Wading Into Weirdness on the Street

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It’s another typical day: there’s a commute, work, people in the street; it’s been done before, and it can be expected to happen again tomorrow. But for Stephen McLaren, these seemingly humdrum routines are packed with weirdness.

He’s the guy with a camera, a wry sensibility and a measure of both luck and patience; a San Francisco-based street photographer of Scottish extraction whose work feels like a field guide to how normal things can be really odd, contradictory â€" and visually rich.

“I’m a naturally inquisitive, kind of curious person,” he said. “So I’m really quite happy to hit the ground running, to just kind of see what transpires.”

The idea of a field guide is apt, since Mr. McLaren’s method can resemble that of a naturalist. He described staking out a scene, waiting for the subject to step into the tableau he has framed. Or he’ll stalk a subject â€" a man wrestling an oversize Christmas tree home, for instance (below).

“I know this scenario very well, and look for people who are trying to manhandle trees that are quite a bit bigger than them,” he said. “They always underestimate what a job it is. I’d been following this guy for several hundred yards.”

Stephen McLaren From the series “East End.”

He tends to invite himself into spaces, private properties â€" “pretty much anything with a door,” he said â€" pretending to be a tourist and “bumble in” uninvited to a function or restaurant. He takes his pictures and basically waits “until someone asks you what you’re doing there.”

Then he’s told he had better leave.

It helps that Mr. McClaren mentally catalogs moments, even if they pass by without his getting the shot. “Typically, I find if something happened and I’ve missed, I kind of log it, and think that there’s a good chance it’s going to happen again,” he said. “There’s nothing worse than beating yourself up about missed photographs. It’s a waste of energy.”

Mr. McLaren’s background is in television documentaries, which he made for a time in his native Scotland and then in London, before moving to the United States. Making a living as a still photographer is relatively new to him â€" he began shooting exclusively six years ago â€" but it has since taken him all over Los Angeles, New Orleans, inside the Ikea in Beijing and elsewhere.

He belongs to a collective of four Scottish photographers called Document Scotland, which does just that, at an important time for Scots as they prepare for next year’s referendum on Scottish independence. Unfortunately, Mr. McLaren, who lived in London before relocating to the United States West Coast, has disenfranchised himself, as only residents of Scotland in Scotland can vote. The collective expects to compile a book in time for the vote.

Stephen McLaren An Ayrshire shepherd in Scotland.

But Mr. McLaren seeks to do more than merely pluck strange moments out of time or create a loving record of his homeland. Some works, like his series “Moral Hazard” â€" which offers a street-level view of the global fiscal crisis as it unfolded in London and will be available in a forthcoming book â€" is an attempt to get closer and deeper to what he sees in front of him.

“Obviously, that’s impossible with photography, to get to that level,” he said. “But it’s worth striving for, using â€" hopefully â€" great visual intelligence to bring the metaphorical side of it to life. I hope that people understand that it’s not saying two plus two equals four â€" there are some open-ended issues that people can wrestle with if they wish.”

In London, amassing material for his series, Mr. McLaren’s pursuit of that metaphorical side took him to London Bridge. It is a common location for photographers â€" professionals and amateurs alike â€" and every day, people cross the bridge as they rush to their trains home. Mr. McLaren, facing the tide of thousands of commuters going in one direction, noticed a little podium in front of him. “They’re always looking for tiny little shortcuts that will get them to the platform of the train a nanosecond quicker,” he recalled.

Every now and then someone would climb the podium and leap off, hoping to get a tiny advantage over the others heading home (Slide 1).

“I stood there for an hour, waiting for someone who looked most resolute in getting this little sliver of time,” he said. “It brought a bit of levity to the idea of all these commuters rushing home. It’s not a dreary picture â€" a lot of pictures of London Bridge are of all these commuters looking dreary and sad and miserable, and I like to think this one has a little bit of joy behind it as well.”

Stephen McLaren “Goldilocks Economy,” from the series “Moral Hazard.”

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