forthcoming (c)
Wide Open – Forthcoming (c)
The Ghost of Christmas Past I – Forthcoming (c)
The Ghost of Christmas Past II – Forthcoming (c)
The Ghost of Christmas Past III – Forthcoming (c)
Pigskin Chronicles – Forthcoming (c)
Frosty – Forthcoming (c)
The Kennedy Files – Forthcoming (c)
All You Need is Love – Forthcoming (c)
Nursing Home Confidential – Forthcoming (c)
Klaus – Forthcoming (c)
Majorette – Forthcoming (c)
The Dinosaur Hunters – Forthcoming (c)
Balling the Jack – Forthcoming (c)
Gimme the Finger – Forthcoming (c)
Painted Ladies – Forthcoming (c)
The Great Tit – Forthcoming (e)
Artifices of Convention – Forthcoming (c)
All about Dick! – Forthcoming (c)
Shooting Blind – Forthcoming (c)
Beatnik Lovefest – Forthcoming (c)
Going Postal – Forthcoming (c)
Plain Brown Paper Wrapper Girls: Bohemian Models from 1940’s-1960’s – Forthcoming (c)
The Animal Lovers – Forthcoming (c)
A Mucky Day in NYC – Forthcoming (c)
Magnifying Lens Photography – Forthcoming (e)
Take it Like a Man – Forthcoming (c)
Iconoclastic Reporter – Forthcoming (c)
Iconoclastic Reporter 2 – Forthcoming (e)
The Flappers: The Mix – Forthcoming (c)
The Flappers: Raw! – Forthcoming (c)
The Rainbow Flappers – Forthcoming (c)
Flappers: Reflections – Forthcoming (c)
The Flappers: Hairstyles from the 1915 – 1935 – Forthcoming (c)
The Flappers: Outtakes – Forthcoming (c)
The Flappers: 6 Volume Master Set – Forthcoming (e)
Nightwatch – Forthcoming (e)
The Pre-Beat Bohemians: Girls from the 1930’s & 1940’s – Forthcoming (c)
Bathing Beauties – Forthcoming (c)
So…You Think You Got Troubles? – Forthcoming (e)
Mirror Image – Forthcoming (c)
The Bohemians – Forthcoming (e)
Hyper-Real HDR Street Photography – Forthcoming (e)
Blow Man Blow!– Forthcoming (c)
Whoop-Te-Doo – Forthcoming (c)
Going Native! – Forthcoming (c)
Adorable – Forthcoming (c)
Hungry for Love – Forthcoming (e)
Before Photoshop (Abridged) – Forthcoming (c)
Before Photoshop (Unabridged)- Forthcoming (c)
Pitch Black Crapshoot – Forthcoming (c)
Trucker Fags in Denial: A Closer Look – Forthcoming (e)
Harem – Forthcoming (c)
Vegas Undercover – Forthcoming (c)
Bikers’ Mardi Gras: Revisited – Forthcoming (e)
Pucker Up! – Forthcoming (e)
Rear View– Forthcoming (e)
The Broken Leg Variations – Forthcoming (c)
The Honeymooners – Forthcoming (c)
A Shot in the Dark – Forthcoming (e)
Blinded by the Light – Forthcoming (e)
Beatnik Lovefest II – Forthcoming (e)
The Lovers – Forthcoming (c)
America…in T shirts – Forthcoming (c)
Snob Repeal – Forthcoming (c)
New York Wide Open – Forthcoming (e)
Bohemian Nights – Forthcoming (e)
Nosing Around – Forthcoming (e)
In Motion – Forthcoming (c)
Strangers in Paradise – Forthcoming (c)
50 Photos – Forthcoming (e)
Hijabs of New York – Forthcoming (e)
Day for Night – Forthcoming (e)
You Just Gotta Have Balls! – A Street Photographer’s Manifesto– Forthcoming (e)
New York, New York – Forthcoming (e)
Pointers – Forthcoming (e)
Infrared Street Photography – Forthcoming (e)
ARTZ – Forthcoming (e)
IR in Motion: Greeley Square Park – Forthcoming (e)
IR in Motion: On Broadway – Forthcoming (e)
Piercing New York – Forthcoming (e)
Tough Women – Forthcoming (c)
Guerilla (Warfare) Photography – Forthcoming (c)
Mucking Around Manhattan IR – Forthcoming (c)
Humans of New York…No BULLSHIT! – Forthcoming (e)
Novelette – Forthcoming (e)
Metro IR – Forthcoming (e)
Gone Girls – Forthcoming (e)
Artsy Type…No Principles – In Development
What is Spontaneous Bop Prose… – In Development
Thirty-six views of Bison – In Development
With Due Respect Beloved One – In Development
Notes:
(a) Under consideration for a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship. Edit 4.7.16 – Notified of Fellowship rejection from Guggenheim Foundation.
(b) Principal photography complete – pro forma book printing schedule.
(c) Principal photography complete – pending book printing, no date scheduled.
(d) Photography in progress – pro forma project completion date.
(e) Photography in progress – ongoing, no completion date set.
(f) World record for largest set of hand-printed artist’s books ever produced.
OK…I’ve given you some tools I use to keep out of the funk zone. If nothing here resonates with you, start selling some of your usless photo gear your not using on eBay, clean up your archives and get caught up on your post processing. Study new photo techniques, do some experimentation or go to some photo shows / art exhibits.
In the end, you may also want to do some soul searching about your photography. As I’ve told you before, the hardcore street photog is going to have a different attitude, personality and ego than an anal landscaper or startrail photog. The street photog may not be as anal as the tripod photog when it comes to technical aspects, but their nature shows a different anal aspect when it comes to their personality.
The street photog may have to work outside of normally accepted societal conventions if they want to get the shot. As such, that special ‘anal aspect’ the street photog must posses can be summed up in the vernacular thusly…success on the street sometimes involves being an asshole.
Holy Water Bowl St Patrick’s Cathedral NYC (Candid)
Selection from The Americans…60 years after Frank artist’s book
by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
The photog usually does not set out to be an asshole, but when you concentrate only on ‘getting the shot’ it is a natural offshoot of the process. Now, on the positive side, the better you are at candid work, the less assholeish you need to be.
If you can’t make a go of it, you may be in the wrong art. When I was a young photog growing up in L.A. I wanted to be a studio / fashion photog. Finally it sunk in that I had no talent for those areas – all my talent was in street / doc photography. It was important to my work and inner peace the day I accepted this. Once it sunk in I took to street photography like a fat kid eating pizza, just devouring it…and never looked back!
Good Luck and don’t forget the secret formula…layoff the keyboard, hit the pavement and press the button more!
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From Girls of the Beat Generation
A forthcoming 6 volume artist’s book series by social documentary photographer Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
I was shooting in Hoboken and a wedding photog chewed me out for not asking before I shot him, his assistant and the bride. I gave him the spiel…if you are in public I can shoot as I please. I told him he was a photog and should know that. He said I should still be courteous and ask first.
Well, being courteous and doing street work do not go together. If the camera fondling wedding photog was a street shooter he would have known this. Weegee maybe said it best…you can’t be a nice Nellie and do (street) photography.
Here is the Hierarchy of Documentary Photography, which I developed, that spells it out.
1. Candid events unfolding as they happen.
2. If it cannot be perfected or obtained as a candid, then the photo must be posed.
3. If it cannot be perfected or obtained as a posed photo, then it must be staged with the proviso it is a recreation of past events, preferably with the actual persons reenacting the events.
4. Figments of the imagination. Varies in documentary value. Can be based on pure speculation or a recount of events.
Grand Central Station NYC (Candid)
There is a high chance the hardcore street photog is going to have a different attitude, personality and ego than an anal landscaper or startrail photog. The street photog may not be as anal as the tripod photog when it comes to technical aspects, but their nature shows a different anal aspect when it comes to their personality.
The street photog may have to work outside of normally accepted societal conventions if they want to get the shot. As such, that special ‘anal aspect’ the street photog must posses can be summed up in the vernacular thusly…success on the street sometimes involves being an asshole.
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The legendary Samurai swordsman Miyamoto Musashi would advise his students to ‘think only of cutting’ when in battle. This same strategy is what I do when shooting on the street….I think only of getting the shot.
Eric Kim sent out a post on ‘how to be an ethical street photog.’ He outlined a long list of do’s and don’t he does not approve of. OK, there are no higher up management in street photography to oversee us, if it is legal, we can do as we like.
No wonder Kim specializes in street portraits. After you run that long list of bullshit through your mind the photo op is looooooong gone.
Boys and girls, here is the deal…
Are your photo aspirations that of a Flickr photog looking for your next thumbs up? Or do you want to be a museum quality street photog looking to get into a permanent collection?
If you have so-called street ethics that prevent you from doing what I layout for you here, then your niche is with street portraits or getting embeded / friendly with your subjects. That way you can shoot relaxed and with full permission.
Holy Water Bowl St Patrick’s Cathedral NYC (Candid)
Selection from The Americans…60 years after Frank artist’s book
by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
I am one of the best candid photogs in the world. But, no matter how great a candid photog I am; if I want to take photos out of the holy water bowl in church, there is no way round it…I got to stick the goddamn camera in the bowl. And that involves being an asshole.
Only other option is to set up a studio / posed bullshit shot. My personal ethics for a candid shot such as this only come into play when the guard asks me to stop or leave. Other than that, I can’t afford to worry about this or that or Eric Kim’s long list of dislikes…I am too concentrated on getting the shot.
Now, as Weegee told us, most people are reasonable. Most street photogs usually do not set out to be an asshole. But when you concentrate only on ‘getting the shot’ it is a natural offshoot of the process. And this need to be an asshole only comes about if you insist on in-your-face, candid photography like I do. On the positive side, the better you are at candid work, the less assholeish you need to be.
If you’re OK with doing the garden variety street photography you see on photo forums, the asshole issue should not be a problem for anyone. Just shoot from the hip far away or get a long telephoto lens, stand across the street and blast away.
But the majority of this type of photo forum street work I see smacks of…‘Hey look at me, I just shot a mishmash of strangers on the street that don’t mean a anything to anyone.’ These photos usually only hold interest to the photog that took them and maybe the people in the photo.
That type of work is what I try to avoid…and I avoid it by getting personal with my subjects. And getting personal with strangers is where the need to be an asshole comes in.
Now, just being an asshole isn’t going to cut it. The formula for great street photography is:
The ability to be a good asshole.
Having a great eye.
The skill and ability to record what you see with candid photography.
You can see if you are missing any one of these components, you wont cut it in the world of museum quality street photography. You can be the greatest asshole in the world, but if you lack an eye, the vision and technical skill to record what you see in any lighting condition, that very instant…then you are just a untalented asshole.
What about if you have an eye and the skill to record what you see in a heartbeat…but you are missing the boldness needed to be a good asshole? Well, if you can figure out how to grow some balls and press the button without pissing your pants, then you may come home with the iconic shot. (Instead of going home with nothing good and pining over the sales ads looking to see which next camera to buy to fix your problem.)
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Order Women Like Pizza – Las Vegas (Candid)
Photogs have always used tricks to get the shot, either from the need to not be an asshole or from having balls the size of freezer burnt green peas. For instance, Walker Evans, was said to hide his camera in his coat and Paul Strand was reported to use a right angle, fake lens attachment so no one could see what he was really aiming at.
This type of sneaky candid work goes back to the early days of photography…
Now, if you are of the nature of Donna Ferrato, Sebastião Salgado, Mary Ellen Mark, W. Eugene Smith, Michel Chelbin, Gordon Parks, Gail Halaban, Shelby Lee Adams, Nan Goldin, Jane Evelyn Atwood, Helen Levitt or Eugene Richards, then you have the talent and personality to be able to embed yourself into the project and become friends with your subjects. Once you are accepted into the group, you can shoot at will and not have to be an asshole. But every photog does not have this personality.
If you are not of that nature, then it does you little good to waste time trying to be something you’re not. For me, I accept I do not have the personality and disposition to do projects that require the photog to embed themselves and be personable with their subjects. Where I put my effort is in trying to be the least amount of an asshole necessary in order to get the great candid street or doc shot. And that is accomplished through honing my skills to be the best candid photographer that I can be.
Postcard display Amsterdam
When Socrates was a young man he surveyed what areas of inquiry he wished to direct his philosophical thought to. He looked at the study of the natural world. He concluded he was not of the nature to study the nature of animals and the natural world. Socrates found what area of study interested him and he settled on the study of human nature.
When I was a young photog growing up in L.A., Irving Penn, Halsman and Horst were my idols and I wanted to be a fashion / studio photog.
Photo by Philippe Halsman
Only after years of anguish did it finally sink in that I had no talent in those areas. Once I accepted that fact, I took to street and doc photography like a fat kid eating pizza, just devouring it and never looked back. And to further distill this revelation, I had to accept the fact that the best I can do in the realm of street and doc photography was to be the best ‘hit and run’ street and doc photog that I could be.
Cartier-Bresson sums up ‘hit and run’ street photography nicely…
“I prowled the streets all day, feeling very strung-up and ready to pounce, determined to ‘trap’ life – to preserve life in the act of living. Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes.”
The question I asked myself about having what it takes to be a studio photog is the same question you have to ask…do you have the talent and true desire to be a great street photog? I mean, in a world of 3 billion cell phone cams you have to be great nowadays if you want to stand out above the crowd…the world is just polluted with images.
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Archival Collection
You may say you have the desire, but you have to put this desire above all else and this is where being an asshole comes in. If you can’t be a good asshole or you can’t develop outstanding candid skills, then you may not have what it takes to do museum quality street work. If that is the case, then do you have the personality and talent to embed yourself into people lives to get the shot in a more relaxed atmosphere?
Whatever direction you do take, it does not matter what I say, they say or what you say. The proof of the pudding will be in your portfolio…either it will be great or it will be shit…that is the acid test.
If perchance you do not have any candid skills and you do not have the personality to embed yourself with your subjects, there is one last hope for you. You need to get a mouthpiece, fixer or talker for your project. The mouthpiece will do all the talking, interviewing, arranging and kibitzing.
It is very common occurrence that photogs and writers work in teams on projects. The writer interviews and writes, the photog freezes time for the project. All you have to do is to press the button successfully. For the majority of the circumstances girls work best as the mouthpiece. Everyone likes to talk to girls…the men, the women, the lesbians and even the homosexuals.
One last note on this subject with concerns to what ‘they’ say when it comes to ‘hit and run’ photography…
You will find critics all around you. Critics and art have a long history in bed together. Well, as the old saying goes…opinions are like assholes…everyone’s got one.
Some critics will say ‘hit and run’ photography is bad. To do real street photography you must make eye contact with your subject. Others will say you must ask permission first before shooting and that shooting from the hip does not count.
The critics must be a little confused. They must think they are paying for the shoot. If you’re working for your own account and it is legal to shoot…you do as you goddamn please. There are no photo police or head photo accountants to say what counts and what does not count. There are no rules on how we should do our art…other than…THERE ARE NO RULES!
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Sometimes in our photo career we come across people that do a little more than offering criticism. I have had plenty of confrontations with people during the nearly 50 years I’ve been shooting on the street. Here are a few of the self-preservation lessons I have learned over that time.
Fortune favors the prepared.
Champ Joe Lewis summed up the plight of many an aspiring street photog when he said…”Nothing replaces ring time.” The modern day camera fondlers will do everything they can to ‘buy experience’ with books and seminars – everything short of getting their hands dirty, day in and day out, training on the street and pushing themselves to keep expanding the envelope.
The German’s have a saying…’You grasp by grasping.’
Cartier-Bresson once said “your first 10,000 pix are your worst.” In the digital age, I say it is your first 100,000, not 10,000.
Experience usually precedes insight.
I see this phenomena all the time on the photo forums, they want insight without any experience. People will ask if I do this…then what? With digital imaging, nothing could be easier than to push the button and find out the what for yourself. Fortune favors the curious…that gets their hands dirty. People want it all breast-fed to them nowadays. Pretty soon they will be sending out robots to do their street photography for them.
I had to laugh at reading some crap written by Eric Kim. (He blocked me from posting to his blog…so I’ll have my say here.) Anyway, he wrote about a confrontation he had where he stood around arguing on a long term basis with a guy about a dispute over Kim taking his pix without permission.
Well, that is how wannabes do it. You know the ones…”Hey, I read 200 books on photography…now I’m a street photog!” and lets not forget…“I don’t know if my street photo will look better on film or digital – so I shoot it both ways.”
Goddamn…they got the blind leading the blind nowadays! Listen up…YOU NEVER, EVER STAND THERE AND ARGUE.
When you are in an argument what happens – blood starts to boil…
As soon as you snap the shutter, start walking away. What the hell are you waiting for…things to escalate???? Fortune favors the wise. Don’t stand there like a jackass, being an accommodating stationary target, arguing for 20 minutes with an idiot that could turn dangerous.
If someone is a nut case your not going to reason with them. Once you take the pix. (As you camera fondlers call it ‘captured.’) you move the fudge on. YOU take control of the situation, move out and let the person chase you down if they want to keep the conversation going.
This is an important ‘acid test’ in itself as to which direction this confrontation may take. The person may let it go and shrug it off or maybe they will stand there and yell at you. Well, people can yell and blow off all the steam they want. I’ve heard it all before from the cowards behind the keyboards.
Where the line gets crossed is when words turn into a physical assault. If the person starts to follow you to continue arguing with you that shows intent on their part that should warn you to be prepared for a possible escalation in the situation.
Joel Meyerowitz tells a story about Cartier-Bresson. He said Bresson was accosted by a drunk and flung his Leica in the drunks face to stun him. Bresson retrieved the camera with the shoulder strap and quickly disappeared into the crowd. That is how you do it. Don’t argue, don’t make a big fudging deal over it, give them the spiel on your rights about taking photos in public and move on.
Fortune favors those with street smarts. Never give the person involved in the dispute your name and especially don’t ever hand out a biz card. Many street wannabes think they can persuade someone they are OK by trying to convince them they are legit photo forum camera fondling photog. Well a biz card means nothing nowadays. All you have done is to give the person your contact info so they can track you down and continue the harassment after a conflict erupts.
When Bresson slammed the drunk he didn’t hand out a card and tell him to contact him for a free photo. But that is how things go nowadays with the photo forum street posers.
If the person is physically prevented you from moving on, then give them what they want to appease them or use force as a last resort to defend yourself. You need to decide which road is best for you. The person could fold up with a little self-defense effort on your part or they could pull a gun or a knife and kill you. There is just no telling what can happen in any given situation. My advice throughout this post is to avoid confrontation if at all possible. Fortune favors those who run away to live another day. If confrontation is not avoidable, then incapacitate the attacker as quickly as possible.
Sometimes you will run into a person whom cannot be satisfied no matter what you do. You can apologize to them and give them whatever they asked for and they still have a hard-on for you and wont give it up. No matter how you try to reason with them it wont cut it. Maybe they have a mental illness or early onset Alzheimer’s…I don’t know, I’m not a mental professional.
The only success I’ve had with these type of people is to do an orderly retreat ASAP. If I stand there and argue and try to reason with them, blood starts to boil – for there is NO reasoning with them. Don’t get suckered into their sick mind games. Now, in my limited experience with these type of personalities I’ve never known them to be violent, they seem to be all talk. But there are always exceptions to the rule, so keep an eye on them as you move out.
Infrared flash photo from Piercing Darkness and Gay Bar series.
The other night I was shooting at a group run by lesbian separatists. Lesbian separatists are a militant sect of lesbianism that envision an ideal world composed solely of women with the extinction of men.
One lesbian that did not like me taking pix started pushing me around and was very abusive. As I was leaving, I was surrounded by a group of 5 or 6 lesbians demanding that I delete the photos. First thing I do when confronted is to get my pepper spray or tactical light in hand. For a group like this I forget the light and go straight to the pepper spray.
I knew I had some good material, so I refused to delete a thing. After seeing talking was getting nowhere, I didn’t waste time, I didn’t suck my thumb, I told them the conversation was over and walked away. They followed me verbally harassing me, but it was an all-talk attack with nothing physical. But if things escalated, the hot Tabasco was ready to be served with my other hand fingering my collapsible baton.
