The Regulars: An Interview with Robert SadoffPhotographer: Robert SadoffType of Photos Taken:  

The Regulars: An Interview with Robert Sadoff

Photographer: Robert Sadoff

Type of Photos Taken:  The majority of my photos are Candid Street although I have been known to take the odd Landscape, Nature or Macro shot just to annoy my photo buds.

Tell us a bit about yourself…

I’m 68, retired, married with children, grandchildren and cats, and have been photographing since 1977.

I originally bought my first “real” camera back in 1977 to take photos of our first child. Very quickly I found that the majority of my pictures were of our two kids, and their interactions with the children of our friends and neighbours, and this just naturally evolved into an interest in photographing strangers as they went about their daily lives. I also spent a great deal time reading photography books and magazines as well as attending courses on photography, and was exposed to a wide variety of photo genres. I became a competent photographer of many of the static genres such as landscape and nature, but my photos of them seemed to lack soul, likely because they never interested me as any more than academic exercises. “Oh look! Robert took a photo of a tree!”, was a comment from a photo bud upon seeing some of my nature pictures, and when dragged kicking and screaming to Lake Superior Provincial Park, or Death Valley California to bask in, and shoot Nature’s Splendor, I’d usually spend the time taking photographs of my photo buds taking photographs.

For most of the Nature and Landscape photographers I know their Photographic Mission seems to be a Search for Beauty, and a very fine photographer told me that he could never shoot the subjects I do expressly because they weren’t beautiful. I replied that I could never shoot the subjects he did, because all I ever wanted to do was tell stories with pictures

What is your philosophy regarding photo taking? Any personal rules you stick to?

“Photograph unto others as you would have them photograph unto you.”

Moses and Jesus (who both used Nikon’s newer than mine) used to say that.

Tell the stories, but don’t be mean or hurtful.

When expressly asked not to photograph, I always respect those wishes and won’t then covertly or from a distance take the shot. This has happened on a number of occasions during Gay Pride or with Homeless People whom I’ve been photographing for over twenty years, and I have always respected those wishes. In cases where the requests were made after the photos were taken, those shots have never been publicly shown.

And while it may be more about self-preservation than ethics, I never photograph children without permission.

Tell us about a photographic challenge you overcame?

I’ve been photographing Toronto’s Homeless People for about twenty years.

It started because while downtown here in Toronto I noticed a homeless person sitting at busy main intersection begging for change.

He was essentially surrounded by a crowd of pedestrians waiting to cross, and as I watched it became apparent that they were all deliberately ignoring him. The light changed and they all walked away without one even so much as glancing down at him.

It occurred to me that the homeless were essentially invisible to the rest of us because in most cases it was just easier to look away or ignore them, than to perhaps make eye contact and confront an unpleasant situation.

I decided then to start photographing them and perhaps in some small way make them more visible.

The first time I went out, I drove to a street where I knew a number of homeless persons “lived”, pulled over, rolled down the window, took a shot with a long lens, and quickly drove away.

I stopped a few blocks away and was overcome with shame at what I had just done. Not because I had taken the picture, but because of the manner in which I had taken it.

I realized that to get any meaningful photos I’d have to first get to know the people I was photographing.

So I drove back, parked my car, got out and walked up to the first street person I saw, introduced myself, shook his hand, asked his name and began to talk. We spoke for a long and with his permission I took some pictures. He was kind enough to give me a lot of insight into his life on the street as well as lessons in street etiquette and even walked back with me to the colony of street people I had first photographed and introduced me to them. For the next couple of years, I spent a great deal of my free time downtown, getting to know many street people and photographing them.

What is one thing you could not go into a shoot without?

The ability to schmooze with people. Talking to strangers is invaluable when doing Candid Street photography.

What gear do you prefer to shoot with?

Laughably outdated, hopelessly primitive, Nikon film SLR & Rangefinder cameras and manual focus lenses from the previous century.

When did you first come to Downtown Camera? Anyone in particular you remember?

About fifteen years ago after meeting Phillip Sun, one of the then-owners of Downtown, through a photography club I still belong to. He was always, kind, considerate, very knowledgeable, and extremely generous to his friends and customers and downtown very quickly became my store of choice.

Any advice to fresh photographers?

You really can’t know a person until you talk to them, and perhaps in some small way walk a mile in their shoes. I learned this many years ago from my first Photography Mentor, who spent a great deal of time in North Africa, and always had wonderful stories to tell about the people he photographed. He impressed upon me the idea that photos of strangers were always better if you got to know them first, and this became very evident when I began to spend time talking to, and far more important, listening to many of my subjects whether they owned homes or not.

Robert Capa was right when he said “If your pictures aren’t good enough, It’s because you’re not close enough.”, both physically and more important, emotionally.