Garry Winogrand Talking on the Payphone

Street photographer Garry Winogrand, seen using a rotary dial payphone in Midtown Manhattan. October, 1967. Photo by Jonathan Brand. Found at ICP.org, and numerous other sources.

I was never a fan of phone booths, to be honest. They were hot, stuffy, uncomfortable, and my need to make a phone call was intruded upon by my desire to get out of that claustrophobic coffin-sized column. The notion that phone booths offered privacy was offset by the exhibitionistic nature of being in a very publicly-positioned coffin-shaped glass as curious eyes of passing strangers landed upon you.

From this photo I might interpret the body language of the great street photographer Garry Winogrand as agreeing with me, at least on the claustrophobia front. Winogrand conducts his conversation outside the stuffy, stinky environs of the communally shared enclosed space.

Or maybe he’s just posing. Either way it’s a sweet shot of a great photographer being photographed, originally brought to my attention by photographer Joe Gioia, whose work you really need to explore. Try and guess which one is me on his NYC T55 portraits collection (be sure to scroll down when you land on that page).

But the rotary dial phones… I loved those. I don’t get nostalgic, at least I don’t think I do. But I wish there was some way to tame the hyperventilated pace of communication that the mobile age has forced upon us.

How about a smartphone app that forces you to manually dial every 5th phone call you make using a rotary dial app. This app will not let you speed dial, nor bark the name of the person you want to call into the device. Every 5th call cannot be made without slowly, laboriously, longingly dialing every last one of those ten digits.

It’s not meant as any kind of punishment. Just a reminder that people communicated fine for generations at a pace far slower than rapid-fire.