People Want Connection
A Brief Note on Talking to Strangers (ft. all-new film photos)
About three weeks ago I traded in my small reusable film camera for a Pentax K1000. Months of carrying around the little point-and-shoot had built up my confidence, and the Pentax is widely regarded as the best camera for amateurs like me who want to learn the basics.
Minus a small non-essential light meter, the Pentax is entirely analog, which means that the user is required to manually adjust the shutter speed, aperture, and focus. Every press of the shutter release is accompanied by a resounding *click* — which is the sound of the reflex mirror flipping instantly upward and the mechanical curtains opening and closing in rapid succession. Scholars of technology would call this range of manual control an affordance and would say that the tactile feedback of the shutter release helps foster embodiment. Together, these two qualities make for a deeply satisfying device with an astonishingly addictive user experience. Not bad for technology that is over fifty years old.
Now, those who have been fortunate enough to visit Manhattan know that anything can happen on the streets. The city is shared by everyone, belongs to no one, and will inevitably require you to be party to the awkward, special, ugly, crazy, and hilarious scenes of your neighbor’s day-to-day life. On any given afternoon, you can take a walk downtown from Time Square and see a celebrity, a streaker, a first date, a wedding, and a breakup before you reach 14th Street. I mean, most apartments don’t have in-unit laundry machines, so we quite literally see people airing out their dirty laundry.
For this reason, I would never have suspected that my tiny Pentax would garner so much attention, let alone serve as a catalyst for daily conversations. An Amazon worker from the Bronx whose nephew is just getting into cameras and wants advice on a gift; a 70-year-old man who confides that he used to own a lot of cameras and that he has one or two back home that he often thinks about digging up; a college student who says she's taken photos at concerts and thinks she has an eye for it; the male model who playfully asks me to snap a photo of him because he knows his own photogenic-ness; the seven-year-old in the subway who asks his mom (a little too loudly) what is hanging around my neck. The list goes on.
And while I am wont to attribute this phenomenon to some uniquely magnetic element of my personality or the profound industrial design of a fifty-year-old Japanese product, I think the truth is much simpler. I think that people aren't nearly as closed off as we assume they are—and that the cultural discourse which frames our society as vain and narcissistic is largely misguided.
No, I do not believe that people are antisocial, self-absorbed, mindless, apathetic, tribalistic, or hopelessly consumeristic. On the contrary, I believe that people are deep wells of knowledge, endlessly interesting, infinitely surprising, and naturally generous. Moreover, I think they are ready, primed, searching, and yearning for a reason to prove the pessimistic view is wrong. I believe that people want an invitation for connection—an excuse to open up their hearts and mingle with their near-dwellers. In this view, my Pentax isn’t special — it’s just a safe prompt for conversation.
Of course, you could point out that I am fundamentally biased towards this type of romanticism. You could say that I'm an extrovert, a practiced networker, a Gemini, or a humanist. You'd be hitting it right on the head…
… but that doesn't necessarily mean that I am wrong. And even if I am wrong, perhaps believing in the openness of others is a self-fulfilling prophecy. At minimum, I hope this newsletter can serve as a tiny challenge to test this theory for yourself — the theory that people want to be interacted with and are hoping to be interrupted. That part of them is always looking for a soft place to be received.
If this is true, my response is a no-brainer. My response is to give ‘em what they ask for. Life is certainly richer when you do.
Thank you for reading. Peep more photos down below; more newsletters coming soon!
Curiously yours,
Bradley
Wow that was a great insight, Brad! I love this view of regarding people as wealth of knowledge, perspectives and intriguing thoughts once that connection happens. I do believe staying open-mindedly curious goes a long way