Check out the S.C.U.M. manifesto for a taste of lesbian separatism…
I was in my 60’s when I shot all the pix in this post. Sometimes people on the street think they can pick on me just cause I’m old…they are in for a big surprise. These current crop of camera fondlers would shit their pants if they shot where I do. I routinely get threats, gear broken and attacked as normal business.
But, before the need for self-defense comes to fruition, you have to ask yourself…what caused the conflict in the first place? Was it your lack of skill as a candid photog? Over the years I have refined my skill level for candid photography to a very high degree.
Here are just a few candid shots…
Staten Island Ferry NYC (Candid)
Selection from The Americans…60 years after Frank artist’s book
by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
Amsterdam (Candid)
Selection from De Wallen: Amsterdam’s Red Light District artist’s book
by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
The Lost Princess Wheeling, WV (Candid)
Selection from The Americans…60 years after Frank artist’s book
by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
Sad Buskers Times Square NYC Infrared flash photograph (Candid)
Selection from The Americans…60 years after Frank artist’s book
by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
Selection from Biker’s Mardi Gras artist’s book (Candid)
by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
Beside the lack of skills queation ask yourself is your photo worth that much to have to fight over it? Fortune favors those who are flexible. Sure, you can quote principles and being in the right. But it is like the rules of the road when driving…you may have the right of way, but you don’t demand it if your up against a knucklehead driver.
OK, I’ve done many landmark photo projects. My work is in over 125 museums and curated collections around the world. (See partial listing)
If I have a special pix, I will fight to keep it. Now, if it is a crapper, I’d just delete it to keep the peace. I’m not one to fight for principal, but I will fight for more museum prospects. But, why should I fight and risk my life over a nothing pix I will just delete anyway?
In your case, ask yourself what are you producing? Maybe a pix for Flickr of a person walking by a funny sign or someone walking in or out of a shadow with the hope you can get a thumbs up from 2 people on the photo forums? Is it worth dying over?
My advice is…fortune favors those who are realistic. If your photo is not going to win any contests and you see you are dealing with a potential threat or crazy person, just apologize and delete the photos…then walk away as fast as possible. There are plenty of other funny signs and shadows with people walking in them for you to shoot another day. If you don’t like to delete photos to keep the peace, then you had better be ready for a confrontation.
Now, if you are a legitimate street photog, altercations should NOT be a big problem for you. You should have developed candid skills by now that allow you to work unseen for the most part.
Candid skills or not, you must prepare for problems, as a threat can arise at any moment out of nowhere. As your walking away from the person that is a potential threat, you keep aware of what is happening behind and all around you. As you walk away, you stay in a public place and you are also getting your self-defense weapons in-hand for quick deployment if needed.
If your weapons are in-hand, you don’t have to worry about a fouled draw. You have also practiced what to do with them under duress. The assailant grabs your shoulder and spins you around…boom there they are ready for deployment. This ‘surprise’ attack should not startle you too much if you have kept aware of your surroundings.
No matter what weapons you have or how highly skilled a fighter you are – the best self-defense is ALWAYS avoidance. You try to avoid the fight at ALL cost. If attack is unavoidable, then you have no other choice but to deploy your weapons or physically fight off the attacker.
On the net it is easy for everyone to be an expert. Well, I’m not going to bullshit you, I am not some big marital artist or self-defense expert. But, early on in my social documentary career I realized physical attacks were an ever present danger. As such, I had to put a little effort in learning how to maintain my safety.
I carry self-defense weapons for defending against an attack or to ward off a theft. I’m in my early 60’s. I got a bad neck and bad back, so I am not one for wresting a guy on the street. I am also at a disadvantage in that many times I have a camera strapped to my wrist and a backpack of photo gear on my back. Irrespective of my age and health issues, if need be, I can snap a neck or bust a head open like a cracked egg with a collapsible baton. That is the beauty of weapons…they are the great equalizer, they add power to the powerless.
Sometimes my backpack may have a lot of expensive gear in it. If I am shooting in dangerous areas, I use 12mp to 16 mp ‘disposable’ cameras and get my pack value down to $500 to $1500. My cheap Pentax bodies start at $150 and 50mm manual lenses at $35. That is about as disposable as I get.
Fortune favors those not dependent on attachments. Luckily for me I am not a anal fanboy of any one brand of cam. I can generally get along with most of the cams out there. That is where my nearly 50 years of experience has paid off.
Ken ‘Know it All’ Rockwell poo-poos the backpack for photogs. He says the shoulder bag is best. Well, Ken ‘Know it All’ Rockwell is right…if your shooting macro shots of flowers, your kids birthday party at the park or your latest ‘$50 for a DVD’ maternity gig. Now, look at Ken ‘Know it All’ Rockwell’s work and look at mine. Do you see any GD similarity at all between the two? Who do you think knows more about street work Ken ‘Know it All’ Rockwell or me?
You can take some sandpaper to your Fuji or Leica to age it and then you can look like Indiana Jones ready for his next adventure.
Here is the bottom line…for street work, staying low key and having something secure that wont work against you in a fight…the backpack wins hands down. How would you like an attacker to take your shoulder bag and choke you out with the strap? A thief can pull a shoulder bag off your shoulder in an instant and take off. Getting a backpack off your back is much harder. If they get the pack off your back, maybe then can beat you with it, but at least you wont be choked out with the pack.
I use a Think Tank Street Walker most of the time. For more stealth I use a cheapo Walmart backpack with camera skins for protecting the gear. If you can find a cheap backpack with a waist belt for extra security that is great. No, it is nowhere as convenient as the shoulder bag. But the backpack does allow me to keep my gear and life safe, so that is all that counts.
I also use a large fanny pack for some shoots. In it there is a fast draw knife secreted where it mounts tight against the body. I don’t have to dig for it or open the knife, just reach behind, give it a yank and boom it is there. Same thing with many of my backpacks. Many of them have a fast draw knife secreted in them that can be accessed from the outside. It never hurts to have a backup weapon or two. Never forget…two is one and one is none if you have a malfunction. Fortune always favors the prepared.
Over the years I have had many altercations since I started street photography in 1970. Just between July 2014 and July 2015 I had 6 or 7 potential fights / threats and attacks that I was able to avoid or quickly fight off. Although this was an unusually high year for trouble. Luckily for me, the worst injury I suffered was a grazing blow from a fist to my tooth. If it had connected squarely, then I would have had a cut lip, loose tooth or worse. But as it was, it only caused a little discomfort for a day or so.
These altercations weren’t from being caught taking photos of the person attacking me. They were all from walking or standing with a camera in my hand while doing nothing. Some of these attacks came out of nowhere, so you must always be on alert and ready. The other day a drunk wanted to fight me because I didn’t have a beer to give him. The camera can be a magnet for problems in some locals. I try to be as low-key as possible with it, but it is impossible to be perfect at all times with candid work.
But, no matter how big your ego, how swelled up your head is, even the best get caught every so often…
One of the problems photogs have with awareness is the tunnel vision many of us experience when doing street or doc work. We are concentrated on a scene or object and oblivious to the rest of our surroundings. Charles Ponzi, the great con-man of last century who gave us the Ponzi Scheme, used to say…”When a man’s mind is concentrated he is blind.” Concentration is a great trait to cultivate for doing candid photography, but it is a detriment to those under attack. I don’t have an answer to the problem except take a break and look around you every so often to keep aware of your world.
Awareness possibly saved my life recently. I was shooting IR flash for my project Piercing Darkness. It was late at night and I saw something happening on the edge of the parking lot. When I went over to see what was happening this is what I recorded…
Infrared flash photograph from Piercing Darkness project.
Earlier that night I was almost run over. I don’t know whether the guy was drunk or was just trying to run me over for fun, but the he headed right for me. If I wasn’t paying attention I would have been clipped. Luckily I saw he was coming right at me and I was able to jump out of the way and he barely missed me at the last moment. Fortune favors the alert.
My first line of defense for weaponry is a 200 lumen tactical flashlight. I do a lot of night street photography, so the tactical flashlight is a very important tool for me
Surefire make one of the best. The tactical switch is what you want for self-defense. Surefire’s are very tough and nearly indestructible. Tactical lights can be had for as low as $15 to $30, but when you need it will it be there? Don’t skimp on your self-defense tool if you want to keep fondling your cams for years to come.
Many tactical flashlights incorporate a crenelated bezel also known as a strike bezel that can be used as a weapon itself. The edge of the crenelated bezel is pounded into an attackers temple, eye socket, collarbone, knee or elbow. It can cause a lot of damage. (I know…I’ve had one used on me.) When the edge of the bezel hits skin on bone it splits the skin wide open.
There are some really crazy tactical bezels out there…
These type of bezels may cause a lot of bleeding – blood can carry disease. Extreme bezels could also foul the draw when you wish to deploy your light. They also may pose a legal problem if you ever have to go to court. If you cause a lot of facial disfigurement or blind someone from using such an extreme bezel you may have to answer in court how that is to be considered self-defense? I just stick with Surefire’s minimalistic, classic designed tactical bezels – it gives me the best of both worlds.
Be warned, you strike someone in the eye with your light, you may cause permanent eye damage. If you strike someone in the temple or trachea they may die depending on the force you use. You should only be using deadly force when you are concerned your life is in eminent danger. But, if someone is out to kill or gravely injure you, they must be stopped at once using any means necessary.
For self-defense you want a minimum of 125 lumens and preferably above. Surefire also makes a 500 lumen model, the E2D Defender Ultra LED. I’m sure the megapizel chasers will be all over it. (Well, until they come out with a 600 lumen model that is.) The ordinary household flashlight is about 10 to 20 lumens. So any way you cut it, tactical lights are way beyond that.
The tactical light is a very useful tool to carry beside self-defense use. If your on a rough road in the dark it lights the path. When going to your car in a dark parking lot it is an outstanding bright light to illuminate the lot. You can see who is lurking in a parking lot or near or in your car before it is too late. It also signals any would-be attacker that you are not going to be easy mark.
One of the ways a tactical light differs from a household flashlight is with beam focus. The tactical light has a highly focused beam, whereas the household light is spread wide. Be careful, some tactical flashlights have a capacitor that needs to be charged up for max output. It is charged by powering up the light then turning it off and repowering it. In a self-defense situation you will not have full power until you go through one ‘on / off / on’ power cycle. You don’t want that, you want on and full power, no games.
The tactical light can also be used as a photo light to shed a little more light on the subject. I lit up this guys butt crack and highlighted the liquid being poured from the bottle. I could not use the light on high or it would blow out the highlights. But on low power it was just right.
The product shot below was done on the fly. I pulled the light out of my pocket, lit it up and boom there it is. As a street photog…that is as anal as I get with studio work!
Lets get back to self-defense…
If someone is following you and you are threatened, you turn around and light them up. If it is dark outside they will be blinded, startled and cringe away from the light. If they are wearing sunglasses in the dark of night, they may not be as affected. (But anyone wearing dark glasses at night is giving a lot of pre-warning right there that something is wrong with them.) In daylight, the tactical flashlight wont do any good for blinding people unless it is very high lumens.
The big benefit of the tactical flashlight is out of all the weapons discussed in this post, it is the most benign weapon that can be deployed. If you can blind someone and they get the message and they lay off great – you haven’t had to spray pepper in their face or stab them with a sharp object or strike them with your baton. So if it is at all possible, use your flashlight as a first warning shot.
Alertness and Surpriseare 2 tools you can benefit from mastering.
After you light them up you yell loudly ‘BACKOFF – GET AWAY’ or ‘WHAT’S THE PROBLEM’ or ‘STOP IT – YOU ARE SCARING ME!’ Keep walking away as you stay aware of what they are doing. Ladies may wish to scream ‘HELP I’M BEING ATTACKED’ and deploy a personal alarm. These loud commands give fair warning to the attacker to lay off and hopefully attract attention from passerby’s to your problem.
If you think a threat is eminent, while the assailant has been blinded by the tactical light, you must be proactive and spray them with pepper spray that is ready to be deployed in your other hand. Blinding light then hot pepper gas…a one two punch. A second or two after the pepper takes effect, you gas them again so they can’t catch a breath. Then start running and get as far away as you can.
You have a strong hand and a weak hand, you decide which hand gets which weapon. I try to practice weapons use in both hands. My weak hand is not as good as the strong hand. But with practice, my weak hand is much better than it would be without practice.
The reason you need to determine which weapon goes in which hand is; if you plan on following up the one – two punch with number three, four and five, make the most of the weapon by putting it in your strongest striking hand. After you light up and spray the assailant, you follow up with a hit from the crenelated bezel of the tactical flashlight…then a kick to the balls…then a knee to the face or a hammer fist to the back of the skull as they bow over from having their testicles juiced. Work the assailant high and low, high and low.
A good tactic for tactical light and pepper spray use is to always sidestep his line of approach after they are temporarily blinded from the light and gas. This way the attacker is disoriented as to where your current position is. Once the attacker is stopped, get far away from the attacker.
I usually wear cargo pants and sometimes a hoody, so I have many pockets to carry weapons. You can also get snap-out belt holsters for your light, spray or baton. I sometimes pack 2 pepper sprays…large 2 oz or 4 oz sizes. (In NJ you can only have 3/4 oz sprays, so know your local laws.) You don’t want to run out of gas in an emergency.
The bottom of a pepper spray can will make an improvised weapon – you bang the bottom edge of the can into the assailants temple or eye socket…hard! Another use is as a breakaway aid. If the assailant has grabbed your shirt, you come down hard with the edge of the can on their forearm repeatedly until they let go. Then step back and gas them.
If things escalate and you see them start for their pockets, tell them STOP…TAKE YOUR HANDS OUT OF YOUR POCKET. Don’t warn them again if they don’t comply, you act immediately. Only you can decide what self-defense measure you will employ next to incapacitate them. But, once the attacker gets whatever they have in their pocket out…it will be too late and too bad for you.
In this situation you just can’t afford to wait and find out. Mistakes can happen, they may be reaching for Kleenex or a asthma inhaler. Do you really want to kill someone over a sheet of Kleenex? Yet that is what proper self-defense dictates in such a scenario. On the other hand they could pull out a knife or gun.
If the attacker proves to be unarmed and you use a weapon against an unarmed person…guess what? Your the criminal in the eyes of the law and good chance your going to jail. Do you see why I tell you to avoid conflict if at all possible?
In recent times there have been numerous reports of criminals and attackers using pepper spray on the victims. Awareness is your only defense. If you see someone approaching you with something in their hand it all may revolve around who has the fastest draw.
Here is my experience with pepper sprays…
Cone spray is my first choice of pepper sprays. Stream / Gel / Foam spray can be defeated if the assailant moves out of the line of fire or covers up the area with a hat or cloth. The cone spray is all encompassing and pretty well atomized. No escaping it if you are in the large sphere of influence of the gas.
Cone spray can also be sprayed behind you if someone is following you. Be low key about it, but give them a whiff of gas…maybe they will get the message. Stream /gel / foam spray requires a direct hit. Cone spray is like a scatter gun..it is amazing stuff and just needs to get near them.
Stream / gel / foam spray seem to run out quicker than cone spray. This may be due to the fact that your spraying large amounts of product trying to find the face of your attackers. Whereas cone spray atomizes the product into a large area and make it effective by just being in the general vicinity. Even though stream / gel / foam spray may be near the attackers head, it will still not have any effect unless it is a direct hit. So as the old saying goes – “when it comes to a miss, an inch is as good as a mile…close only counts in horseshoes!”
There is a shortcoming to cone spray. Since it has such a large sphere of influence, whenever I have deployed it I get some blowback. With stream / gel / foam spray, you seldom get any blowback unless you are very close. There is no perfect solution to irritant dispersal systems. I suggest you thoroughly test out the various options before your life depends on their use.
I don’t advise you use the little pink or black mini sprays except as a last resort. Many of them only contain 1/3 to 1/2 oz of product. 2 oz spray is the minimum size for self-defense. What would happen if your in a bar and you need to clear a path to the door that is being blocked by a guy and a few of his friends? You going to do it with a puny 1/2 oz. spray and then run out of product in the middle of the job?
The compact, little cutsie sprays can be next to useless for multiple deployments or extended range. Don’t bet your life on toys like the little lipstick sprays they market to women. You may have to deploy the spray repeatedly – the mini sprays generally have poor range and have very poor capacity for multiple deployments. When it comes to you life, forget fashion for a moment ladies and use serious equipment. You don’t want to lose your life over not having one more spray of gas that you didn’t have in your pink cutsie toy spray.
Infrared flash photo – Hollywood, CA
From Women are Beautiful – Beyond Snapshot Aesthetics artist’s book
by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
Even after all I have said against the little cutsie / pocket sprays …they can come in handy if you need to spray someone right next to you. Most of these sprays don’t have much power. So they may be the best tool for the job if the attacker is right next to you and you are worried about backsplash. But you will have to test them all out for yourself….fortune favors those that test…test…test!
Fortune favors those with a shield. If you can get to your car, you may be able to put a shield between you and your attacker. Within your car you should always have a 3 to 4 oz can of pepper spray handy. If someone threatens you coming through the window you can gas them and drive off. If you can’t get to your car, duck into a business for a shield and yell for Help I’m being attacked! and to call the police.
When you deploy pepper spray in CQC you should be using foam or gel spray. You can see in the photo you will get lots of blowback if you use cone spray. Actually, no matter what you use you will get lots of blowback with someone sticking their head in your car window. try to give them a face smash and spray when they are a few feet out of the window. There is no reason not to have foam and cone sprays in the car so you are covered for CQC or long distance use. The thing is to mark ‘which is which’ if the cans look alike and try to store them in different areas of the car. You don’t want to grab your spray to stop an attacker 10 feet away and have foam dribble out 3 feet away.
There is a big problem when using certain foam sprays. Some brands give you a shaving cream consistency that is not too powerful, which is what you want for CQC. Other brands I’ve tested shoot out foam like buckshot having an explosive range of up to 15 feet. If you try to use these explosive foam sprays in CQC you will have it backsplash all over you. If you fear backsplash, try to guard your eyes and face with an open hand.
Fortune favors the knowledgeable. Test your sprays. I’ve used many, many sprays over the years and can tell you some are excellent and some are garbage. The spray pattern may be poor, range could be poor, and some dribble out and get your hand all full of spray after you use it.
Some foam pepper spray is only good for CQC, I use it if I have to deploy inside a car or house. The right foam to look for is the one that shoots the pepper foam out with a little more force than a shaving cream can with a 3 to 4 foot effective range. If you use the wrong pepper foam it shoots out too powerful for CQC and will get all over you. If you ever deploy cone pepper spray inside your house it can spread 15 to 20 feet into an adjoining room, not to mention the blowback you will receive being near the sphere of influence.
This spray takes some practice to get both buttons working in sequence for deployment. Why get a complex design that you may have trouble with when under pressure?
Look for high potency sprays. Sometimes pepper spray is made with less heat for general crowd control. You want the maximum available heat for a self-defense spray. Civilian and Law Enforcement Pepper sprays range from 0.18% to 1.33% Major Capsaicinoids. Bear Sprays range from 1.0% to 2.0% Major Capsaicinoids.
Pepper spray can kill someone with asthma or a respiratory illness. Pepper spray is not a toy. Check your local laws. NJ / NY have tough laws, you can’t have a spray bigger than 3/4 oz and it must be a diluted formula. Pepper spray is as about a humane a deterrent as you can get for 95% of the people. (The old East Germans had a tear gas that would eat the enamel off you teeth…that is some potent gas!) In an emergency I’ve read people have used Deep Heat spray, women’s hair spray, DEET bug spray, brake cleaning spray and wasp spray as a deterrent. But most of these sprays are pretty big cans and vary in effectiveness and liability.
If you want a fast cleanup spray and one that the assailant can recover from more quickly, go with water based pepper spray. The most painful and long lasting pepper spray is petroleum based. Even if you wash out the eyes, the oils hold the irritants in place. While it is devastating stuff, you don’t want to use it in your car or house.
Here is the test I use to test the potency of petroleum based pepper spray.
