Art or Intrusion? Photographer Johnny Tergo's 'drive-by' Portraits

Street photography isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and for every Cartier Bresson, watching from a distance, there’s a Weegee, pushing a camera into the faces of their bemused subjects without asking permission. Los Angeles-based photographer Johnny Tergo has taken this approach to a new level, rigging up his truck with a camera and bright studio strobes in order to ‘bring the studio lighting aspect to everyday real life on the streets’.

To take his curb-side portraits, LA-based photographer Johnny Tergo pulls up alongside his subjects and takes their photograph from his truck, using a remote-triggered Canon EOS-1D Mark IV rigged up to two studio lights.

In an interview published by wired.com Tergo explains that as a freelance photographer he spends a lot of time on the road, and wanted to ‘exploit his time behind the wheel’ for a series of candid portraits of people going about their everyday lives.

According to an interview published at wired.com, Tergo ‘leads moving subjects by pulling forward slightly, waiting for them to enter the frame’.

To achieve the studio-like lighting, Tergo has rigged his Chevy Silverado with two high-powered strobes, powered by twin 4000W generators in the truckbed. Inside, a Canon EOS-1D Mark IV is connected to a laptop, and triggered by a Pocket Wizard. Tergo has a dashboard-mounted iPhone for reviewing his shots via onboard Wi-Fi. On a normal day, Tergo claims to take ’40 to 50′ shots.

	This is Johnny Tergo’s Chevy Silverado truck, rigged up with two studio strobes and twin 4000W gas-powered generators which are nestled in the truckbed.
	His EOS-1D Mark IV is triggered remotely using a Pocket Wizard, and his subjects are captured from the passenger window on a 16-35mm lens.

It’s no surprise that some of his subjects don’t react well to being zapped with high-powered studio lights from the window of a passing truck, and in the interview Tergo claims that ‘a lot of people think I’m up to something nefarious’. Despite occasional confrontations, Tergo plans to add a second truck, and more lights to his portable setup, claiming ‘I don’t want to stop with good enough, I want it to be awesome’.

Although we’re impressed by some of Tergo’s work, his approach won’t be to everyone’s taste. What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

Click here to read the full interview with Johnny Tergo at wired.com

Comments

Would’ve thrown a rock at his window, then ran after him and thrown another rock at his camera, in hopes of crushing his lens.

Though nice sample shots I see nothing here on display you can’t do with a hand held.
Just my opinion but why not keep the streets real, be part of it in picture and memory of the subjects.

If it were shots of a heroine freight transfer or bribery I would agree you need the wheels to increase survival chances but for what it is worth on the flee market and fruit corner, just leave the intrusive tech loaded spying trucks to GOVoogle.com

I like this because it shows the reality of street life.
What I like less:
1) some subjects are missing their feet due to bad framing
2) the reflection of the flash on walls and glass
I consider these distractors; get rid of those faults and you get studio quality street photography indeed!

any ‘limited darkish background indoor studio lighting look’ for outdoors for our digital era, is as backwards a look as ‘flash photography’ (‘club black’) of the film era (when they couldn’t shoot without flash if too dark)

i’ve never liked that ‘club black’ look, it’s too non-natural.

nowhere nearly as candid, and clearly ‘staged’ for a ‘gotcha’ look. (next closest thing being the look on one’s subject if taken by a paparazzi ‘up close’)

given his use with strobe flash is so overt, it’s worse than the ‘stealth’ of non-strobe/flash of ‘google-earth’ street-view photography

sdyue

All I see here is yet another coward’s approach to street photography.

Totally ugly pictures. Not worth the fine he will get because distracted by his paraphernalia when driving.

Wow, what a load of crappy comments. You naysayers are just jealous and narrow minded photo snobs. Get over yourselves.

That’s it! I’m jealous! I am jealous over lack of genious, talent and a decency. Why did I not see that before. I am so blinded. Maybe I was one of his victims.

[to robogobo] Wow, you’re saying they are not entitled to their opinions?

Yes, “Genious” is ironic spelling.

There is probably a good reason for keeping out of unsavory neighborhoods… drive by shooting could create a new reality for him, or a short life

Instead of buying all those lights and paraphernalia…

He should just get a decent Full Frame Low Life DSLR.

