The Theater of Being Human

by Ron Snider

In crowded streets, carnivals, parades, and other places of public spectacle, photographer Ron Snider finds moments of humor, vulnerability, and unexpected human connection.

There is something wonderfully strange about the way we behave in public. We dress up, perform, celebrate, compete, and gather in crowds, often becoming part of a spectacle without quite realizing it. And amid all that exuberance, there are quieter moments: a fleeting gesture, an awkward encounter, an expression of solitude, or an unexpected juxtaposition that reveals something about who we are beneath the performance.

Photographer Ron Snider has an eye for these moments.

His color photographs take us into the exuberant worlds of carnivals, parades, fairs, and bodybuilding competitions. Full of saturated color and visual energy, they reveal something more complicated beneath the spectacle: small human dramas that are sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, and occasionally a little unsettling. Snider is particularly drawn to the contradictions of public life—the individual lost in a crowd, the absurdity of elaborate displays, and the curious relationship between performers and spectators. His richly layered compositions invite us to look beyond the obvious subject and discover the smaller stories unfolding around it.

Snider's own photographic story is equally intriguing. He discovered street photography in the early 1970s, but after an unsuccessful application to MIT’s Graduate School of Fine Arts & Applied Arts and pressure to pursue a more conventional career, he put his camera away for 35 years. Yet his photographic eye never stopped working. "I kept shooting, but it was all in my head," he recalls. When he finally returned to photography in 2008, his fascination with human behavior and unexpected moments was still very much alive.

I first met Ron after giving a talk to the Viewfinders Camera Club, when he approached me about sharing his work. As I looked through his photographs, including a remarkable collection of black-and-white street images from the 1970s, I was struck by his instinct for observation and his ability to find something extraordinary in ordinary human moments. I was equally surprised to learn how little exposure his work had received. It's exactly this kind of discovery that makes Photo Artfolio meaningful to me: finding compelling photographic voices that haven't necessarily had the opportunity to reach a wider audience.

In one particularly fitting self-portrait, Snider turns his observational eye on himself, appearing as a small reflection in a convex mirror amid a riot of color and polka dots. It's a playful reminder that the photographer, too, is part of the wonderfully strange human spectacle he documents.

— Julia Cumes, Founder & Curator, Photo Artfolio