WARNING:
I don’t advise you to do this test. Don’t blame me, I am not responsible for adverse reactions you may have from this test.
I spray a little pepper out of the can. Usually a dab of pepper liquid is left on the nozzle. I rub my finger on the nozzle getting pepper liquid on it. Then I wash my hands with soap and water. I dry my hands then I rub my finger that touched the liquid around my eye. If I have a potent spray, my eye will start burning like hell in short order. I flush my eye out with water until the burning subsides. This test is meant for petroleum based pepper sprays. With water based sprays the effect will be less.
I’ve tested pepper spray that was almost 10 years past the expire date. It still was plenty potent and had OK range, But it had lost some of the pressure that it originally had. (I save my retired sprays to use as trainers or to see just how long they last.) Don’t fall for the lie to change your pepper spray every year, it is bullshit. Buy a sample spray, test it then buy more of that lot number. Just like we did in the old film days with lots numbers of film.
Another thing to be concerned with sprays is angle of deployment. I’ve had some sprays that wont work in certain positions. All you get is propellant with very little or nil pepper. Spend some money and buy some sprays to test thoroughly. You camera fondlers out there that spend thousands of $$ for your photo toys, can’t you spend $30 or $40 to buy and test various sprays on the market so you can have confidence in your self defense weapons?
With regards to impact weapons, a collapsible baton is a good self-defense weapon…if you know how to use it. If you don’t know what your doing, your assailant may take it from you and beat the shit out of you with it. The collapsible baton can also be deployed as a defense tool without extending it, similar in use to an oversize kubaton.
The monopod will do lots of damage. Esp the spike…so be careful. I take strap off of mine and crank it down tight so it wont come loose during deployment. I seldom use it for photos, I use it for protection in the states where criminals have more rights that law abiding citizens. If you really want to keep it tight, Loctite it. Others may wish to leave the strap on and use it as a keeper or even as a leverage tool to swing the monopod from the wrist similar to a nunchucka.
Laws vary so much, but in general it is illegal to use a weapon against an unarmed person. So, if a drunk takes a swing at you it is illegal to even hit him in the leg with a baton or similar bludgeon. The laws don’t seem to take into account being attacked by multiple opponents or take age into account. All this would have to be settled in court…again TRY TO AVOID PROBLEMS is the best advice.
Auto lock and friction batons both have their benefits. You study up types and how to use them. Auto lock batons are on average 2 inches longer than friction batons of the same lengths due to the auto lock mechanism. Auto lock batons are generally harder to open than friction batons. A 21 inch baton is a great EDC size. In my opinion, 26 inches is too long for plainclothes without a holster. If you find yourself in CBC, 26 inches can get hung up on obstructions. I don’t advise to go below 16 inches if you can help it.
The super cheap batons may look good when you handle one, but once you hit something hard they bend and wont close. Although even the more expensive models can bend. The push button baton that shoots out the front is crap…a camera fondlers delight. The mini baton, the size of a kubaton, is also not very useful.
Some of the auto lock batons do not lock securely on the first deployment. It reminds me of the tactical flashlight I talked about above that needs the capacitor charged from cycling on and off before it can reach full power. The auto lock batons (ASP & Monadnock) exhibiting this phenomena require a secondary snap to engage the lock fully. In an emergency you may not remember to give it a second snap and it can close during deployment. Always test your gear in real life scenarios before trusting it to save your life.
Friction lock batons also have a problem when it comes to their locking mechanism. A friction lock baton may close unexpectedly if you hit it a few time up against something hard like a stick or metal pipe. I don’t think it will come unlocked just from hitting a person, but be aware of this problem. Once they are truly locked, an auto lock baton will generally stay locked securely, until you press the closure release.
Aluminum ASP Airweight batons are very comfortable to carry, but they tend to bend more than steel batons and can be harder to open do to less inertia from their low weight design. You can adjust the tension spring in the base cap to make it easier to open. But, too much bending for adjustment can cause an early failure and spring breakage. Just as you get a trigger job for your gun to make the pull smooth and lighter, so you do with your batons. With proper adjustment, the deployment of an aluminum baton can be comparable to a steel baton.
Beside being harder to open, aluminum batons also seem harder to close than steel batons. As far as I know, nothing can be done about that. If you hit something hard with an aluminum baton you will feel it in your wrist and hand more so than a heavyweight steel baton. Just like the S&W Airweight snubby gives off more recoil due to its lightweight design.
Even with all their drawbacks, I favor airweight batons for EDC when it is shorts season in the summer. If I deploy one and it bends I will just buy another one. It is the price one pays for insurance to stay alive on the street. If I had a baton that weighed too much I will end up not carrying it as I should. So what good would a heavyweight baton that may not bend do me if I leave it at home? The little ASP 16 inch Airweight weighs 7.5 ounces. That is next to nothing to carry – my keys weigh 4.5 ounces. BTW…the ASP 21 Airweight does a lot better opening than the 16 inch ASP.
For fall / winter use, when I wear hoodies and long cargo pants I go with steel batons. Steel batons are also my first choice for my car. They open easy and have great impact feel as compared to the hollow feeling aluminum batons that can twist your wrist from the top heavy feel when you hit something hard.
Peacekeeper batons are the ‘Rolls Royce’ of collapsible batons. There only drawback, beside being very expensive, is Peacekeepers are also very heavy. Just for comparison, an ASP 21 inch Airweight baton weighs 9 oz. An ASP 21 inch steel baton weighs 16.5 ounces and a 21 inch Peacekeeper weighs 22.5 oz. The Peacekeeper is a great choice for durability and striking power if you have a holster. But for plainclothes use in your pocket, the Peacekeeper is way to heavy. In any case, if your a true blue camera fondler and pixel peeper, I’m sure you will give the Peacekeeper a go…just so you can say…I have the best!
Be sure you keep your baton in line with your strong hand that will use it. A clean and fast draw is important. It is also good to practice opening and using the baton with your less dominate hand. If something puts your dominate hand out of commission, where is your back up? Again, check your local laws regarding batons. Be careful, if you hit someone hard in the head or neck you can kill them.
1,2,3,4,5…fortune favors the fast. When your life is at stake you must meet a serious attack with enough force for it to be stopped…quickly and permanently. A good practice drill is to use a heavy bag or dummy to beat on with your sticks or baton. But, you just don’t beat randomly on it. You practice specific hitting pattern drills to develop power and speed. The other benefit is, this training conditions your wrists and hands for using impact weapons.
As fast as you can read 1,2,3,4,5 is how long it should take you to deliver 5 powerful blows with your baton to the attacker. You really need hands-on training, you wont develop skills by reading a book about it, anymore than you can learn to skateboard by reading a book. But what is of foundational importance to all stick and impact fighting methods is to develop power from short, direct hits – not long wind ups.
When you use an impact weapon you don’t want to do a big wind up like your hitting a baseball and telegraph your intent. The assailant may strike first or block you if you give them time to see what you are doing. Let me give you an example. If someone is coming at you with a knife, you have your pepper spray in your weak hand and can gas them. As they take a pause to refresh, you slam you baton into their wrist with the knife in it.
Hopefully they drop the knife. In any case you don’t wait to see, from the wrist hit, you immediately strike your baton into their face, then a fast snap to the other side of their head or neck area. Then it is a blow to the side of their knee with a direct arch from the previous neck blow. As they bend over another strike to their head or back of neck. As I said, 1,2,3,4,5 should be how long it takes to deliver 5 devastating blows to the attacker. Each blow flows from the previous blow. (Don’t forget you can also use the butt of your baton as a strike weapon.)
Some training use 12 preplanned baton blows to practice. I dunno, I got a pea brain and 5 blows is enough or me to remember. Moreover, even if you got a genius brain, do you really think an assailant will stay put for you to complete your circuit of 12+ pre-planned blows in the exact order you have practiced them? The benefit of a 12 blow practice session I that it familiarizes you with delivering blows and blocking attacks from numerous angles. Like all things, there are pros and cons to everything.
A good technique to practice with your baton for CQC is the piston motion strike. It is similar to the old steam locomotive action where the main connecting rod moves up and down as it moved the wheel around. All the action is in a linear motion. So it goes with your piston strikes – it is an in-out motion that does not involve wide swinging.
With your striking hand you piston whip the attacker with the baton and with the other hand you palm smash him in the face as you advance. Once you are clear of obstacles, you can swing a little wider for working them high and low. Whenever you strike with your baton you want to envision going through the object, not just hitting it. for instance, if you going after a knee you want to do it like your chopping through a piece of wood…look beyond the knee as your target and take it out.
Another good training method for developing dynamic skills is to have a training partner throw a medicine ball at you. You strike it with the baton and also a palm strike. Once the ball hits the ground, follow up with an attack to the ball as if it was your assailants head. Your eventual goal should be to get 2 baton strikes, as well as a palm strike, to the ball while it is still in the air.
Keep in mind the importance of training for consistency and efficiency in movement. The foundation of your movements should be deliberate and to the point. This not only goes for using firearms or your baton but also when it comes to street photography.
A good training tool for baton, fist or knife fighting is to train by the combat clock system. You practice hits and blocks as a partner yells clock time as the guide…1 o’ clock, 7 o’clock, 11 o’clock. This is a very good way of practicing techniques for various angles of attack and defense. If an attack is happening so fast you don’t feel you have time to deploy the baton and make a strike. The opening and strike can be in one motion. As the batons snaps open it hits the attacker at the same time.
Inevitably you will get the bleeding hearts that worry about hurting the attacker ‘too much.’
A few words on the subject from Jeff Cooper on consideration. (Quote condensed)
“Anyone who willfully and maliciously attacks another without sufficient cause deserves no consideration. We are fully justified in valuing the life and person of the intended victim more highly than the life of the pernicious assailant. The attacked must be stopped – at once and completely. An armed man is dangerous as long as he is conscious. Take no chances – put him out. When your life is in danger and under lethal attack don’t be kind – Be harsh – Be tough – Be ruthless.’
If the attacker persists in following you after you have lit them up and gassed them, a Class IV weapons laser (with a tactical switch as opposed to a key switch.) has been used as a self-defense weapon, especially for long range defense. You can light up a threat from a hundred yards away and blind them. (Check your local laws.) It fits in the palm of your hand and is smaller than a tactical flashlight.
Class IV lasers can cause permanent eye damage – I don’t advise you to use a Class IV laser or any laser for self-defense. Always remove the batteries before you work on any laser.
Some of you may wish to just carry a gun. If you do decide on carrying, make sure you use self-defense ammunition and are licensed for your state with a CCW. Every state is different pertaining to the CCW laws. For instance, in some states the concealed weapon must be holstered. Other states don’t require a holster, just drop the gun in your pocket. Laws change all the time, so you keep abreast of the current laws in your local.
The hallmark of good stopping power for self-defense needs is expansion. There are many good choices out there. I generally go with Hornady hollow points.
Hornady also makes Critical Defense ammo. Mushroom tests vary, but they all have good penetration . Some of the Winchester hollow points really mushroom, maybe even a little too much, as penetration is on the low side. You test out all the ammo brands yourself, don’t reply on me or anyone else when it comes to your life. I’m just putting out a few brands I tested. Fortune favors the responsible person.
A new development with defense ammo is the ARX Devastator.
It is a composite bullet that corkscrews into the body creating a hydrostatic explosion within the tissue.
If you put a round into someone’s eye socket it will blow the back of their head open. A really destructive round in 9mm+P.
For short barrel wheel guns (snubs) I use 38.Special or possible some +P 38’s. The .357 mag is too uncomfortable for me to shoot in 2 inch barrel, lightweight guns. Just one shot of .357 in a snub and my hand is sore.
The .380 or 9mm Browning short is OK, but lesser so than the more potent 9mm. . The .25 is a toy, .22 Stinger is better than a .25, just Forget all these puny calibers unless it is a last resort. If you do find your life resting on a .25 or .22, they do the best job when placed in an eye or an ear. But we are talking about life and death here, generally not arguments over a photo. Isn’t it sad we have to worry about all this when all we want to do is press the GD button and freeze time? But that is our world. Fortune favors those that accept reality.
The tradeoff is if you want great penetration it requires more of an armor piercing nature of a full metal jacket with low expansion of the bullet. This may cause problems with the bullet exiting the body cleaning doing less damage to the assailant, offering less stopping power and hitting innocent bystanders.
No matter what ammo you choose, always shoot a box before trusting your life to it. Some autos are fussy and will jam with a certain brand of ammo. A good torture test for an auto is to load 4 or 5 brands of ammo alternating brands for every shot. If the gun fires the magazine of mixed brands of ammo…it passes.
Although nothing replaces live fire, an excellent training tool for home use is the laser cartridge.
You can get them for autos or wheel guns. When the trigger is pulled, they shoot an intermittent red laser dot where the gun is aimed. Highly recommend them. As a safety precaution always inspect the gun is not loaded with live ammo prior to pulling the trigger at EVERY session. Keep ALL live ammo out of the room you are laser training in. NEVER point the gun at anything you don’t wish to shoot.
When in a life or death situation it usually unfolds a few feet from you. So sight picture does not come into play. If you stick you hand out and try to get a sight picture, like a camera fondler like Kim would do, you assailant will grab your gun. Having skills for shooting from the hip or ‘point shooting’ with your gun is important. Here is the correct defense for CQC when there is no time nor distance between your life and the attacker.
Some autos may jam if you ram the gun into the assailant. The slide may come out of battery. A revolver can be rammed into the body and let loose without any problem. You will also benefit from the gas that comes out of the barrel. The gas can be very destructive just on its own.
If you using a snubnose, you will have to test it in similar circumstances where it may be used. For instance, if you have to shoot your weapon indoors, in the dark with no ear protection, you could be night-blind from the muzzle flash and deaf for a long time from a .357 mag round in your snubby. Not to mention the trouble you may have actually hitting your target with the magnum recoil.
When doing penetration and mushroom tests always shoot through a few layers of clothes, heavy winter jacket if your testing low powered guns. You may think that is kinda anal shooting through clothes, but the gun below, shooting .22 magnums, will only penetrate a few inches of newspaper with no clothes. So make sure any low power gun you use will still penetrate decently in the real world where you plan to use it. If your unsure, just go with full metal jacket if you want maximum penetration.
Without ear protection, you may be deaf for some time from the massive report of a magnum in a snubby. You may want to compare how many good hits you get from your snubby when you go with .38 Special instead of the .357 mag. Even though the .357 mag is a superior round to the .38 Special. The .357 mag does not do you any good if your night-blind, deaf, disoriented and your hand is sore and bruised. after the first shot.
If your a lady and having trouble operating the slide on an automatic or you have trouble with the heavy trigger pull on a revolver…check out Ruger’s line of LCR snubs.
They are lightweight and have an easy trigger pull. If the .38 special is a little too much for you to handle, look into the Ruger LCR .327 mag. But, load it with .32 H&R mag loads, as the .327 mag is a very hot round to shoot out of the little gun.
The beauty of the Ruger LCR .32 mag is it takes 6 rounds versus the 5 rounds your average .38 snub holds. But, you try all avenues to see what works best for you. If you like shooting the .327 mag out of the little LCR, then go for it.
But, be advised that some of the LCR’s have reliability problems. If you want the best for reliability it is Smith and Wesson in my opinion. Here is a brand new .327 Ruger LCR right out of the box with a trigger that jams.
Defective guns aren’t limited to wheel guns. I purchased a brand new Glock 42 in .380 caliber. Even when trying 5 types of .380 ammo, the Glock 42 would consistently jam.
Hammerless snubs can be fired right out of the coat pocket. Yes, shoot through your clothes if it is urgent enough. Autos and revolvers with hammers may get jammed up if you try to shoot them while they are in your pocket. My fav way to carry is with a un-holstered snub in my hoody pocket. I can shoot right through the pocket with no draw delay. My hand is resting on the weapon and the gun can be pointed at the attacker without them even being aware of their fate if things demand deadly force.
Just like we have pixel peepers that only will accept the biggest and most powerful sensor, so we have the same type of person in the gun world. They will tell you .32 H&R mag is underpowered. But the bottom line is; people have been killed by the puny .22 LR and 6 rounds of .32 mag in a person is going to do a good deal of damage. Esp if you get one in the ear or eye…that usually seals the deal.
If your going to compare the .32 H&R mag to a .44 mag, it is way underpowered. If you compare the .32 H&R mag to a .25 auto, .22 L.R or .22 mag…it has much more power. So just depends on what we are comparing it to.
Here is a size comparison of the 38 Special, .32 H&R mag and .22 Long Rifle Stinger cartridges.
If you do settle on a .327 / .32 H&R magnum, you can also use the .32 H&R mag +P for something recoil wise in between the original .32 H&R mag and the .327 mag.
Besides carrying guns concealed, I also have one in my car (shield). I try to have 1 or 2 guns ready for action at all times. But for street photos, I also have other options than just brandishing / shooting the gun or cutting someone up with a knife over a photo dispute.
When it comes to knives, they should be used for defense against deadly force being used against you. For general self-defense, I don’t want to have to get that close to someone to start cutting their arteries and tendons as combat knife fighting training advises. Although if I am going to work in dangerous areas I do carry a knife & gun in addition to the rest of my self-defense weapons.
You should use the least amount of force necessary to put down the attack. You must always keep in mind you may have to answer for your actions. When you go to court what will you say? I took his photo and he didn’t like it so I killed him with my gun. I took his photo and he said something threatening so I slit his throat. You can see where the gun and knife will end up.
Of course, if you beat someone to death with a collapsible baton you wont be looked upon much different. If you have to use force to defeat an attack, it must be measured and proportionate. Don’t go for revenge, just use enough force to stop the attack. If you put the attacker down don’t be tempted to give the assailant a lecture while they are on the ground. Let Kim stand there and suck his thumb…YOU get the hell out of there.
If you ever find yourself in a chokehold with your back to your assailant on the ground with his legs wrapped around you…one of these can save your life.
It is very hard to extricate yourself from this type of situation unless you got something sharp to slice and flay their choke arm wide open or stab them in the leg with. Your tactical pen may be of use. But in such a dangerous predicament, I’d want the best tool for the job and the knife wins over the pen.
If you do decide to carry a tactical folder, Benchmade makes some of the best folders, assisted opening folders and fully automatic knives in their price range. Check you local laws…in some locals they are ALL illegal. Sometimes I will use an automatic knife, but mostly I’ve settled on assisted opening models depending on the local laws of where I am shooting.
An important part of any self defense-weapon deployment is to be familiar with your weapon. This may sound basic, but with the camera fondling personalities that make up today’s photo world it is not. You know, fondling gear for pleasure, versus actually using it, is not a monopolized by camera devotees. They have flashlight fondlers, knife fondlers, gun fondlers and down the line.
With knives there are all sort of slick opening mechanisms nowadays. They make some very sexy ‘out the front’ knives, but they tend to need lots of cleaning and prove unreliable with spring problems.
Emerson makes a wave opening mechanism knife. I don’t use it, but some people love the design.
Benchmade makes a DUO model that looks like a normal, manual opening knife with a blade stud. When you push very hard on the axis closing button it turns into an automatic (switchblade) knife.
Right away this stealthy, dual opening knife would seem to appeal to the camera fondler. (Hell, it would appeal to me too!) But, the problem with this knife for self-defense is twofold.
1) It does not auto open in ALL positions. Benchmade does not tell you this, you have to learn for yourself by testing. If things are not just right with the geometry it jams 1/3 open. While your life is slipping away before your eyes, your slick switchblade will turn into a useless limp biscuit if things are not just right.
2) This knife is very close in design to Benchmade assisted opening knives. It is so close in design that you can’t know which one you have in your hand just by feel or even looking at it unless your a knife geek. Therefore you may confuse which knife you do have in an emergency if you change knives like people change shoes or the proverbial camera fondler changes cameras. You could be getting choked out as you keep pushing on what should be the auto-opening switch only to remember too late your knife is not the duo auto model.
This same continuity and familiarity with your self-defense weapons should be carried down the line in with all your gear…sprays, lights, batons, etc. Pepper sprays have all sorts of safety mechanisms. Almost all of my sprays are the same flip lock safeties for continuity and easy of use.
