Prada Marfa And Street Photography In The Desert
The Prada Marfa store is not what you normally expect to find in the west Texas desert. After all, Prada is an Italian luxury fashion house specializing in leather handbags, shoes and other fashion accessories. Think very expensive items and the movie “The Devil Wears Prada“. However, there it is, a small building along the side of the highway in the middle of nowhere. It’s located about a mile outside of Valentine and about 26 miles from Marfa, its identity location. Neither town is very big. According to the last census the population of Marfa is 1,831 and for Valentine it is a mere 67. Presumably Marfa got top billing as the nearest big “city”.
The thing is, this really isn’t a Prada store. It’s a permanent sculptural art installation by artists Elmgreen and Dragset. The Wikipedia reference describes it as “The site-specific of Prada Marfa invites for a comparison with other art movements such as minimalism and land art, which are equally dependent on the site where they are placed. Prada Marfa relies almost entirely on its context for its critical effect. The “sculptural Intervention” can be interpreted as criticism of consumerism, luxury branding and gentrification, but whether intentionally or not, it is also argued it reinforces the capitalist values it criticizes.” (see Wikipedia article for reference links).
Interestingly, Prada granted the artists permission to use the trademark and the store displays actual Prada shoes and handbags. At one point, the Texas Department of Transportation tried to force the removal of the installation citing it as an unlicensed advertisement in violation of the 1965 Highway Beautification Act. Fortunately, TxDOT saw the light and reclassified it as a museum with itself as the only exhibit.
Sculptural Intervention
The concept of “sculptural intervention” always intrigued me. The incongruity of a something that is out of keeping with the surroundings makes us stop and think about it. It makes us consider things in a different way. Knowing that I would be stopping there I thought about how I could photograph it in a way that reinforced the sculptural intervention concept. My plan was to shoot is as a 3-shot panorama using a tilt-shift lens.
Tilt-shift lenses are commonly referred to as “architectural lenses. This is because they allow you to control the perspective and keep buildings truly vertical rather than “falling back” as you point the camera upwards. However, they are also great for making panoramas. My 24mm tilt-shift gives me a 164 degree angle of view without the distortion you normally see in panorama shots. This is because the camera isn’t rotated but instead the lens shifts the image circle. I think it is a much better way to make panos. In this shot I also cropped some of the bottom as it was all pavement that didn’t add to the image. Cropping also emphasized the panoramic effect.
Street Photography In The Desert
While I had planned the pano shot I hadn’t planned on doing any street photography at Prada Marfa. There were never crowds there but was a steady stream of people visiting to the site. Some, like me, seemed to have planned on visiting as their car slowed down as it approached. Others sped by at 75mph only to stop and turn around. Consequently, I imagine the conversation in those cars was along the lines of “Whoa, was that really a Prada store back there?”
One of the tricks of getting good street shots is to find a spot with a good scene or background and wait for people to come to it. I had unknowingly and luckily done just that! The nice thing about this was I didn’t have to try to be unobtrusive. Despite shooting with a tripod from the other side of the road nobody seemed to notice me or care if I was taking photos. Sometimes you just get lucky.
As a result of this I got 3 street shots as an added bonus, all within a short period of time. All are unplanned and unposed. I say this because the woman in the “Posing” shot wasn’t posing for me. However, “Window Shopping” is my favorite of the three. The shots with clouds were taken on our way to California and the cloudless shots were captured on the return trip.
Leave A Comment And Share
What’s been your experience with getting lucky with photo opportunities? I’d love to hear your comments and feedback. Please leave a comment in the comment box below.