Ooh…that’s, Low Light DSLR.

…but they mean the same anyway.

Comment edited 100 times, 90 minutes after posting.

I’m not exactly defending Tergo’s work, but how about a bit of reality check here, please?

If you follow your subjects in France, with a Leica, just natural light and a 50 mm (which actually forces you to be far from your subject), your the next HCB, doing arty stuff.

If you follow your subjects in LA, with a Canon and 2 strobes (which means nothing more than chasing QUALITY of light, as he’s not depending on random lucky, he’s making his own), so yeah… you become a selfish, creepy, disturbed azz #ole, that should be beaten to death.

Oh I get it…

It reminds me that other article about Hasselblad, with people claiming that shoot was a waste of natural resorces, bla bla bla, etc.

There is no art created by reproducing basic security camera aesthetics found in every shopping mall and traffic light.

still it is all the hallmarks of the “one trick Pony’ feel about it……lets hope he is smart enough to take it further than the basement

Don’t know where you got this silly idea from or is it just being naive
If you follow your subjects in France, with a Leica, just natural light and a 50 mm (which actually forces you to be far from your subject), your the next HCB, doing arty stuff.

it’s drive by shooting. There is little “art” to it. This is all technical. He does not in any way interact with his subjects. He doesn’t give them a chance to react or not react to him. At the most they are reacting to a 4000W blinding flash of light from a moving truck. There is a massive difference here and the distinction is very real.

This is tech masturbation at its finest. But no art here.

Does he not have a friend who could drive the truck, while he photographs from passenger side?

Certainly no invasion of privacy by photographing people in public spaces. But it’s no more “art” than the traffic light cameras on every corner produce… or the shopping mall security cameras… which photograph these same folks multiple times a day.

The photographer denies personifying the subject, reducing the subject to objectification, as every shopping mall traffic cam does. There is no art created by imitating security cameras technology.

Oh, boy, here we go again! Forward — into the past!

The photos look to me like Weegee’s newspaper work, except with better lighting and less dramatic tonal range (perhaps the diff between Weegee’s large-format monochrome film and Tergo’s color digital).

Like “60-Minutes” which cheapened and coarsened news reporting decades ago, the described technique is likely to yield lots of raging, angry faces. I smell a book deal or grant-funding application in there somewhere…

Perhaps I am just a cynic.

Camera check
Strobe x 2 check
wireless trigger check
roof mounted super soaker with face detection….ohh yeah

And I thought I’d seen everything on photography world.

If he wasn’t trying to achieve “the studio-like lighting” he might be on to something. Street photography is about stopping and preserving time. He’s just letting average people know what it is like to be harassed by Paparazzi without the benefit of being famous.

This is simply pathetic “Much ado about nothing”. Anti-photography… I am wondering why does he do it? It is like a substitute of randomly killing people, shooting… yeah!

Why is DPreview featuring the photographs of this arrogant and invasive stalker? His behaviour is the first convincing argument I’ve ever heard for openly packing and using a firearm in a city.

What a wanton, outrageous assault on the privacy and dignity of his victims. Makes me ashamed to call myself a photographer!

You ask why!! DPreview is just reporting it. It is photography related and is unusual. People will make their own minds up about it.
Photographers have, and will do, all sorts of “odd” things to get photos. But please think twice before bringing guns into the topic. As people from countries not “gun obsessed” will read your view of carrying guns over cameras as “not very bright”.

GOOD JOB

but i would carry a handgun with me at
ALL TIMES

🙂

It is clowns like these who ruin it for the rest of us. He is giving photographers everywhere a bad name.

This is just plain wrong.

In this 1984 world, only big corporations like Google and cities are allowed to photograph people in public, all the time.

Google aren’t photographing people. It’s a by product of them taking a picture of a scene by purely technical means for purely technical reasons. They will often blur people’s faces out.

Their intent is not to take random people’s portraits or activities.

It’s the times we live in: A cross between invasive Google and gaudy Warhol. Interesting but wonder if it will go beyond 15 minutes. And yes, DPReview is absolutely right in assuming it is of interest to photographers, because it is indeed photography.