Good old basic, dirty street fighting may help you in an emergency. If an attacker would grab you in a bear hug from the front, head butt them in the nose and face with your forehead, get your arms loose, grab their ears for leverage and bite into their nose like a fat kid eats pizza. Then dig your fingernails in their eye sockets while you knee them in the coconuts. Once you are loose, put your self-defense weapons into deployment. A dose of pepper spray and putting the assailant down with the collapsible baton will finish them off. Fortune favors the ruthless.
Hopefully you won’t let them get so close to you to start with, but we all get blindsided once in a while. If you get a bear hug from behind, head butt them with the back of your head, stomp their feet and swivel your hips to the side while you deliver a series of fast, hard blows to their privates with hammer fist strike. Even if your caught firmly on the upper torso in the hug, you can generally still swivel your hips to one side or the other.
If you are being hugged around the waist and can’t swivel your hips then try this. Grab a finger on their hand and pull it back. Generally this breaks the lock. If they don’t let go snap the finger, then start on finger #2 and snap it. Once the lock is broken then turn around and deliver some of your weaponry.
If you have been lax in carrying self-defense weapons, a palm strike to the face, eye gouges, knees to the balls are some good options. Whether you are using a weapon or your hand, you reaction to any attack should be explosive and violent. If you put in a half-ass effort your attacker will know you will be a pushover.
Get some training in the hand-to-hand area. You need real life practice. There are just too many scenarios to train for. What training does is to make your reply to any attack second nature. Practice full contact, full power with someone wearing protection. Don’t just play patty-cakes. The general rule is; you will fight like you train, so put some purpose and effort in the training. Even if you never have a need for it, martial arts training helps keeps you in shape. You should be doing proper training and conditioning in a number of areas.
If you have to resort to hand-to-hand fighting because you don’t have any self -defense weapons, don’t forget you have many options for strikes. You are not limited to just punches. You have your knees, elbows, foot stomps, forearms and a number of hand strikes such as knife hand, hammer fist, open palm and the devastating eye gouging and raking. I don’t care how big someone is…you fudge up their eyesight or windpipe and they are finished. They will forget about you pretty quick and work on trying to see and breath again.
If your not flexible and used to throwing high elbows to the rear or using an overhead hammer fist, you may pinch up from the exertion. Fortune favors the flexible, favors the aerobically fit, fortune favors the speedy, fortune favors the coordinated, fortune favors agility and fortune favors those dedicated to strength training. These areas of fortune all make up a balanced foundation for any good self-defense program because all things being equal…fortune favors the strong.
Fortune also favors the protected. I’ve experienced lots of bodily abuse while shooting. Depending on the project, many times I will wear protection while shooting. I wear prescription eyeglasses and wear eyeglass keepers or Rec-Specs. There have been a number of times they came in handy and kept my glasses from being knocked off my face. On some projects a cup may be welcome insurance, so think about protecting your entire body.
Shins can get kicked, toes trampled on, stuff thrown in your face. I got an eye infection one time from having some paint splashed on my face. Someone threw a beer bottle at me and hit me in the head. Last month one of my toes was injured and shin was cut up from someone stomping on my foot and kicking me. I wished I had my steel toe boots and shin protectors for that shoot, but skipped wearing them. (Who wants to wear that heavy gear in hot July weather….so I paid the price.) I keep my hair about crew-cut length. I don’t want my hair being used against me in a fight.
Since I brought up training, realize that training in a number of self-defense areas can pay off even if you don’t plan on using that exact method yourself. For instance, even if you don’t plan on using a knife you can learn how to defend against a knife by learning how to attack with a knife. Same thing with a baton / stick.
A tactical pen is another small device that may come in handy in an emergency. It would be weapon of last resort for me, but it will do the job if jammed in an attacker’s eye or ear. The whole point of this post is to give you options. You never want to be in the position of having to depend on one self-defense weapon and not have any other options.
What would happen if all you carried was one small can of pepper spray and it malfunctions due to the fact that someone played a joke on you and emptied the contents? Well, if you have a baton you bring it to bear or your tactical flashlight.
While the pen shown above is slick, it is useless if all you have is one hand free. The pen above would appeal to the camera fondler. They are more concerned with looks that use. You need 2 hands to unscrew the cap to deploy the sharp part, so the design is flawed for serious self-defense use.. In addition, the sharp part is weak as it is the pen’s writing tip. What you want is a double tipped pen like this.
Even when closed the pen is deployable. It also has a dedicated sharp tip that is not as fragile as a pen tip. When you use a tactical pen you want to strike repeatedly, hard and fast like your using an ice pick.
Pain compliant tools such as kubaton, a sharpie pen or electric shock are also an option. I don’t use them. Most of these, (other than the Taser) require you maintain constant contact with the assailant. “I don’t want to do things with the assailant…I want to do things to the assailant.” ~ K.M.
As I said above, there are all types of laws around the world, so you study them up. To show you how self-defense laws vary with local, the poor, defenseless U.K. residents have to use sharp pencils, WD-40 and a coin purse that can be used as a ‘sap’ or coin ‘blackjack’ for self-defense. No pepper spray, no lasers, no collapsible batons, no self defense knives. The criminals have more rights in the U.K. than the law abiding citizen it seems.
We may look at the poor U.K.’ers self-defense efforts with amusement with all the freedom we have in the US of A. But, you wont be amused if they jam a pencil deep into your muscle tissue and break it off. The UK’ers are very creative with their improvised self-defense weapons. Even so, if you have to break the law to save your life – it may be better to be ‘judged by 12 than to be carried by 6′ as we say in the US of A. But only YOU can decide what is best for YOU, no one else can.
If you are in a local that outlaws pepper spray this is a decent option for something compact and offers a cone pattern and usable range.
No matter what self-defense weapons you are carrying, try to stay consistent with their location. In a stressful emergency you don’t want to be hunting for the weapon…you want it at your fingertips. Fortune favors the organized.
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WARNING:
DON’T JUST BLINDLY COPY WHAT I SAY HERE AND BLAME ME FOR YOUR PROBLEMS.
I’m not telling you to disarm an attacker that is holding a gun to your head or a knife to your throat with your flashlight. Yet, that is exactly what the expert can and will do…with their bare hands. But, it takes skill and a degree of luck. Frank Doorhof tells us…sometimes you can force luck. I tell you that you can help force luck by preparedness and training.
Fortune favors the bold…
Infrared flash photograph from Piercing Darkness project.
The bold street photog does best – not the timid one that is scared of their shadow. Although if you have great stealth techniques, then it does not matter either way.
From an interview of Clint Eastwood…the Pussy Generation…
We live in more of a pussy generation now, where everybody’s become used to saying, “Well, how do we handle it psychologically?” In those days, you just punched the bully back and duked it out. Even if the guy was older and could push you around, at least you were respected for fighting back, and you’d be left alone from then on….I don’t know if I can tell you exactly when the pussy generation started. Maybe when people started asking about the meaning of life.
In any case, you want freezing time to be fun. Use your head when street shooting. Dress plainly and subdued so you don’t stand out.Leave flashy jewelry at home, you don’t need to advertise ”rob me!” (I wear no jewelry, only a cheap watch.) For street photography, fortune favors a low profile and those who develop a good technique for candid ‘sneak’ photography.
If you are caught shooting a person and they come up to you and ask for a few bucks, just give them something. You took something from them…they helped you out being your model…now you help them out. If they ask for $, don’t offer to email them a pix of themselves. That is not what they want. If you don’t want to pay, apologize and offer to delete out of courtesy to them.
A gal in Hollywood died over this exact same scenario I am telling you here. She took a pix, refused to pay a $1 tip and got stabbed to death. (I read elsewhere she may have mouthed off and the argument escalated. Don’t add fuel to the fire, delete, apologize, be courteous and keep your mouth shut. Beside guns and knives, ‘mouths’ are another big killer of people.)
Eric Kim talks about becoming a fearless street photog. That is stupidity at its highest. Always remember…no one’s head is bullet proof. Only idiots are fearless, for when your fearless you think you are impervious to death. Fortune favors those that are not idiots.
When on the road shooting I seldom stay in a hotels…I can’t afford it. I boondock in my vehicle at rest stops, motel parking lots, casino parking lots, truck stops, hospitals or anywhere I think it is safe ‘enough’ to park overnight. So I am especially aware of self-defense concerns while boondocking.
Jersey City campsite when I shoot in NYC…$55 a day for a parking spot for your tent or $65 a day to sleep in your vehicle.
If all this talk is making you feel squeamish about street photography, then don’t do street photography. Every time I head out on the street I am situationally aware and armed for self-defense. And it does not matter if I have a cam with me or not. In your case, no one is going to force you to shoot street. If your uneasy about street photography, shoot flowers, shoot sunsets, slap a sunglass filter on your lens and shoot smoky water or cutsie dogs and cats, star trails, burning steel wool or whatever you feel comfortable and safe shooting. Or do the watered down ‘Eric Kim brand of street photography’ where you ask permission and shoot 80 photos of the same subject while they strike different poses for you.
Infrared flash photograph from Piercing Darkness project.
Always remember…photography is not worth losing your life or anyone else’s life over. Be prepared, be smart and always try your best to walk away from any conflict before things get out of control.
Warning:
I don’t recommend you deploy any of the weapons or tactics I discuss here. What I present is for informational purposes only. Every state and country has their own laws and regulations regarding self-defense. You check out your OWN laws pertaining to YOU. Take responsibility for yourself – develop real and useful self-defense skills and know the law.
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Photos used herewith are from the following limited edition artists’ books by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
Encyclopedia of Photographic & Fine Art Ink Jet- Printing Media – 12 Volume Set – 2014
Photos are from Piercing Darkness project – a forthcoming limited edition artist’s book of infrared flash photography by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
Piercing Darkness takes over where Weegee and Yoshiyuki left off with their groundbreaking candid infrared flash photography.
Piercing Darkness along with my project The Americans…60 years after Frank are under joint consideration for a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship.
For those that are not familiar with this type of work, infrared flash coupled with an infrared camera, makes it possible to take photographs in complete darkness with little or no visible light coming from the flash.
Freak Show – man passing a hook through his nose and out his mouth.
The 3 shots that follow are some of the first photos I took with the IR setup. I was still learning the ropes of how to go about it. It is very hard taking pictures out in the woods in the dark when you can’t see the ground or your camera.
Although infrared flash night photography is a rewarding and interesting area to work in, it can be dangerous. At 2 in the morning there is always the threat of an attack or robbery. There is also the danger of going up to strangers and sticking your cam in their face. If you wish to try this type of photography I suggest you do so with self-defense in mind.
Before I shot the 2 guys ‘tag teaming the gal’, I was almost run over by a drunk at 1 in the morning. I was able to jump out of the way at the last moment…just. Being of an ADD nature and always distracted, I was very, very lucky that night.
Shooting infrared flash in the darkness of night is not studio photography, most of the time it is a crapshoot. If your an anal photog and like your shots perfect…forget IR flash work. Just stick with your tripod, cable release, beauty dishes and tethered laptop. You never know exactly what you have until you develop it…just like the old ‘wet darkroom’ days.
I discuss the characteristics of the ‘anal photog’ here…about 2/3’s of the way down starting with large format cameras.
Many times you can’t see the subject in your camera for proper framing nor can you even see the controls of your camera. Unless you can see in the dark, you have to be all set ahead of time. The focus may be off, exposure is off, lots of issues shooting in the dark. But when things work out and you get a great shot it makes it all worthwhile.
Homeless Couple Hollywood Blvd…with obligatory clichéd juxtaposition of foot for added interest.
If you shoot at dusk you may be able to see a little in your screen. You can also get some nice shots of the sky at dusk.
Those NYC gals can sure toss their hair!
The one gal doesn’t seem to like it. GD, she can toss it in my face any day of the week!
When you are shooting blackout flash photography some of the pix will be crooked. It is unavaoidable if you can’t use a viewfinder or see well in the dark. You may think you are a devotee of Winogrand with all the off-kilter work, but you should strive for something beyond Winogrand’s ‘snapshot aesthetics’ by balancing the crooked composition with excellent content,
If your crooked photos have strong content your photos wont be confused with Winogrand’s crooked mess that also had crap for content in a lot of his work….that is the difference.
Here is a little trick I use that may help you if you decide to try IR flash night photography. I glue small pieces of toothpicks on my camera controls so I can feel them braille style to adjust controls in the dark. OK, I may be guilty of a little fondling and pimping my cam here…but I have an excuse!
I’ve seen a fair amount of (sexual) breast suckling in my day. I have never seen it fail to put a smile on the face of the gal being nursed!
An old gal once asked me what fascination men see in breasts? I told her no one can say. It is the same way that no one can say why they like vanilla or chocolate…they just do. I gave her a quote from Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade to make my point.
Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die…
I told her it is not her place to ask why, the only question for her is whether to provide the stimulation to men and women.
When I shot this next pix I had no idea the gal had almost 1 inch long nipples…nor that she had them poking out of the fishnet top. That is the beauty and mystery of piercing darkness.
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A little history on infrared flash photography…
Graflex 4×5 Speed Graphic press camera with GE 5R Infrared Flashbulb.
The Speed Graphic was a mainstay of Weegee. Loaded with 3 zinc ‘D’ batteries and a film holder, it weighs nearly 9 pounds!
The camera fondlers are spoiled nowadays. They complain their cameras that weigh a pound are too heavy. The old press photogs were real he-men lugging this thing around all day.
From Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Archival Collection
Two of the founding fathers of IR flash photography were Weegee and Kohei Yoshiyuki. From my limited research, they were the only two photogs in history that have done any meaningful projects with IR flash photography.
Here is some of their work with IR flash…
Weegee
(You got to love those moments that pleasure the gals so much it makes their toes curl! GD…can there possibly be ANY more pleasurable work in this world than making women’s toes curl and crack!)
Lovers at the Palace Theatre – Weegee
There are many variations of this photo showing Weegee took various poses of the couple. The dates for this shot vary all over the place…1940, 1943 and 1945. Weegee said he prided himself in reality based photography, but he was not getting what his client wanted for movie theatre shots. So Weegee staged some of the infrared movie theatre shots….”helping realism along” as he wrote in his autobiography.
Weegee talks about his infrared flash photography on pages 117-118 of his book Weegee by Weegee. He said he picked up a female model with a “peek-a-boo dress” and a male model from the Art Students’ League. He brought them to a theatre and told them “Don’t look at the camera and don’t laugh. Just make love.” .
Weeggee reenacting how he did his infrared flash theatre photography. He disguised himself as an ice cream vendor.
Weegee’s account of his infrared work is confusing. Many of Weegee’s early infrared photos date from the early 1940’s. He would have used a Speed Graphic 4 x 5 press camera in that era. In his autobiography he said he hid his camera in the ice cream tray, which sounds more like the 1950’s when he used small format cameras. It is pretty hard to hide a press camera.
Here is another version…
While the photo of Lovers at the Palace Theatre fits the bill for his staged infrared theatre photos, it was dated in the 1940’s. From his books timeline description his staged infrared theatre photos were done in the early 1950s. So, there is no telling which infrared shots are candid and which are staged when it comes to Weegee.
Well, I can’t hold Weegee’s staged lovers against him. I’ve been in a number of theatres and have not seen any love scenes as yet. I keep looking. Until then let me offer Weegee this IR theatre homage…
The next photo is by Yoshiyuki…from his project ‘The Park’.
Yoshiyuki’s project centered around taking IR flash photos at 3 parks in Japan (Chuo, Yoyogi, and Aoyama parks) where people would go to have sex (both hetero and homo) and voyeurs would stay in the shadows to watch them. (Sometimes the voyeurs would see how far they could push things and try to sneak into the action!)
In a 1979 interview Yoshiyuki said that just as he started to test Toshiba infrared flashbulbs, they were discontinued. Yoshiyuki replaced the discontinued bulbs with Kodak (infrared) flashbulbs.
A quote from the 1979 interview done by Nobuyoshi Araki and Kohei Yoshiyuki:
Kohei Yoshiyuki
“I found out that Toshiba made flashbulbs- infrared flashbulbs. Before I had a chance to use more than a few of them, they were discontinued. Then I looked around for filters, and ended up using two tricolor separation filters. After a while I heard that Kodak had some flashbulbs, so I used them. At that time infrared flash units didn’t exist. Sunpak came out with them after I took these pictures.”
I have done extensive research on infrared flashbulb history and have never been able to find any information on Kodak making infrared flashbulbs or any flashbulbs for that matter.
I contacted flashbulb historian, dealer and expert Bill Cress about Kodak infrared flashbulbs.
Bill’s reply: “Kodak did not make bulbs, if anything they may have had some private labeled by others but not made by them.”
Chuck Baker, another historian and collector concurred stating; “As far as I know Kodak did not make their own flashbulbs.
I polled the Flashbulb Collectors Page, a Yahoo Group, on this subject. Unanimous consensus was Kodak never made any flashbulbs whether they be infrared or visible light.
Private label or not, nothing ever shows up in the historical record or on the second-hand market for Kodak flashbulbs either in the visible light spectrum or infrared. While it is possible that the Japanese had access to products not available in the USA, it is only conjecture.
Yoshiyuki started his Park project before IR strobes were on the market. But as he approached the mid-point and end of his project, IR strobes were readily available from Sunpak. The bottom line is; it is a mystery as to what infrared flashbulb or strobe Yoshiyuki was actually using for his Park project.
I like Yoshiyuki, so let me just borrow a quote from his interview to finish things up and say…”I better not say any more.” You can draw your own conclusions
The General Electric #5R, #22R and Sylvania Blackout 2 and Blackout 25 were the most common infrared flashbulbs of that era. The most popular infrared flashbulb of these four was the GE 5R.
In the December 1947 issue of Popular Photography, Weegee said he used “midget infrared flashbulbs.” He goes on to say in the April 1956 issue of Popular Mechanics that he used 5R infrared flashbulbs.
I don’t know how much the 5R’s cost in the early 1940’s when they were first commercially marketed, but a package from the 1960’s was priced at $3 a dozen. Infrared flash photography was developed during WWII as a means of taking photos in complete darkness also known as ‘blackout.
A trade announcement in the May 1949 edition of Popular Photography said Sterling Howard Corp of N.Y.C. was selling infrared flashbulb coating kits to turn white light flashbulbs into infrared flashbulbs. The list price for the gelatin & dye kit was $4.75.
This document was taken from Photography: Naval Training Course, Vol. 1, NAVPERS 10371-A, prepared by Bureau of Navy Personnel, 1951.
A flash lamp pierces darkness about the way a 16- inch gun salvo rends silence. The ordinary flash lamp, that is. There’s one which is decidedly “un ordinary.”nA photographer takes a flash picture in pitch darkness. Only a few feet away there is not the slightest hint of it. But what about the flash? There wasn’t any. A flash picture with no flash? Well, for all practical purposes-yes.
Actually there was a flash. But it was made up almost entirely of infrared light, which is invisible. Yet the lamp illuminated the subject quite enough for a clear picture. This is infrared flash photography or “blackout” photography. The special flash bulb is coated with a Lacquer which transmits a maximum of infrared rays while holding back nearly all the visible rays.
It must be used only with infrared film and in total or nearly total darkness. Slow shutter speed (1/25 to 1/50) and wide lens opening (f/4 to f/8) are required. The phenomenon of blackout photography will work only at very short distances-usually 10 to 15 feet. But at close quarters it will produce a surprisingly satisfactory photographic record.
This procedure might have numerous military uses. An example would be in taking a vital picture when a brilliant glare of white light would tip off your presence to the enemy. There are also less ominous circumstances which would make the use of the conventional flash impractical or impossible.
An early blackout infrared flash photo from 1945 of Kodak’s Aero Pan film spooling operation. A single GE 22R infrared flashbulb was suspended above each operator for illumination. Photographed with a 4 x 5 camera with infrared film.
In 1974 Sunpak introduced the first commercial infrared strobe. The Nocto 400.
The Nocto 400 was a revolutionary strobe as it was the first and only commercially produced dedicated infrared flash ever made. It weighed about 886 grams without batteries.
It’s downfall was it produced a visible bright reddish / orange glow when it fired. It had a high and low setting and ran off of A.C. or 4 ‘C’ batteries. The low setting produced a slightly lower glow that was only visible if you looked directly at the head. The high setting produced a visible orange glow that would reflect off the object if it was within a few feet and had a reflective nature. The recycle time was 7 seconds on high and 1.5 seconds on low powered by the AC cord. The guide number calculator had a range of 57 feet for the high setting.
A few years later Sunpak introduced the model 622 which incorporated interchangeable heads – one head being a dedicated infrared flash head.
A technical tidbit…
On Flickr, member ‘t6b9p’ wrote :
“…the Sunpak 622 IR head is actually fitted with two IR filters. An inner 0.2mm flexible IR filter with 50% transmission at 730nm and a hard outer filter that has 50% transmission at 850nm.”
I took apart a Sunpak 622 IR head and sure enough there are two filters as ‘t6b9p’ reported.
The spec sheet lists the following information for the 622 Pro IR head:
Peak Spectrum: 840 NM
Guide Number: 30/100
Angle of illumination: 65 degree horizontal by 45 degree vertical.
Coverage: 35mm lens on 35mm camera
Weight 3.8 oz / 100 g
The beauty of the Sunpak was its systemized design that allowed rapid change of 7 dedicated strobe heads:
Standard Head
Zoom Head
Wide Head
Ring Head
Infra-Red Head
Diffusion Head
Bare bulb Head
A vintage 622 with IR head installed and the zoom head.
The Sunpak 622 was a monster to lug around. While the head is light, the weight of the entire flash unit is very heavy at 1109 grams without batteries. Recycle time with 4 alkaline batteries was 12 seconds on full power and almost instantaneous at low power.
This is a very powerful strobe that is said to be roughly 250 watt seconds. Although the flash head still emits a reddish glow it seems a little less than the Nocto 400 emitted. The dual filter array does a good job in keeping this strobe stealthy.
Sunpak Nocto 400 compared to Sunpack Auto 622 with IR head.
If you would like to use one of these vintage film era IR strobes on your digital cam you will need Safe-Sync adapter.
In the 2000’s third party cottage industries came out with IR flash adapters that slid over small, modern strobes and commercial strobes modified for dedicated IR use.
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When I’m out wandering around late at night I never know what I will come across for the IR cam to record…
Of course, to do it candidly, with live people, you must have great stealth skills. Just gluing toothpicks on your cam wont do a thing for you unless you got the rest…talent and skill. I hold the world record for how close you can get to someone and shoot a candid. I have daylight candid’s going down to 2 or 3 inches from people.
Still, if I get sloppy with technique I get caught even with invisible flash technology…but only 2 or 3 times out of a hundred. If you want to be a better street photog – learn how to be one with your cam.
The best bet for stealth is when the subject is occupied elsewhere. This guy was a roving bartender. He had a bottle strapped to his waist. His motto was ‘drinks for tits!’
Even though he is looking right at me, this next photo is a candid. Same with most of the rest of these photos in this post…all candids. The only not-so-candid exceptions are the lady in the Indian headdress (I asked.) that is below and the 2 guys working on the gal. The 2 guys started out candid, then they turned around and told me ‘get that fucking camera out of here.’ (BTW…If I was on that tag team, the photog would have to set off an atom bomb to distract me and get my attention!)
In any case, I don’t care how stealthy you are (…and I am very good at it, http://dewallenrld.tumblr.com/) you can only crawl up a person’s ass so far and still be invisible.
Being able to go right up to an person in the dark and shoot them without blinding them with a strobe is very liberating. The only drawback is being forced to have a larger foot print than I would like with my gear – the giant IR flash adds a huge amount of real estate to the setup.
After 12 to 14 hours of IR street shooting my infrared flash candid photography skills improved quite a bit. Before I shot the first 3 photos that opened this post I only had about 20 to 30 minutes practice shooting the IR rig at my house. Shooting people outside in the dark is very different than fiddling with the cam in the basement. Now, I can’t toot my horn too loud. Skills or not, big ego or not, as I said earlier IR flash candid photography in the dark is a crapshoot…I only show you the good ones!
Of course it is all luck! ~ Cartier-Bresson
Here…I have even included a Plain Jane photo for the conservative crowd that do not like anything sexual!
The guy below was doing his best with his advertising campaign to get a girl. This gal didn’t have any interest in his product. Since I’m not queer or a girl, I’m no expert…but his package looked like a nice one to me.
He would ask girls if they wanted to touch it…none accepted. This girl recoiled and held her hand as tight as she could to her body. I guess this underscores the difference between the sexes. If a girl was offering free touches of her delectable’s…she would not have to ask a (hetero) guy twice.
Even in the dark…if a gal wants to gets a guys attention all she has to do is to do a split!
Isn’t this what you all try for with your street work? You find a funny sign and wait 20 minutes until someone walks by it…the proverbial and clichéd juxtaposition. Well, try it in the dark, with the signs moving and no viewfinder!
One of the problems with IR flash at night is most of the time you are dependent on flash for 100% of the light. The little ambient light that is available gets lost with IR. You can see the fall-off in the shot above; the foreground was pulled 1.5 stops the background was pushed 3 to 4 stops.
Below is an example of the maximum effective range for infrared flash using a medium power IR strobe set to maxiumum power.
Traditional photography has more latitude when it comes to blending flash and ambient light at night as you can see in this next shot.
In any case, either you can make it work in LR or not. Never force things, don’t rejoice in your garbage…trash it!
Cartier-Bresson on the subject…
“Yes…Yes…Yes…photography is like that and there’s no maybes. All the maybes go to the trash. There is a tremendous enjoyment in saying yes, even if it is for something you hate. It is an affirmation…Yes!”
I was at a meeting put on by lesbian separatists. Here is a little doctrine of the separatists in case your not familiar with that movement…
One of the lesbians didn’t like me taking pictures and started pushing me around and was very abusive. As I left, a group of 5 or 6 lesbians surrounded me. They demanded I delete my photos. As soon as they confronted me I had my magnum can of pepper spray in hand with my other hand fingering a collapsible baton. I refused to delete any of my photos and ended the conversation in short order.
I find it does no good to keep arguing in these situations. The only thing that happens is tempers will start to boil. As I walked away they continued following me while verbally harassing me. Luckily for them they were all mouth. If things escalated I was ready to serve up some Tabasco and crack some heads.
An interesting aspect of infrared flash photography is how it shows up the veins of the body. Dr. Lou Gibson did a number of experiments in this area.
When picking your infrared flash you should choose the wavelength that is most conducive to the type of shooting you want to do. Some IR flashes do produce a little visible light that the subject will see if they are looking at it. If you are working with normal street lighting it is not a big deal. They most likely wont see much of the flash.
With my style of shooting I work in almost complete darkness and right up in people’s faces, so I try to go with no visible light. When you are shopping for your IR flash, pay attention to the sound it makes when firing and recycling. Every flash has its own sound signature and some are a lot louder than others.
If your shooting in a noisy environment then it wont matter much. But if things are quiet and you stick your cam in someone’s face, you don’t want a noisy flash blowing a stealth shot.
Some of these IR flashes have so many lights on them they are lit up like a goddamn Xmas tree. Red, green, blue lights…a nightmare for the stealth undercover photog. But, that is how the camera fondling engineers design this crap. They don’t know their ass from Randy’s proverbial donut hole when it comes to candid work…do they.
If your stuck with an IR flash that has lots of flashing colored lights working against you, cover them up with gaffers tape and pinprick holes in the tape to allow a little of the light to shine through the tape.
Out of all things mentioned above, recycle time is of the utmost importance. One of my IR flashes had it all going except for one thing…a slow recycle time. I missed many shots with that flash. I seldom use it now, except if I need a disposable flash that I don’t mind being trashed.
Don’t ever say no one breasts-feeds you the scoop. I give it all to you, I hold back nothing.
But, you will never get this stuff on the photo forums…I’ve been banned from virtually all of em. The controlling pricks that run the forums are interested in $. I’m interested in the iconic photo…plain and simple. Get it any way you can!
The price you pay for total darkness is the flash range will be less than you get with the flash that emits a small amount of visible light. You may want a long distance IR shot once in a while, so you may wish to stock low and high power IR flashes in your kit. While you can get by with just a high powered IR flash, they are huge and work against you with candid photos.
A trick you can use to hide some of the glow of your flash is to use a Sto-Fen white diffuser. The diffuser masks much of the glow and you still get 95% of the IR illumination. The drawback of the diffuser is it does cut down on the flash strength by 1/3 to 1/2 stop.
Instant review is an important tool that benefits IR flash. It not only helps with getting the right exposure or something approximating it, but it also lets you know your IR setup is working properly. You can’t tell by seeing any light from the strobe, so all you can go by is the photo you just took.
From Women are Beautiful: Beyond Snapshot Aesthetics artist’s book.
It is hard to get perfect exposure with infrared flash while doing street work. You are always changing distances and if your working undercover you can’t always be changing your exposure. (Or even see your controls in the dark.) Other times the shot comes up so quick there is no time to fondle the cam. The only time you have is to decide do I take the shot as-is or not. You just have to do the best you can working with an acceptable range of exposure / framing / lack of focus and make it work in post.
Again, not something the anal photog has developed much skills at. The anal photogs are used to working with pretty perfect files and trying their anal best to get it perfect in-cam. Whereas street / documentary photographers are used to working with imperfect files and making something great out of it. When you do street or doc work, if you come back with 70% to 80% of what you were after, you can still have a winner.
Cartier-Bresson’s Rue Mouffetard Paris 1954 is a good example of the principle of imperfect perfection.
Don’t yawn at me when I am lecturing you on the characteristics of the anal photog.
Before I took the shot above, I had thirty something photos ruined. Someone had bumped into me and knocked the IR flash slightly off the hotshoe. When I was taking photos I was not getting anything since the flash was not working. This isn’t the first time this has happened. If your shooting candid’s, you can’t constantly be reviewing your shots if you want to stay undercover. So, you have to balance reviewing in a timely fashion to shooting candidly.
As bad as it was losing 30 something photos from a loose flash, earlier that week I lost 300+ photos. As I said working in the dark can be tough. When changing a memory card I dropped it and lost lots of good photos that night…a fistfight, a girl with pillowy and veiny breasts, girls in soapsuds, people yawning and lots more. I had to learn the hard way to be extra vigilant when changing cards in the dark.
When out and about I sometimes get bored waiting to find the next great shot. I have a number of projects that I just shoot ‘off the cuff.’ Weegee used to like shooting pix of people picking their nose. One of my boredom projects is shooting people while yawning…candid. It is good practice for fast shooting…a yawn does not last very long.
Working indoors is also another are of interest to me. Here is one from my latest artist’s book project Gay Bar. Shooting in gay bars is tough, I usually get thrown out in short order.
A transwoman and her friend. From Gay Bar artist’s book.
I have more IR images that are marinating a la’ Eric Kim style. I’m letting them ‘age’ cause I’m hoping my bad photos will somehow magically look better later on!
No, just kidding. Generally, you should NEVER marinate your photos – learn from your mistakes and successes ASAP.
Mine are marinating cause I don’t have the time to process them. I hate sitting on my photos, but that is how it is. It takes a lot of post processing to develop IR.
Digital IR images look terrible right out of the camera. They do not look anything like the old Kodak High Speed Infrared Film we shot back in the day.
Here is what a digital IR image looks like with no post processing.
Here is the same image after extensive post-processing
From The Americans…60 years after Frank artist’s book by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
With work you can get the IR image to look ‘something like’ a traditional BW image. Although, the tonal range and look of digital IR BW is still going to be different that non IR digital BW.
Here is a non-IR digital image.
When I go through the images, some can be tossed immediately. Other times an image has to have some processing done to determine whether it is a keeper or not. In general, IR post processing takes a lot longer than traditional post processing. Sometimes you invest an hour or more of work in it only to find it is a borderline image and it still ends up as trash.
If you’re after the classic IR flash look, burn out the highlights some and pump up the contrast. I prefer a more extended range look myself, so I split the difference. If you are having trouble making good prints from your infrared flash images, make one good master print with the proper amount of burnout, then use it to help match your future prints.
You don’t have to scare people Bruce Gilden style to get ‘bug eyed’ shots. If you keep your eyes open you can find them naturally occurring once in a while. If you are in a hurry for the bug eyed person, then you may have to resort to scaring people.
Now, there are no photo police to enforce any rules or certain ‘look’ when it comes to developing IR. With certain images you can process them to look a little like a poor quality traditional BW image. Since my early IR film days were based on Kodak High Speed Infrared Film, I strive for a little of that look with my digital post processing. But, we are all free to process them as we like…
When I go out to shoot street I seldom have an agenda. I shoot what I come across that interests me. You prob wont believe this, but I am pretty shy. If I can avoid it I don’t like talking to people. Sure, sometimes I can be bold and do all sort of things to push people…if I need to. But it zaps my energy as it isn’t my natural way of being. My preferred M.O. is to get as close as is needed to get the candid shot all the while staying undercover.
Adult themed horror house – women examining their clitoris with a flashlight and mirror.
Man doing squats with park bench – Santa Monica
If you want to learn more about freezing time in the dark, get a copy of the bible on this subject:
I don’t recommend you deploy any of the weapons or tactics I discuss here. What I present is for informational purposes only. Every state and country has their own laws and regulations regarding self-defense. You check out your OWN laws pertaining to YOU. Take responsibility for yourself – develop real and useful self-defense skills and know the law.
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Fortune favors the prepared.
Champ Joe Lewis summed up the plight of many an aspiring street photog when he said…”Nothing replaces ring time.” The modern day camera fondlers will do everything they can to ‘buy experience’ with books and seminars – everything short of getting their hands dirty, day in and day out, training on the street and pushing themselves to keep expanding the envelope.
The German’s have a saying…’You grasp by grasping.’
Cartier-Bresson once said “your first 10,000 pix are your worst.” In the digital age, I say it is your first 100,000, not 10,000.
Experience usually precedes insight.
I see this phenomena all the time on the photo forums, they want insight without any experience. People will ask if I do this…then what? With digital imaging, nothing could be easier than to push the button and find out the what for yourself. Fortune favors the curious…that gets their hands dirty. People want it all breast-fed to them nowadays. Pretty soon they will be sending out robots to do their street photography for them.
The post that follows is from my nearly 50 years of ‘ring time’ on the street, pushing the button and more importantly, surviving to tell the story !
Selection from Whoop-Whoop artist’s book
I had to laugh at reading some crap written by Eric Kim. (He blocked me from posting to his blog…luckily I have another outlet for saying what I want.) Anyway, he presented a piece about arguing on a long term, continual basis with a guy about a dispute over Kim taking his pix without permission.
Well, that is how wannabes do it. You know the ones…”Hey, I read 200 books on photography…now I’m a street photog!” and lets not forget…“I don’t know if it will look better on film or digital – so I shoot it both ways.”
GD…they got the blind leading the blind nowadays! Listen up…YOU NEVER, EVER STAND THERE AND ARGUE.
What the hell are you waiting for…things to escalate???? When you are in an argument what happens – blood starts to boil.
Fortune favors the wise. Don’t stand there like a jackass, being an accommodating stationary target, arguing for 20 minutes with an idiot that could turn dangerous. If someone is a nut case your not going to reason with them. Once you take the pix. (As you camera fondlers call it ‘captured.’) you move the fudge on. YOU take control of the situation, move out and let the person chase you down if they want to keep the conversation going.
This is an important ‘acid test’ in itself as to which direction this confrontation may take. The person may let it go and shrug it off or maybe they will stand there and yell at you. Well, people can yell and blow off all the steam they want. I’ve heard it all before from the cowards behind the keyboards.
Where the line gets crossed is when words turn into a physical assault. If the person starts to follow you to continue arguing with you that shows intent on their part that should warn you to be prepared for a possible escalation in the situation.
Joel Meyerowitz tells a story about Cartier-Bresson. He said Bresson was accosted by a drunk and flung his Leica in the drunks face to stun him. Bresson retrieved the camera with the shoulder strap and quickly disappeared into the crowd. That is how you do it. Don’t argue, don’t make a big fudging deal over it, give them the spiel on your rights about taking photos in public and move on.
Fortune favors those with street smarts. Never give the person involved in the dispute your name and especially don’t ever hand out a biz card. Many street wannabes think they can persuade someone they are OK by trying to convince them they are legit photo forum camera fondling photog. Well a biz card means nothing nowadays. All you have done is to give the person your contact info so they can track you down and continue the harassment after a conflict erupts.
When Bresson slammed the drunk he didn’t hand out a card and tell him to contact him for a free photo. But that is how things go nowadays with the photo forum street posers.
Selection from Whoop-Whoop artist’s book
If the person is physically prevented you from moving on, then give them what they want to appease them or use force as a last resort to defend yourself. You need to decide which road is best for you. The person could fold up with a little self-defense effort on your part or they could pull a gun or a knife and kill you. There is just no telling what can happen in any given situation. My advice throughout this post is to avoid confrontation if at all possible. Fortune favors those who run away to live another day. If confrontation is not avoidable, then incapacitate the attacker as quickly as possible.
Sometimes you will run into a person whom cannot be satisfied no matter what you do. You can apologize to them and give them whatever they asked for and they still have a hard-on for you and wont give it up. No matter how you try to reason with them it wont cut it. Maybe they have a mental illness or early onset Alzheimer’s…I don’t know, I’m not a mental professional.
The only success I’ve had with these type of people is to do an orderly retreat ASAP. If I stand there and argue and try to reason with them, blood starts to boil – for there is NO reasoning with them. Don’t get suckered into their sick mind games. Now, in my limited experience with these type of personalities I’ve never known them to be violent, they seem to be all talk. But there are always exceptions to the rule, so keep an eye on them as you move out.
Infrared flash photo from Gay Bar artists’ books
The other night I was shooting at a group run by lesbian separatists. Lesbian separatists are a militant sect of lesbianism that envision an ideal world composed solely of women with the extinction of men.
One lesbian that did not like me taking pix started pushing me around and was very abusive. As I was leaving, I was surrounded by a group of 5 or 6 lesbians demanding that I delete the photos. First thing I do when confronted is to get my pepper spray or tactical light in hand. For a group like this I forget the light and go straight to the pepper spray.
I knew I had some good material, so I refused to delete a thing. After seeing talking was getting nowhere, I didn’t waste time, I didn’t suck my thumb, I told them the conversation was over and walked away. They followed me verbally harassing me, but it was an all-talk attack with nothing physical. But if things escalated, the hot Tabasco was ready to be served with my other hand fingering my collapsible baton.
Check out the S.C.U.M. manifesto for a taste of lesbian separatism…
I was in my 60’s when I shot all the pix in this post. Sometimes people on the street think they can pick on me just cause I’m old…they are in for a big surprise. These current crop of camera fondlers would shit their pants if they shot where I do. I routinely get threats, gear broken and attacked as normal business.
Selections from Bikers’ Mardi Gras artists book (Candid)
But, before the need for self-defense comes to fruition, you have to ask yourself…what caused the conflict in the first place? Was it your lack of skill as a candid photog? Over nearly 50 years as a street photog I have refined my skill level for candid photography to a very high degree.
Staten Island Ferry (Candid)
Selection from The Americans…60 years after Frank artist’s book.
Beside the lack of skills queation ask yourself is your photo worth that much to have to fight over it? Fortune favors those who are flexible. Sure, you can quote principles and being in the right. But it is like the rules of the road when driving…you may have the right of way, but you don’t demand it if your up against a knucklehead driver.
OK, I’ve done many landmark photo projects. My work is in over 125 museums and curated collections around the world. (See partial listing)
If I have a special pix, I will fight to keep it. Now, if it is a crapper, I’d just delete it to keep the peace. I’m not one to fight for principal, but I will fight for more museum prospects. But, why should I fight and risk my life over a nothing pix I will just delete anyway?
In your case, ask yourself what are you producing? Maybe a pix for Flickr of a person walking by a funny sign or someone walking in or out of a shadow with the hope you can get a thumbs up from 2 people on the photo forums? Is it worth dying over?