‘I don’t want to stop with good enough, I want it to be awesome.” – Well Tergo, you can start by learning how to take a photograph.

love the ‘jesus’ shot – puts a smile in my heart.

keep on pushing the envelope & innovating!

There is nothing innovative here…anyone with most of $100k to spend on the truck and other gear could easily do the same, If this creep actually had some guts – or talent – then he wouldn’t have to hide in a truck and behind blasting lights!

you call this innovation? This is a purely technical solution to not having to deal with people. It objectifies the subject and does not even stick around for a reaction to the photographer. you just drive away.

All this is: a CCTV with 4000w strobes. That’s all it is. The sample shots aren’t even that impressive.

In lot of way this is truly weird way of shooting and I must agree with some of the comments below, however I like it and even more because of the strong reaction that it brings up! The rear mirror on each photo is just awesome.

-1
Unlike.
The “Photographer” is more ego and idiot than talent. New means of stupidity does not mean art. Let fools part with their money over this guy but don’t call it art. Framing a pic with a 5,000 lb rolling crane does not make it better because his lack of knowledge of use of a flash and a bit of his rear view mirror added to be cute. Celebrate talent and art not degradation of an art. Guerrilla blinding is stupid. It’s like the “Punked” but on film. DPR is not taking its role serious by highlighting fools.

Having looked at all his pictures in the above link, I’d suggest he park the truck, take hold the camera (in his hands) and frame his subjects without the passenger mirror in the bottom left corner.

I think it’s sad that, with all the talented and classy photographers out there deserving of exposure, it’s jerks like this who end up grabbing headlines at such high-traffic sites as Wired and Dpreview. Brutal.

So it’s a high production value Google Street View?

Lots of people will no doubt go on about “intrusion” and “privacy”, yet nobody bats an eyelid about the 24/7 surveillance we endure via CCTV. The pic above of the Jesus clone is a case in point – check out that sign.

The light gives these shots a real distinctive edge – sort of like a Bruce Gilden environmental portrait.

Yeah CCTV never puts itself out there as “art” and the people behind CCTV would likely never come out and say they are artists or photographers.

The purpose and intent of the 2 are rather quite different.

These kind of stunts give photographers a bad rep. Worse, I don’t see why it’s worth it. To me, I only see one pretty cool and a couple of other moderately interesting shots. The rest look like what they are, random, uncomposed shots of surprised people along the street. To each their own I guess…

Invasive and tactless. Terrible. Where is the careful consideration, the finesse, the heart?? … here the subject is turned into a victim, as though he or she is framed in the glare of a police search light.

“Despite occasional confrontations” … indeed. Doing this in L.A., this guy is asking to get his ass beat, or worse. I don’t wish that on him or anyone. I hope he soon gets some sense into him. You just don’t do sh!t like this, in a time when everyone is stressed beyond belief and on edge.

Imagine you are on a gritty, lonely street corner at night, in the middle of L.A., waiting for the bus or your ride… oh, and it was a bad day to boot.

Now, this thoughtless bozo creeps up slowly behind you in his big pickup truck, and then just as you look, BLASTS your retinas with over 2000 Watt Seconds off light. Terrified out of your mind, and before you have chance to think what the- he zooms off, with a stupid smug grin on his face as he checks the exposure on his iphone while driving. Nice job, Tergo you azzhole.

+1 for this guys guts.
Hope we won’t get a taste of a genuine drive-by.

You have to appreciate the thought that went into that rig.
The photos are really nice too. It reminds me of the correct Inglewood/LA feel.
Bravo!

The only thing that his “rig” shows is that this sociopath has a lot of money and an obsession with stalking and assaulting the unwary!

cool – people are an interesting subject & as long as he maintains copyright via publishing a low volume coffee table book no harm done. it gets a bit dodgy when sites like dpreview promote the photog by publishing pics that it gets a bit nefarious.

Judging solely by the first two photos, I’m guessing Tergo doesn’t like feet all that much. ; )

with that much light, you don’t need EOS-1D Mark IV.

It’s the sync speed, necessary for using a flash to overpower the ambient light. Canon’s fastest is 1/300, available only on the APS-H EOS 1D IV.

When you have no obvious talent, you’d resort to doing stunts like these…

Art or Intrusion? Photographer Johnny Tergo’s ‘drive-by’ Portraits

Comments