My advice is…fortune favors those who are realistic. If your photo is not going to win any contests and you see you are dealing with a potential threat or crazy person, just apologize and delete the photos…then walk away as fast as possible. There are plenty of other funny signs and shadows with people walking in them for you to shoot another day. If you don’t like to delete photos to keep the peace, then you had better be ready for a confrontation.
Selection from Whoop-Whoop artist’s book
Now, if you are a legitimate street photog, altercations should NOT be a big problem for you. You should have developed candid skills by now that allow you to work unseen for the most part.
Candid skills or not, you must prepare for problems, as a threat can arise at any moment out of nowhere. As your walking away from the person that is a potential threat, you keep aware of what is happening behind and all around you. As you walk away, you stay in a public place and you are also getting your self-defense weapons in-hand for quick deployment if needed.
If your weapons are in-hand, you don’t have to worry about a fouled draw. You have also practiced what to do with them under duress. The assailant grabs your shoulder and spins you around…boom there they are ready for deployment. This ‘surprise’ attack should not startle you too much if you have kept aware of your surroundings.
No matter what weapons you have or how highly skilled a fighter you are – the best self-defense is ALWAYS avoidance. You try to avoid the fight at ALL cost. If attack is unavoidable, then you have no other choice but to deploy your weapons or physically fight off the attacker.
On the net it is easy for everyone to be an expert. Well, I’m not going to bullshit you, I am not some big marital artist or self-defense expert. But, early on in my social documentary career I realized physical attacks were an ever present danger. As such, I had to put a little effort in learning how to maintain my safety.
Selection from The Americans…60 years after Frank artist’s book
I carry self-defense weapons for defending against an attack or to ward off a theft. I’m in my early 60’s. I got a bad neck and bad back, so I am not one for wresting a guy on the street. I am also at a disadvantage in that many times I have a camera strapped to my wrist and a backpack of photo gear on my back. Irrespective of my age and health issues, if need be, I can snap a neck or bust a head open like a cracked egg with a collapsible baton. That is the beauty of weapons…they are the great equalizer, they add power to the powerless.
If I am shooting in dangerous areas, I use 12mp to 16 mp ‘disposable’ cameras and get my pack value down to $500. My cheap Pentax bodies start at $100 and 50mm manual lenses at $25. That is about as disposable as I get.
Fortune favors those not dependent on attachments. Luckily for me I am not a anal fanboy of any one brand of cam. I can generally get along with most of the cams out there. That is where my nearly 50 years of experience has paid off.
Ken ‘Know it All’ Rockwell poo-poos the backpack for photogs. He says the shoulder bag is best. Well, Ken ‘Know it All’ Rockwell is right…if your shooting macro shots of flowers, your kids birthday party at the park or your latest ‘$50 for a DVD’ maternity gig. Now, look at Ken ‘Know it All’ Rockwell’s work and look at mine. Do you see any goddamn similarity at all between the two? Who do you think knows more about street work Ken ‘Know it All’ Rockwell or me?
Isn’t this what you all lust after?
You can take some sandpaper to your Fuji or Leica to age it and then you can look like Indiana Jones ready for his next adventure.
Here is the bottom line…for street work, staying low key and having something secure that wont work against you in a fight…the backpack wins hands down.
How would you like an attacker to take your shoulder bag and choke you out with the strap? A thief can pull a shoulder bag off your shoulder in an instant and take off. Getting a backpack off your back is much harder. If they get the pack off your back, maybe then can beat you with it, but at least you wont be choked out with the pack.
Sometimes I use a Think Tank StreetWalker, but most of the time I use a $5 thrift store or $10 Walmart backpack with camera skins for protecting the gear. If you can find a cheap backpack with a waist belt for extra security that is great. No, it is nowhere as convenient as the shoulder bag. But the backpack does allow me to keep my gear and life safe, so that is all that counts.
I also use a large fanny pack for some shoots. In it there is a fast draw knife secreted where it mounts tight against the body. I don’t have to dig for it or open the knife, just reach behind, give it a yank and boom it is there. Same thing with many of my backpacks. Many of them have a fast draw knife secreted in them that can be accessed from the outside. It never hurts to have a backup weapon or two. Never forget…two is one and one is none if you have a malfunction. Fortune always favors the prepared.
Since I started street photography in 1970 I have had many altercations over the years. Just between July 2014 and July 2015 I had 6 or 7 potential fights / threats and attacks that I was able to avoid or quickly fight off. Although this was an unusually high year for trouble. Luckily for me, the worst injury I suffered was a grazing blow from a fist to my tooth. If it had connected squarely, then I would have had a cut lip, loose tooth or worse. But as it was, it only caused a little discomfort for a day or so.
These altercations weren’t from being caught taking photos of the person attacking me. They were all from walking or standing with a camera in my hand while doing nothing. Some of these attacks came out of nowhere, so you must always be on alert and ready. The other day a drunk wanted to fight me because I didn’t have a beer to give him. The camera can be a magnet for problems in some locals. I try to be as low-key as possible with it, but it is impossible to be perfect at all times with candid work.
Selection from De Wallen: Amsterdam’s Red Light District artist’s book
One of the problems photogs have with awareness is the tunnel vision many of us experience when doing street or doc work. We are concentrated on a scene or object and oblivious to the rest of our surroundings. Charles Ponzi, the great con-man of last century who gave us the Ponzi Scheme, used to say…”When a man’s mind is concentrated he is blind.” Concentration is a great trait to cultivate for doing candid photography, but it is a detriment to those under attack. I don’t have an answer to the problem except take a break and look around you every so often to keep aware of your world.
Awareness possibly saved my life recently. I was shooting IR flash for my project Piercing Darkness. It was late at night and I saw something happening on the edge of the parking lot. When I went over to see what was happening this is what I recorded…
Infrared flash photographs from Piercing Darkness artist’s book
Earlier that night I was almost run over. I don’t know whether the guy was drunk or was just trying to run me over for fun, but the he headed right for me. If I wasn’t paying attention I would have been clipped. Luckily I saw he was coming right at me and I was able to jump out of the way and he barely missed me at the last moment. Fortune favors the alert.
My first line of defense for weaponry is a 200 lumen to 1000 lumen tactical flashlight. I do a lot of night street photography, so the tactical flashlight is a very important tool for me
Surefire make one of the best. The tactical switch is what you want for self-defense. Surefire’s are very tough and nearly indestructible. Tactical lights can be had for as low as $15 to $30, but when you need it will it be there? Don’t skimp on your self-defense tool if you want to keep fondling your cams for years to come.
Many tactical flashlights incorporate a crenelated bezel also known as a strike bezel that can be used as a weapon itself. The edge of the crenelated bezel is pounded into an attackers temple, eye socket, collarbone, knee or elbow. It can cause a lot of damage. (I know…I’ve had one used on me.) When the edge of the bezel hits skin on bone it splits the skin wide open.
There are some really crazy tactical bezels out there…
These type of bezels may cause a lot of bleeding – blood can carry disease. Extreme bezels could also foul the draw when you wish to deploy your light. They also may pose a legal problem if you ever have to go to court. If you cause a lot of facial disfigurement or blind someone from using such an extreme bezel you may have to answer in court how that is to be considered self-defense? I just stick with Surefire’s minimalistic, classic designed tactical bezels – it gives me the best of both worlds.
Be warned, if you strike someone in the eye with your light, you may cause permanent eye damage. If you strike someone in the temple or trachea they may die depending on the force you use. You should only be using deadly force when you are concerned your life is in eminent danger. But, if someone is out to kill or gravely injure you, they must be stopped at once using any means necessary.
For self-defense you want a minimum of 200 lumens and preferably way above that. Surefire makes a 500 lumen model, the E2D Defender Ultra LED, a 600 lumen P2X Fury and the 1000 lumen P3X Fury. (I’m sure the megapizel chasers will be all over the Surefire’s 3000 lumen light!.) The ordinary household flashlight is about 10 to 20 lumens. So any way you cut it, tactical lights are way beyond that.
Surefire 600 lumen P2X Fury Tactical
The tactical light is a very useful tool to carry beside self-defense use. If your on a rough road in the dark it lights the path. When going to your car in a dark parking lot it is an outstanding bright light to illuminate the lot. You can see who is lurking in a parking lot or near or in your car before it is too late. It also signals any would-be attacker that you are not going to be easy mark.
One of the ways a tactical light differs from a household flashlight is with beam focus. The tactical light has a highly focused beam, whereas the household light is spread wide. Be careful, some tactical flashlights have a capacitor that needs to be charged up for max output. It is charged by powering up the light then turning it off and repowering it. In a self-defense situation you will not have full power until you go through one ‘on / off / on’ power cycle. You don’t want that, you want on and full power, no games.
The tactical light can also be used as a photo light to shed a little more light on the subject. I lit up this guys butt crack and highlighted the liquid being poured from the bottle. I could not use the light on high or it would blow out the highlights. But on low power it was just right. I could not do this with the P2X tactical Fury, I had to use the LX2 that has a low setting tactical switch.
Selection from Whoop-Whoop artist’s book
The product shot below was done on the fly. I pulled the light out of my pocket, lit it up and boom there it is. As a street photog…that is as anal as I get with studio work!
Selection from De Wallen: Amsterdam’s Red Light District artist’s book
Lets get back to self-defense…
If someone is following you and you are threatened, you turn around and light them up. If it is dark outside they will be blinded, startled and cringe away from the light. If they are wearing sunglasses in the dark of night, they may not be as affected. (But anyone wearing dark glasses at night is giving a lot of pre-warning right there that something is wrong with them.) In daylight, the tactical flashlight wont do any good for blinding people unless it is very high lumens.
The big benefit of the tactical flashlight is out of all the weapons discussed in this post, it is the most benign weapon that can be deployed. If you can blind someone and they get the message and they lay off great – you haven’t had to spray pepper in their face or stab them with a sharp object or strike them with your baton. So if it is at all possible, use your flashlight as a first warning shot.
Alertness and Surpriseare 2 tools you can benefit from mastering.
After you light them up you yell loudly ‘BACKOFF – GET AWAY’ or ‘WHAT’S THE PROBLEM’ or ‘STOP IT – YOU ARE SCARING ME!’ Keep walking away as you stay aware of what they are doing. Ladies may wish to scream ‘HELP I’M BEING ATTACKED’ and deploy a personal alarm. These loud commands give fair warning to the attacker to lay off and hopefully attract attention from passerby’s to your problem.
If you think a threat is eminent, while the assailant has been blinded by the tactical light, you must be proactive and spray them with pepper spray that is ready to be deployed in your other hand. Blinding light then hot pepper gas…a one two punch. A second or two after the pepper takes effect, you gas them again so they can’t catch a breath. Then start running and get as far away as you can.
You have a strong hand and a weak hand, you decide which hand gets which weapon. I try to practice weapons use in both hands. My weak hand is not as good as the strong hand. But with practice, my weak hand is much better than it would be without practice.
The reason you need to determine which weapon goes in which hand is; if you plan on following up the one – two punch with number three, four and five, make the most of the weapon by putting it in your strongest striking hand. After you light up and spray the assailant, you follow up with a hit from the crenelated bezel of the tactical flashlight…then a kick to the balls…then a knee to the face or a hammer fist to the back of the skull as they bow over from having their testicles juiced. Work the assailant high and low, high and low.
A good tactic for tactical light and pepper spray use is to always sidestep his line of approach after they are temporarily blinded from the light and gas. This way the attacker is disoriented as to where your current position is. Once the attacker is stopped, get far away from the attacker.
Sad Buskers Times Square, NYC
Infrared flash photo from The Americans…60 years after Frank artist’s book (Candid)
I usually wear cargo pants and sometimes a hoody, so I have many pockets to carry weapons. You can also get snap-out belt holsters for your light, spray or baton. I sometimes pack 2 pepper sprays…large 2 oz or 4 oz sizes. (In NJ you can only have 3/4 oz sprays, so know your local laws.) You don’t want to run out of gas in an emergency.
The bottom of a pepper spray can will make an improvised weapon – you bang the bottom edge of the can into the assailants temple or eye socket…hard! Another use is as a breakaway aid. If the assailant has grabbed your shirt, you come down hard with the edge of the can on their forearm repeatedly until they let go. Then step back and gas them.
If things escalate and you see them start for their pockets, tell them STOP…TAKE YOUR HANDS OUT OF YOUR POCKET. Don’t warn them again if they don’t comply, you act immediately. Only you can decide what self-defense measure you will employ next to incapacitate them. But, once the attacker gets whatever they have in their pocket out…it will be too late and too bad for you.
In this situation you just can’t afford to wait and find out. Mistakes can happen, they may be reaching for Kleenex or a asthma inhaler. Do you really want to kill someone over a sheet of Kleenex? Yet that is what proper self-defense dictates in such a scenario. On the other hand they could pull out a knife or gun.
If the attacker proves to be unarmed and you use a weapon against an unarmed person…guess what? Your the criminal in the eyes of the law and good chance your going to jail. Do you see why I tell you to avoid conflict if at all possible?
Selection from Whoop-Whoop artist’s book
In recent times there have been numerous reports of criminals and attackers using pepper spray on the victims. Awareness is your only defense. If you see someone approaching you with something in their hand it all may revolve around who has the fastest draw.
Here is my experience with pepper sprays…
Cone spray is my first choice of pepper sprays. Stream / Gel / Foam spray can be defeated if the assailant moves out of the line of fire or covers up the area with a hat or cloth. The cone spray is all encompassing and pretty well atomized. No escaping it if you are in the large sphere of influence of the gas.
Cone spray can also be sprayed behind you if someone is following you. Be low key about it, but give them a whiff of gas…maybe they will get the message. Stream /gel / foam spray requires a direct hit. Cone spray is like a scatter gun..it is amazing stuff and just needs to get near them.
Stream / gel / foam spray seem to run out quicker than cone spray. This may be due to the fact that your spraying large amounts of product trying to find the face of your attackers. Whereas cone spray atomizes the product into a large area and make it effective by just being in the general vicinity. Even though stream / gel / foam spray may be near the attackers head, it will still not have any effect unless it is a direct hit. So as the old saying goes – “when it comes to a miss, an inch is as good as a mile…close only counts in horseshoes!”
There is a shortcoming to cone spray. Since it has such a large sphere of influence, whenever I have deployed it I get some blowback. With stream / gel / foam spray, you seldom get any blowback unless you are very close. There is no perfect solution to irritant dispersal systems. I suggest you thoroughly test out the various options before your life depends on their use.
I don’t advise you use the little pink or black mini sprays except as a last resort. Many of them only contain 1/3 to 1/2 oz of product. 2 oz spray is the minimum size for self-defense. What would happen if your in a bar and you need to clear a path to the door that is being blocked by a guy and a few of his friends? You going to do it with a puny 1/2 oz. spray and then run out of product in the middle of the job?
Always read the labels, don’t go by looks. Some larger sized cans that are the exact same size of a 2 oz can only contain 1.25 to 1.5 oz of product.
The compact, little cutsie sprays can be next to useless for multiple deployments or extended range. Don’t bet your life on toys like the little lipstick sprays they market to women. You may have to deploy the spray repeatedly – the mini sprays generally have poor range and have very poor capacity for multiple deployments. When it comes to you life, forget fashion for a moment ladies and use serious equipment. You don’t want to lose your life over not having one more spray of gas that you didn’t have in your pink cutsie toy spray.
Infrared flash photo – Hollywood, CA (Candid)
From Women are Beautiful – Beyond Snapshot Aesthetics artist’s book
Even after all I have said against the little cutsie / pocket sprays …they can come in handy if you need to spray someone right next to you. Most of these sprays don’t have much power. So they may be the best tool for the job if the attacker is right next to you and you are worried about backsplash. But you will have to test them all out for yourself….fortune favors those that test…test…test!
Fortune favors those with a shield. If you can get to your car, you may be able to put a shield between you and your attacker. Within your car you should always have a 3 to 4 oz can of pepper spray handy. If someone threatens you coming through the window you can gas them and drive off. If you can’t get to your car, duck into a business for a shield and yell for Help I’m being attacked! and to call the police.
When you deploy pepper spray in CQC you should be using foam or gel spray. You can see in the photo you will get lots of blowback if you use cone spray. Actually, no matter what you use you will get lots of blowback with someone sticking their head in your car window.
Selection from The Americans…60 years after Frank artist’s book
To make some space, gouge their eyes and smash their face to push them away from your window before you spray them. There is no reason not to have foam and cone sprays in the car so you are covered for CQC or long distance use. The thing is to mark ‘which is which’ if the cans look alike and try to store them in different areas of the car. You don’t want to grab your spray to stop an attacker 10 feet away and have foam dribble out 3 feet away.
There is a big problem when using certain foam sprays. Some brands give you a shaving cream consistency that is not too powerful, which is what you want for CQC. Other brands I’ve tested shoot out foam like buckshot having an explosive range of up to 15 feet. If you try to use these explosive foam sprays in CQC you will have it backsplash all over you. If you fear backsplash, try to guard your eyes and face with an open hand.
Fortune favors the knowledgeable. Test your sprays. I’ve used many, many sprays over the years and can tell you some are excellent and some are garbage. The spray pattern may be poor, range could be poor, and some dribble out and get your hand all full of spray after you use it.
Some foam pepper spray is only good for CQC, I use it if I have to deploy inside a car or house. The right foam to look for is the one that shoots the pepper foam out with a little more force than a shaving cream can with a 3 to 4 foot effective range. If you use the wrong pepper foam it shoots out too powerful for CQC and will get all over you. If you ever deploy cone pepper spray inside your house it can spread 15 to 20 feet into an adjoining room, not to mention the blowback you will receive being near the sphere of influence.
This spray takes some practice to get both buttons working in sequence for deployment. Why get a complex design that you may have trouble with when under pressure?
Look for high potency sprays. Sometimes pepper spray is made with less heat for general crowd control. You want the maximum available heat for a self-defense spray. Civilian and Law Enforcement Pepper sprays range from 0.18% to 1.33% Major Capsaicinoids. Bear Sprays range from 1.0% to 2.0% Major Capsaicinoids.
Pepper spray can kill someone with asthma or a respiratory illness. Pepper spray is not a toy. Check your local laws. NJ / NY have tough laws, you can’t have a spray bigger than 3/4 oz and it must be a diluted formula. Pepper spray is as about a humane a deterrent as you can get for 95% of the people. (The old East Germans had a tear gas that would eat the enamel off you teeth…that is some potent gas!)
Pepper for self-defense is nothing new. In his book ‘I paid my dues….Good times…No bread’ beat legend Babs Gonzales wrote about using .10 cent bags of powered red pepper he would throw in a person’s face for self-defense.
In an emergency I’ve read people have used Deep Heat spray, women’s hair spray, DEET bug spray, brake cleaning spray and wasp spray as a deterrent. But most of these sprays are pretty big cans and vary in effectiveness and liability.
If you want a fast cleanup spray and one that the assailant can recover from more quickly, go with water based pepper spray. The most painful and long lasting pepper spray is petroleum based. Even if you wash out the eyes, the oils hold the irritants in place. While it is devastating stuff, you don’t want to use it in your car or house.
Here is the test I use to test the potency of petroleum based pepper spray.
WARNING:
I don’t advise you to do this test. Don’t blame me, I am not responsible for adverse reactions you may have from this test.
I spray a little pepper out of the can. Usually a dab of pepper liquid is left on the nozzle. I rub my finger on the nozzle getting pepper liquid on it. Then I wash my hands with soap and water. I dry my hands then I rub my finger that touched the liquid around my eye. If I have a potent spray, my eye will start burning like hell in short order. I flush my eye out with water until the burning subsides. This test is meant for petroleum based pepper sprays. With water based sprays the effect will be less.
I’ve tested pepper spray that was almost 10 years past the expire date. It still was plenty potent and had OK range, But it had lost ‘some’ of the pressure that it originally had. (I save my retired sprays to use as trainers or to see just how long they last.)
Don’t fall for the lie to change your pepper spray every year, it is bullshit. Buy a sample spray, test it then buy more of that lot number. Just like we did in the old film days with lots numbers of film.
Selection from Bikers’ Mardi Gras artists book
Another thing to be concerned with sprays is angle of deployment. I’ve had some sprays that wont work in certain positions. All you get is propellant with very little or nil pepper. Look for nitrogen powered pepper spray that sprays in any angle of deployment.
Spend some money and buy some sprays to test thoroughly. You camera fondlers out there that spend thousands of $$ so you can masturbate over your photo toys, can’t you spend $30 or $40 to buy and test various sprays on the market so you can have confidence in your self-defense weapons?
With regards to impact weapons, a collapsible baton is a good self-defense weapon…if you know how to use it. If you don’t know what your doing, your assailant may take it from you and beat the shit out of you with it. The collapsible baton can also be deployed as a defense tool without extending it, similar in use to an oversize kubaton.
If your in NJ, NY or CA, collapsible batons are not legal. Check out your state for the law. But you can substitute this:
The monopod will do lots of damage. Esp the spike…so be careful. I take strap off of mine and crank it down tight so it wont come loose during deployment. I seldom use it for photos, I use it for protection in the states where criminals have more rights that law abiding citizens. If you really want to keep it tight, Loctite it. Others may wish to leave the strap on and use it as a keeper or even as a leverage tool to swing the monopod from the wrist similar to a nunchucka.
Laws vary so much, but in general it is illegal to use a weapon against an unarmed person. So, if a drunk takes a swing at you it is illegal to even hit him in the leg with a baton or similar bludgeon. If you’re being attacked by multiple opponents, there is a big difference in size of the attacker or a big age difference, there is the doctrine of disparity of force that may be taken into account for using a weapon for self-defense against an unarmed attacker. But, all this would have to be settled in court and you may be arrested…again TRY TO AVOID PROBLEMS is the best advice.
Auto lock and friction batons both have their benefits. You study up types and how to use them. Auto lock batons are on average 2 inches longer than friction batons of the same lengths due to the auto lock mechanism. Auto lock batons are generally harder to open than friction batons. A 21 inch baton is a great EDC size. In my opinion, 26 inches is too long for plainclothes without a holster. If you find yourself in CBC, 26 inches can get hung up on obstructions. I don’t advise to go below 16 inches if you can help it.
The super cheap batons may look good when you handle one, but once you hit something hard they bend and wont close. Although even the more expensive models can bend. The push button baton that shoots out the front is crap…a camera fondlers delight. The mini baton, the size of a kubaton, is also not very useful.
Some of the auto lock batons do not lock securely on the first deployment. It reminds me of the tactical flashlight I talked about above that needs the capacitor charged from cycling on and off before it can reach full power. The auto lock batons (ASP & Monadnock) exhibiting this phenomena require a secondary snap to engage the lock fully. In an emergency you may not remember to give it a second snap and it can close during deployment. Always test your gear in real life scenarios before trusting it to save your life.
In the shadow of City Hall Los Angles homeless tent encampment.
Selection from The Americans…60 years after Frank artist’s book
Friction lock batons also have a problem when it comes to their locking mechanism. A friction lock baton may close unexpectedly if you hit it a few time up against something hard like a stick or metal pipe. I don’t think it will come unlocked just from hitting a person, but be aware of this problem. Once they are truly locked, an auto lock baton will generally stay locked securely, until you press the closure release.
Aluminum ASP Airweight batons are very comfortable to carry, but they tend to bend more than steel batons and can be harder to open do to less inertia from their low weight design. You can adjust the tension spring in the base cap to make it easier to open. But, too much bending for adjustment can cause an early failure and spring breakage. Just as you get a trigger job for your gun to make the pull smooth and lighter, so you do with your batons. With proper adjustment, the deployment of an aluminum baton can be comparable to a steel baton.
Beside being harder to open, aluminum batons also seem harder to close than steel batons. As far as I know, nothing can be done about that. If you hit something hard with an aluminum baton you will feel it in your wrist and hand more so than a heavyweight steel baton. Just like the S&W Airweight snubby gives off more recoil due to its lightweight design.
Even with all their drawbacks, I favor airweight batons for EDC when it is shorts season in the summer. If I deploy one and it bends I will just buy another one. It is the price one pays for insurance to stay alive on the street. If I had a baton that weighed too much I will end up not carrying it as I should. So what good would a heavyweight baton that may not bend do me if I leave it at home? The little ASP 16 inch Airweight weighs 7.5 ounces. That is next to nothing to carry – my keys weigh 4.5 ounces. BTW…the ASP 21 Airweight does a lot better opening than the 16 inch ASP.
For fall / winter use, when I wear hoodies and long cargo pants I go with steel batons. Steel batons are also my first choice for my car. They open easy and have great impact feel as compared to the hollow feeling aluminum batons that can twist your wrist from the top heavy feel when you hit something hard.
Peacekeeper batons are the ‘Rolls Royce’ of collapsible batons. There only drawback, beside being very expensive, is Peacekeepers are also very heavy. Just for comparison, an ASP 21 inch Airweight baton weighs 9 oz. An ASP 21 inch steel baton weighs 16.5 ounces and a 21 inch Peacekeeper weighs 22.5 oz. The Peacekeeper is a great choice for durability and striking power if you have a holster. But for plainclothes use in your pocket, the Peacekeeper is way to heavy. In any case, if your a true blue camera fondler and pixel peeper, I’m sure you will give the Peacekeeper a go…just so you can say…I have the best!
Be sure you keep your baton in line with your strong hand that will use it. A clean and fast draw is important. It is also good to practice opening and using the baton with your less dominate hand. If something puts your dominate hand out of commission, where is your back up? Again, check your local laws regarding batons. Be careful, if you hit someone hard in the head or neck you can kill them.
1,2,3,4,5…fortune favors the fast. When your life is at stake you must meet a serious attack with enough force for it to be stopped…quickly and permanently. A good practice drill is to use a heavy bag or dummy to beat on with your sticks or baton. But, you just don’t beat randomly on it. You practice specific hitting pattern drills to develop power and speed. The other benefit is, this training conditions your wrists and hands for using impact weapons.
As fast as you can read 1,2,3,4,5 is how long it should take you to deliver 5 powerful blows with your baton to the attacker. You really need hands-on training, you wont develop skills by reading a book about it, anymore than you can learn to skateboard by reading a book. But what is of foundational importance to all stick and impact fighting methods is to develop power from short, direct hits – not long wind ups.
When you use an impact weapon you don’t want to do a big wind up like your hitting a baseball and telegraph your intent. The assailant may strike first or block you if you give them time to see what you are doing. Let me give you an example. If someone is coming at you with a knife, you have your pepper spray in your weak hand and can gas them. As they take a pause to refresh, you slam you baton into their wrist with the knife in it.
Hopefully they drop the knife. In any case you don’t wait to see, from the wrist hit, you immediately strike your baton into their face, then a fast snap to the other side of their head or neck area. Then it is a blow to the side of their knee with a direct arch from the previous neck blow. As they bend over another strike to their head or back of neck. As I said, 1,2,3,4,5 should be how long it takes to deliver 5 devastating blows to the attacker. Each blow flows from the previous blow. (Don’t forget you can also use the butt of your baton as a strike weapon.)
Selection from Whoop-Whoop artist’s book
Some training use 12 preplanned baton blows to practice. I dunno, I got a pea brain and 5 blows is enough or me to remember. Moreover, even if you got a genius brain, do you really think an assailant will stay put for you to complete your circuit of 12+ pre-planned blows in the exact order you have practiced them? The benefit of a 12 blow practice session I that it familiarizes you with delivering blows and blocking attacks from numerous angles. Like all things, there are pros and cons to everything.
A good technique to practice with your baton for CQC is the piston motion strike or circular power strike aka redondo in the Philippine stick fighting terminology. It is similar to the old steam locomotive action where the main connecting rod moves up and down as it moved the wheel around. All the action is in a linear motion. So it goes with your piston strikes – it is an in-out motion that does not involve wide swinging.
With your striking hand you piston whip the attacker with the baton and with the other hand you palm smash him in the face as you advance. Once you are clear of obstacles, you can swing a little wider for working them high and low. Whenever you strike with your baton you want to envision going through the object, not just hitting it. for instance, if you going after a knee you want to do it like your chopping through a piece of wood…look beyond the knee as your target and take it out.
Another good training method for developing dynamic skills is to have a training partner throw a medicine ball at you. You strike it with the baton and also a palm strike. Once the ball hits the ground, follow up with an attack to the ball as if it was your assailants head. Your eventual goal should be to get 2 baton strikes, as well as a palm strike, to the ball while it is still in the air.
Keep in mind the importance of training for consistency and efficiency in movement. The foundation of your movements should be deliberate and to the point. This not only goes for using firearms or your baton but also when it comes to street photography.
A good training tool for baton, fist or knife fighting is to train by the combat clock system. You practice hits and blocks as a partner yells clock time as the guide…1 o’ clock, 7 o’clock, 11 o’clock. This is a very good way of practicing techniques for various angles of attack and defense. If an attack is happening so fast you don’t feel you have time to deploy the baton and make a strike. The opening and strike can be in one motion. As the batons snaps open it hits the attacker at the same time.
Inevitably you will get the bleeding hearts that worry about hurting the attacker ‘too much.’
A few words on the subject from Jeff Cooper on consideration. (Quote condensed)
“Anyone who willfully and maliciously attacks another without sufficient cause deserves no consideration. We are fully justified in valuing the life and person of the intended victim more highly than the life of the pernicious assailant. The attacked must be stopped – at once and completely. An armed man is dangerous as long as he is conscious. Take no chances – put him out. When your life is in danger and under lethal attack don’t be kind – Be harsh – Be tough – Be ruthless.’
If the attacker persists in following you after you have lit them up and gassed them, a Class IV weapons laser (with a tactical switch as opposed to a key switch.) has been used as a self-defense weapon, especially for long range defense. You can light up a threat from a hundred yards away and blind them. (Check your local laws.) It fits in the palm of your hand and is smaller than a tactical flashlight.
WARNING:
Class IV lasers can cause permanent eye damage – I don’t advise you to use a Class IV laser or any laser for self-defense. Always remove the batteries before you work on any laser.
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Some of you may wish to just carry a gun. If you do decide on carrying, make sure you use self-defense ammunition and are licensed for your state with a CCW. Every state is different pertaining to the CCW laws. For instance, in some states the concealed weapon must be holstered. Other states don’t require a holster, just drop the gun in your pocket. Laws change all the time, so you keep abreast of the current laws in your local.
The hallmark of good stopping power for self-defense needs is expansion. There are many good choices out there. I generally go with Hornady hollow points.
Hornady also makes Critical Defense ammo. Mushroom tests vary, but they all have good penetration . Some of the Winchester hollow points really mushroom, maybe even a little too much, as penetration is on the low side. You test out all the ammo brands yourself, don’t reply on me or anyone else when it comes to your life. I’m just putting out a few brands I tested. Fortune favors the responsible person.
A new development with defense ammo is the ARX Devastator.
It is a composite bullet that corkscrews into the body creating a hydrostatic explosion within the tissue.
If you put a round into someone’s eye socket it will blow the back of their head open. A really destructive round in 9mm+P.
For short barrel wheel guns (snubs) I use 38.Special or possible some +P 38’s. The .357 mag is too uncomfortable for me to shoot in 2 inch barrel, lightweight guns. Just one shot of .357 in a snub and my hand is sore.
The .380 or 9mm Browning short is OK, but lesser so than the more potent 9mm. . The .25 is a toy, .22 Stinger is better than a .25, just Forget all these puny calibers unless it is a last resort. If you do find your life resting on a .25 or .22, they do the best job when placed in an eye or an ear. But we are talking about life and death here, generally not arguments over a photo. Isn’t it sad we have to worry about all this when all we want to do is press the GD button and freeze time? But that is our world…fortune favors those that accept reality.
The tradeoff is if you want great penetration it requires more of an armor piercing nature of a full metal jacket with low expansion of the bullet. This may cause problems with the bullet exiting the body cleaning doing less damage to the assailant, offering less stopping power and hitting innocent bystanders.
Here are a few penetration tests of stacked newsprint to give you an idea how various ammo performs.
.22 short 5/8 inch of newsprint (snubnose)
.22 quiet 1 inch of newsprint (snubnose)
.22 HVHP 2-3/8 inches of newsprint (snubnose)
.22 Stinger 3-1/4 inches of newsprint (snubnose)
.380 ball 3-3/8 inches of newsprint (Beretta)
.38 SP Federal ball 4 inches of newsprint (snubnose)
.357 Hornady plastic tip magnum 3-3/4 inches of compressed kraft paper (snubnose) (a)
.357 Hornady plastic tip magnum 6 inches of compressed kraft paper (Ruger 4″ barrel) (a)
9mm Hornady 6-7/8 inches of newsprint (Beretta)
9mm Herters nylon jacket 10 inches of newsprint (Beretta)
.45 Auto ball 4 inches of newsprint (Colt 1911)
(a) I was staring to change the tests to use compressed Kraft paper and never got round to finishing them. Kraft paper offer more resistance than newsprint. If the .357 was shot into newsprint I think the penetration would be about 25% more.
No matter what ammo you choose, always shoot a box before trusting your life to it. Some autos are fussy and will jam with a certain brand of ammo. A good torture test for an auto is to load 4 or 5 brands of ammo alternating brands for every shot. If the gun fires the magazine of mixed brands of ammo…it passes.
Although nothing replaces live fire, an excellent training tool for home use is the laser cartridge.
You can get them for autos or wheel guns. When the trigger is pulled, they shoot an intermittent red laser dot where the gun is aimed. Highly recommend them. As a safety precaution always inspect the gun is not loaded with live ammo prior to pulling the trigger at EVERY session. Keep ALL live ammo out of the room you are laser training in. NEVER point the gun at anything you don’t wish to shoot.
When in a life or death situation it usually unfolds a few feet from you. So sight picture does not come into play. If you stick you hand out and try to get a sight picture, like a camera fondler like Kim would do, you assailant will grab your gun. Having skills for shooting from the hip ‘contact shooting’ or ‘point shooting’ with your gun is important. Here is the correct defense for CQC contact shooting when there is no time nor distance between your life and the attacker.
Laser cartridges are a great training tool for making sure your indexing position is right for contact shooting. I use the position shown in the top photo, but keep the gun uptight against the pectoral muscle. The shots come out straight chest level. The laser cartridge will verify the point of impact.
Some autos may jam if you ram the gun into the assailant. The slide may come out of battery. A revolver can be rammed into the body and let loose without any problem. You will also benefit from the gas that comes out of the barrel. The gas can be very destructive just on its own…
Gas burns from a .38 special snubnose. Cloth was folded up and gun was placed in contact with the cloth before firing one shot.
With contact shooting you risk the chance of a fowled shot from them grabbing your gun. What I’m saying is, if you are an inch away and need to take the shot you will do more damage if the shot is right in contact with the person.
For instance, let’s say someone is choking you out on the ground and is going to kill you. You pull the snub to shoot them to save your life. Well, let the gas as well as the bullet do damage and go for a full contact shot. If you need to shoot someone and they are a few feet away from you, don’t go for the contact shot. Why would you risk it? Shoot from a distance that will get the job done and still keep you far enough away from harm.
Some guns produce so much gas they can sever a finger from the gas escaping from the barrel / cylinder gap. So don’t discount the damage that can be done from gas from your gun.
If you’re using a snubnose, you should test it in similar circumstances where it may be used. For instance, if you have to shoot your weapon indoors, in the dark with no ear protection, you could be night-blind from the muzzle and cylunder gap flash and deaf for a long time from a .357 mag round in your snubby. Not to mention the trouble you may have actually hitting your target with the magnum recoil. And speaking of gas burns, if you shoot your revolver with the cylinder gap in contact or near your skin, expect some hurt.
When doing penetration and mushroom tests always shoot through a few layers of clothes, heavy winter jacket if your testing low powered guns. You may think that is kinda anal shooting through clothes, but the gun below, shooting .22 magnums, will only penetrate a few inches of newspaper with no clothes. So make sure any low power gun you use will still penetrate decently in the real world where you plan to use it. If your unsure, just go with full metal jacket if you want maximum penetration. Teflon coated bullets can be dangerous as they have excessive penetration.
Without ear protection, you may be deaf for some time from the massive report of a magnum in a snubby. You may want to compare how many good hits you get from your snubby when you go with .38 Special instead of the .357 mag. Even though the .357 mag is a superior round to the .38 Special. The .357 mag does not do you any good if your night-blind, deaf, disoriented and your hand is sore and bruised. after the first shot.
If your a lady and having trouble operating the slide on an automatic or you have trouble with the heavy trigger pull on a revolver…check out Ruger’s line of LCR snubs.
They are lightweight and have an easy trigger pull. If the .38 special is a little too much for you to handle, look into the Ruger LCR .327 mag. But, load it with .32 H&R mag loads, as the .327 mag is a very hot round to shoot out of the little gun.
The beauty of the Ruger LCR .32 mag is it takes 6 rounds versus the 5 rounds your average .38 snub holds. But, you try all avenues to see what works best for you. If you like shooting the .327 mag out of the little LCR, then go for it.
But, be advised that some of the LCR’s have reliability problems. Test them out thoroughly. If you want the best for reliability it is Smith and Wesson in my opinion. Here is a brand new .327 Ruger LCR right out of the box with a trigger that jams.
Defective guns aren’t limited to wheel guns. I purchased a brand new Glock 42 in .380 caliber. Even when trying 5 types of .380 ammo, the Glock 42 would consistently jam.
Hammerless snubs can be fired right out of the coat pocket. Yes, shoot through your clothes if it is urgent enough. Autos and revolvers with hammers may get jammed up if you try to shoot them while they are in your pocket. My fav way to carry is with a un-holstered snub in my hoody pocket. I can shoot right through the pocket with no draw delay. My hand is resting on the weapon and the gun can be pointed at the attacker without them even being aware of their fate if things demand deadly force.
If you camera fondlers want the best snub, then by all means get an SW Airlite PD. They are built out of scandium and titanium and super light. You can shoot a .357 mag out of it and rip your hand off!
Just like we have pixel peepers that only will accept the biggest and most powerful sensor, so we have the same type of person in the gun world. They will tell you .32 H&R mag is underpowered. But the bottom line is; people have been killed by the puny .22 LR and 6 rounds of .32 mag in a person is going to do a good deal of damage. Esp if you get one in the ear or eye…scrambled brains usually seals the deal.
If your going to compare the .32 H&R mag to a .44 mag, it is way underpowered. If you compare the .32 H&R mag to a .25 auto, .22 L.R or .22 mag…it has much more power. So just depends on what we are comparing it to.
Here is a size comparison of the 38 Special, .32 H&R mag and .22 Long Rifle Stinger cartridges.
If you do settle on a .327 / .32 H&R magnum, you can also use the .32 H&R mag +P for something recoil wise in between the original .32 H&R mag and the .327 mag.
Besides carrying guns concealed, I also have one in my car (shield). I try to have 1 or 2 guns ready for action at all times. But for street photos, I also have other options than just brandishing / shooting the gun or cutting someone up with a knife over a photo dispute.
Jim Grover gave me some good advice when it comes to guns… If you would not go someplace without a gun, then don’t go there with a gun, you just looking for a gunfight.
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When it comes to knives, they should be used for defense against deadly force being used against you. For general self-defense, I don’t want to have to get that close to someone to start cutting their arteries and tendons as combat knife fighting training advises. Although if I am going to work in dangerous areas I do carry a knife & gun in addition to the rest of my self-defense weapons.
You should use the least amount of force necessary to put down the attack. You must always keep in mind you may have to answer for your actions. When you go to court what will you say? I took his photo and he didn’t like it so I killed him with my gun. I took his photo and he said something threatening so I slit his throat. You can see where the gun and knife will end up.
Of course, if you beat someone to death with a collapsible baton you wont be looked upon much different. If you have to use force to defeat an attack, it must be measured and proportionate. Don’t go for revenge, just use enough force to stop the attack. If you put the attacker down don’t be tempted to give the assailant a lecture while they are on the ground. Let Kim stand there and suck his thumb…YOU get the hell out of there.
If you ever find yourself in a chokehold with your back to your assailant on the ground with his legs wrapped around you…one of these can save your life.
It is very hard to extricate yourself from this type of situation unless you got something sharp to slice and flay their choke arm wide open or stab them in the leg with. Your tactical pen may be of use. But in such a dangerous predicament, I’d want the best tool for the job and the knife wins over the pen.
If you do decide to carry a tactical folder, Benchmade makes some of the best folders, assisted opening folders and fully automatic knives in their price range. Check you local laws…in some locals they are ALL illegal. Sometimes I will use an automatic knife, but mostly I’ve settled on assisted opening models depending on the local laws of where I am shooting.
An important part of any self defense-weapon deployment is to be familiar with your weapon. This may sound basic, but with the camera fondling personalities that make up today’s photo world it is not. You know, fondling gear for pleasure, versus actually using it, is not a monopolized by camera devotees. They have flashlight fondlers, knife fondlers, gun fondlers and down the line.
Faces of Gentrification
Selection from The Americans…60 years after Frank artist’s book
With knives there are all sort of slick opening mechanisms nowadays. They make some very sexy ‘out the front’ knives, but they tend to need lots of cleaning and prove unreliable with spring problems
Emerson makes a wave opening mechanism knife. I don’t use it, but some people love the design.
Benchmade makes a DUO model that looks like a normal, manual opening knife with a blade stud. When you push very hard on the axis closing button it turns into an automatic (switchblade) knife.
Right away this stealthy, dual opening knife would seem to appeal to the camera fondler. (Hell, it would appeal to me too!) But, the problem with this knife for self-defense is twofold.
1) It does not auto open in ALL positions. Benchmade does not tell you this, you have to learn for yourself by testing. If things are not just right with the geometry it jams 1/3 open. While your life is slipping away before your eyes, your slick switchblade will turn into a useless limp biscuit if things are not just right.
2) This knife is very close in design to Benchmade assisted opening knives. It is so close in design that you can’t know which one you have in your hand just by feel or even looking at it unless your a knife geek. Therefore you may confuse which knife you do have in an emergency if you change knives like people change shoes or the proverbial camera fondler changes cameras. You could be getting choked out as you keep pushing on what should be the auto-opening switch only to remember too late your knife is not the duo auto model.
This same continuity and familiarity with your self-defense weapons should be carried down the line in with all your gear…sprays, lights, batons, etc. Pepper sprays have all sorts of safety mechanisms. Almost all of my sprays are the same flip lock safeties for continuity and easy of use.
Selection from Whoop-Whoop artist’s book
Good old basic, dirty street fighting may help you in an emergency. If an attacker would grab you in a bear hug from the front, head butt them in the nose and face with your forehead, get your arms loose, grab their ears for leverage and bite into their nose like a fat kid eats pizza. Then dig your fingernails in their eye sockets while you knee them in the coconuts. Once you are loose, put your self-defense weapons into deployment. A dose of pepper spray and putting the assailant down with the collapsible baton will finish them off. Fortune favors the ruthless.
Hopefully you won’t let them get so close to you to start with, but we all get blindsided once in a while. If you get a bear hug from behind, head butt them with the back of your head, stomp their feet and swivel your hips to the side while you deliver a series of fast, hard blows to their privates with hammer fist strike. Even if your caught firmly on the upper torso in the hug, you can generally still swivel your hips to one side or the other.
If you are being hugged around the waist and can’t swivel your hips then try this. Grab a finger on their hand and pull it back. Generally this breaks the lock. If they don’t let go snap the finger, then start on finger #2 and snap it. Once the lock is broken then turn around and deliver some of your weaponry.
If you have been lax in carrying self-defense weapons, a palm strike to the face, eye gouges, knees to the balls are some good options. Whether you are using a weapon or your hand, you reaction to any attack should be explosive and violent. If you put in a half-ass effort your attacker will know you will be a pushover.
Get some training in the hand-to-hand area. You need real life practice. There are just too many scenarios to train for. What training does is to make your reply to any attack second nature. Practice full contact, full power with someone wearing protection. Don’t just play patty-cakes. The general rule is; you will fight like you train, so put some purpose and effort in the training. Even if you never have a need for it, martial arts training helps keeps you in shape. You should be doing proper training and conditioning in a number of areas.
If you have to resort to hand-to-hand fighting because you don’t have any self -defense weapons, don’t forget you have many options for strikes. You are not limited to just punches. You have your knees, elbows, foot stomps, forearms and a number of hand strikes such as knife hand, hammer fist, open palm and the devastating eye gouging and raking. I don’t care how big someone is…you fudge up their eyesight or windpipe and they are finished. They will forget about you pretty quick and work on trying to see and breath again.
If your not flexible and used to throwing high elbows to the rear or using an overhead hammer fist, you may pinch up from the exertion. Fortune favors the flexible, favors the aerobically fit, fortune favors the speedy, fortune favors the coordinated, fortune favors agility and fortune favors those dedicated to strength training. These areas of fortune all make up a balanced foundation for any good self-defense program because all things being equal…fortune favors the strong.
Fortune also favors the protected. I’ve experienced lots of bodily abuse while shooting. Depending on the project, many times I will wear protection while shooting. I wear prescription eyeglasses and wear eyeglass keepers or Rec-Specs. There have been a number of times they came in handy and kept my glasses from being knocked off my face. On some projects a cup may be welcome insurance, so think about protecting your entire body.
Shins can get kicked, toes trampled on, stuff thrown in your face. I got an eye infection one time from having some paint splashed on my face. Someone threw a beer bottle at me and hit me in the head. Last month one of my toes was injured and shin was cut up from someone stomping on my foot and kicking me. I wished I had my steel toe boots and shin protectors for that shoot, but skipped wearing them. (Who wants to wear that heavy gear in hot July weather….so I paid the price.) I keep my hair about crew-cut length. I don’t want my hair being used against me in a fight.
Selection from Whoop-Whoop artist’s book (Candid)
Since I brought up training, realize that training in a number of self-defense areas can pay off even if you don’t plan on using that exact method yourself. For instance, even if you don’t plan on using a knife you can learn how to defend against a knife by learning how to attack with a knife. Same thing with a baton / stick.
A tactical pen is another small device that may come in handy in an emergency. It would be weapon of last resort for me, but it will do the job if jammed in an attacker’s eye or ear. The whole point of this post is to give you options. You never want to be in the position of having to depend on one self-defense weapon and not have any other options.
What would happen if all you carried was one small can of pepper spray and it malfunctions due to the fact that someone played a joke on you and emptied the contents? Well, if you have a baton you bring it to bear or your tactical flashlight.
While the pen shown above is slick, it is useless if all you have is one hand free. The pen above would appeal to the camera fondler. They are more concerned with looks that use. You need 2 hands to unscrew the cap to deploy the sharp part, so the design is flawed for serious self-defense use.. In addition, the sharp part is weak as it is the pen’s writing tip. What you want is a double tipped pen like this.
Even when closed the pen is deployable. It also has a dedicated sharp tip that is not as fragile as a pen tip. When you use a tactical pen you want to strike repeatedly, hard and fast like your using an ice pick.
Pain compliant tools such as kubaton, a sharpie pen or electric shock are also an option. I don’t use them. Most of these, (other than the Taser) require you maintain constant contact with the assailant. “I don’t want to do things with the assailant…I want to do things to the assailant.” ~ K.M.
Series from Bikers’ Mardi Gras artists book
As I said above, there are all types of laws around the world, so you study them up. To show you how self-defense laws vary with local, the poor, defenseless U.K. residents have to use sharp pencils, WD-40 and a coin purse that can be used as a ‘sap’ or coin ‘blackjack’ for self-defense. No pepper spray, no lasers, no collapsible batons, no self defense knives. The criminals have more rights in the U.K. than the law abiding citizen it seems.
We may look at the poor U.K.’ers self-defense efforts with amusement with all the freedom we have in the US of A. But, you wont be amused if they jam a pencil deep into your muscle tissue and break it off. The UK’ers are very creative with their improvised self-defense weapons. Even so, if you have to break the law to save your life – it may be better to be ‘judged by 12 than to be carried by 6′ as we say in the US of A. But only YOU can decide what is best for YOU, no one else can.
If you are in a local that outlaws pepper spray this is a decent option for something compact and offers a cone pattern and usable range.
No matter what self-defense weapons you are carrying, try to stay consistent with their location. In a stressful emergency you don’t want to be hunting for the weapon…you want it at your fingertips. Fortune favors the organized.
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WARNING:
DON’T JUST BLINDLY COPY WHAT I SAY HERE AND BLAME ME FOR YOUR PROBLEMS.
I’m not telling you to disarm an attacker that is holding a gun to your head or a knife to your throat with your flashlight. Yet, that is exactly what the expert can and will do…with their bare hands. But, it takes skill and a degree of luck. Frank Doorhof tells us…sometimes you can force luck. I tell you that you can help force luck by preparedness and training.
Fortune favors the bold…
Infrared flash photograph from Piercing Darkness artist’s book (Candid)
The bold street photog does best – not the timid one that is scared of their shadow. Although if you have great stealth techniques, then it does not matter either way.
From an interview of Clint Eastwood…the Pussy Generation…
We live in more of a pussy generation now, where everybody’s become used to saying, “Well, how do we handle it psychologically?” In those days, you just punched the bully back and duked it out. Even if the guy was older and could push you around, at least you were respected for fighting back, and you’d be left alone from then on….I don’t know if I can tell you exactly when the pussy generation started. Maybe when people started asking about the meaning of life.
In any case, you want freezing time to be fun. Use your head when street shooting. Dress plainly and subdued so you don’t stand out.Leave flashy jewelry at home, you don’t need to advertise ”rob me!” (I wear no jewelry, only a cheap watch.) For street photography, fortune favors a low profile and those who develop a good technique for candid ‘sneak’ photography.
If you are caught shooting a person and they come up to you and ask for a few bucks, just give them something. You took something from them…they helped you out being your model…now you help them out. If they ask for $, don’t offer to email them a pix of themselves. That is not what they want. If you don’t want to pay, apologize and offer to delete out of courtesy to them.
A gal in Hollywood died over this exact same scenario I am telling you here. She took a pix, refused to pay a $1 tip and got stabbed to death. (I read elsewhere she may have mouthed off and the argument escalated. Don’t add fuel to the fire, delete, apologize, be courteous and keep your mouth shut. Beside guns and knives, ‘mouths’ are another big killer of people.)
Eric Kim talks about becoming a fearless street photog. That is stupidity at its highest. Always remember…no one’s head is bullet proof. Only idiots are fearless, for when your fearless you think you are impervious to death. Fortune favors those that are not idiots.
When on the road shooting I seldom stay in a hotels…I can’t afford it. I boondock in my vehicle at rest stops, motel parking lots, casino parking lots, truck stops, hospitals or anywhere I think it is safe ‘enough’ to park overnight. So I am especially aware of self-defense concerns while boondocking.
Jersey City campsite when I shoot in NYC…$55 a day for a parking spot for your tent or $65 a day to sleep in your vehicle.
If all this talk is making you feel squeamish about street photography, then don’t do street photography. Every time I head out on the street I am situationally aware and armed for self-defense. And it does not matter if I have a cam with me or not. In your case, no one is going to force you to shoot street.
If your uneasy about street photography, shoot flowers, shoot sunsets, slap a sunglass filter on your lens and shoot smoky water or cutsie dogs and cats, star trails, burning steel wool or whatever you feel comfortable and safe shooting. Or do the watered down ‘Eric Kim brand of street photography’ where you ask permission and shoot 80 photos of the same subject while they strike different poses for you.
Infrared flash photograph from Piercing Darkness artist’s book (Candid)
Always remember…photography is not worth losing your life or anyone else’s life over. Be prepared, be smart and always try your best to walk away from any conflict before things get out of control.
Semper Paratus
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Photos used herewith are from the following limited edition artist’s books by Daniel D. Teoli Jr. (See footnote a)
Encyclopedia of Photographic & Fine Art Ink Jet- Printing Media – 12 Volume Set – 2014
Bikers’ Mardi Gras – 2015
De Wallen: Amsterdam’s Red Light District – 2015
180 – The Circular Fisheye at Large – 2016
Piercing Darkness – 2016
The Americans…60 years after Frank – 2016
Whoop-Whoop – Forthcoming
Gay Bar – Forthcoming
New York, New York – Forthcoming
Secrets of Candid Photography – In Development
(a) Product and self-defense illustration photos are from the internet and are used under the auspices of fair use.
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Sex machine with nipple stimulator vacuum circa 1930’s/40s.
Selection from Iconoclastic Reporter artist’s book
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Archival Collection
For a complete listing of artist’s books by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
Your photos are too extreme. That was what someone told me when they viewed my photos. Critics many times seem to be kinda confused. They must think they hired the photog to work for them. If the citric did not hire the photog, then the question is not if the critic likes the work…the only question at hand is whether the photog likes their own work.
As a social doc photog I generally don’t set out to stage extreme photos, I just document what I find naturally occurring in our world.
Infrared flash photograph from Piecing Darkness artist’s book.
Well, if you have read much of my blog and hate my work…you know the deal…take a number and get in line at…
I’m not a big fan of Winogrand and his crooked, jumbled up, confused style. But I do like a number of his sayings. One gem is…
Great photography is always on the edge of failure.
In any case, I took the critics ‘extreme’ comment as a compliment. If you not doing extreme work – you’re not doing much nowadays. The critic was a ‘nothing’ photog anyway. So the last thing I would want would be to be admired from their point of view when it comes to their taste and skill in photography.
Don McCullin talked about this topic years ago. This is what McCullin’s competition looked like a decade earlier in 1952…
McCullin said he tried to produce strong photos to set his work apart from the crowd.
A still photo is not like a movie. The still photo must capture the attention of the viewer as well as say something that is remarkable and worthy of study in one frame. Why would any photog not want to create strong work?
It used to be that it was extreme to show a photo of a homosexual, smoking weed with a tattoo and green hair. Nowadays that is all mainstream stuff. Someday it may be extreme to show a person with no tattoos! This just underscores what is extreme to one person may not be extreme to another person.
Every day millions and millions of pix get uploaded on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Tumblr, just to name a few. If you want to get ahead in a world of 2 billion cell phone cams at large you had better be doing, strong, extreme as well as outstanding work nowadays.
Every genre of photography seeks to produce extreme work. The landscapers look for extremes with their constant chase for the blue and golden hour. What else is popular with the camera fondlers on the photo forums? They slap on sunglass filters to make extreme blurs of the water and clouds.
The portraitists are either looking for extreme ‘no expression’ or ‘extreme expression.’ The average smiley face is not what they are after. Some portraitists like shadowy chiaroscuro or high key, all white scenes…again extremes.
Lighting really can make or break the photo…
Staten Island Ferry NYC
Selection from The Americans…60 years after Frank artist’s book
The high contrast devotees and shadow experts working on the street are looking for extreme lighting as they wait 20 to 30 minutes for the right person to walk into planned scene. The street photogs shooting juxtaposition of people with signage are looking for extreme comparisons.
Even the banal experts look for extreme boring with their shots. The tilt-shifters and diffusion devotees are looking for extremes in view and softness. Finally the large format, Edward Weston, f/64 group guys look for extreme sharpness with their work.
We have tools as photographers that we can use to call attention to our image. We all use some of these tools to one degree or another….high or low contrast, HDR, grain, color whether muted, bold or selective, BW, sharpness, diffusion, composition, bokeh, lighting, subject matter, etc. Without extremes, a photos is nothing. Although if you age a snapshot long enough, nostalgia value may give it a rise.
Memphis, TN
Selection from The Americans…60 years after Frank artist’s book.
It would be a snapshot, nothing of interest to anyone other than the family and relatives.
Same with Burt’s Devotee below. If the guy was sitting on the bed or standing in the room with his clothes on you would not know much about him. You may make assumptions, but you’re still only guessing. My photo is pretty straightforward.
BTW, it wasn’t staged, everything is exactly as shown. I just asked him why he liked Burt Reynolds so much….he showed me…I shot it.
Here are some of my ‘extreme photos’ and some of the composition rules I used or rules I broke, in making them.
Here are some of my ‘extreme photos’ and some of the composition rules I used or rules I broke, in making them.
Just shooting extreme photos does not make them iconic or great pix. There are certain rules that help a photo have a flow and poetic symmetry. Although, rules are made to be broken…shoot your pix from the heart and not from some rule book.
A textbook example of diagonal leading line composition.
A textbook example of triangular composition.
A textbook example of motion blur in relation to camera distance.
An example of circular composition.
An example of centered composition.
An example of mountain peak composition.
An example of broken pattern composition.
An example of juxtaposed composition.
An example of balanced composition.
An example of framed composition.
An example of a whimsical composition.
An example of selective color composition.
An example of a self-portrait shadow composition.
An example of full frame composition.
An example of tilt-shift composition.
An example of simplified composition.
An example of leaving space composition.
An example of center weighted rule of thirds composition.
An example of panoramic composition.
An example of curved converging lines composition.
An example of suppressed background composition.
An example of layered composition.
An example of off symmetry composition.
An example of composition incorporating signage.
An example of circular fisheye composition.
An example of shallow depth of field.
An example of a mystery composition.
An example of chiaroscuro.
An example of motion blur.
An example of telephoto compression.
Breaking the rules – Wide angle distortion.
Breaking the rules – Crooked composition.
Breaking the rules – Grab hip shot.
Breaking the rules – Exaggerated vignette.
Breaking the rules – Low angle shot.
Breaking the rules – Upside down composition.
Breaking the rules – Cutting the feet off.
Breaking the rules – Infrared
Breaking the rules – Toned and grain.
Breaking the rules – Negative reversal toned.
Breaking the rules – Extreme processing.
Breaking the rules – Fast, overhead, unframed grab shot.
Breaking the rules – Grainy…blurry.
Breaking the rules – Shooting into the sun.
Breaking the rules – Collage storytelling.
Breaking the rules – Grunge HDR
Breaking the rules – Single image HDR.
Breaking the rules – Hyper-real HDR
Breaking the rules – Infrared Flash
Breaking the rules – Using LED flashlight for illumination.
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Photographs used herewith are from the following limited edition artist’s books by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
Peephole: Peering Into the World of 1970’s Hollywood and L.A. – 2013
Portfolio: Peering Into the World of 1970’s Hollywood and L.A. – 2013 Twenty-six Roadkills – 2013
Encyclopedia of Photographic & Fine Art Ink Jet- Printing Media – 12 Volume Set – 2014
Bikers’ Mardi Gras – 2015
Gender Benders from the 1970’s – 2015
De Wallen: Amsterdam’s Red Light District – 2015
180 – The Circular Fisheye at Large – 2016
Piercing Darkness – 2016
The Americans…60 years after Frank – 2016
Whoop-Whoop – Forthcoming
Secrets of Candid Photography – Forthcoming
“Yes…Yes…Yes…photography is like that and there’s no maybes. All the maybes go to the trash. There is a tremendous enjoyment in saying yes, even if it is for something you hate. It is an affirmation…Yes!” ~ Cartier-Bresson
“The best photo strikes the eye as the right chord strikes the ear.”
Marc Riboud
Can’t decide on which one of your machinegun shots is best? Do you shoot your street photography on video and then pick from one of the 72,000 frames? (That is what one camera fondler on the photo forums wanted to do.)
Composition can make or break a photograph. Composition will help you separate the keepers from the trash.
A still photo is not like a movie. The still photo must capture the attention of the viewer as well as say something that is remarkable and worthy of study in one frame. Why would any photog not want to create strong work?
We have tools as photographers that we can use to call attention to our image. We all use some of these tools to one degree or another….high or low contrast, HDR, grain, color whether muted, bold or selective, BW, sharpness, diffusion, composition, bokeh, lighting, subject matter, etc.
But, just shooting extreme photos does not make them an iconic or great pix. There are certain rules that help a photo have a flow and poetic symmetry. Although, rules are made to be broken…shoot your pix from the heart and not from some rule book.
Here are some of my ‘extreme photos’ and some of the composition rules I used or rules I broke, in making them.
A textbook example of diagonal leading line composition.
