Just Some Thoughts
Last week I was in Tenerife with my wife for a holiday. As usual my camera gear went with me, the X-T5, 23mm lens and a 55-200mm zoom. Over the period of the week the camera never once came out the bag so in effect I had taken it with me for the ride. I don’t know if it was the very hot weather, lack of subject interest or just me getting old, but my heart wasn’t in it. In fact I only saw one camera the whole time I was there and that belonged to the hotel snapper taking souvenir shots for the guests. The days are well gone where just about every family had a Kodak Instamatic or some form of camera capturing memories on film. Of course as we know cameras haven’t gone away, on the contrary. They are out of sight in pockets and handbags as we all have a camera on our phone and not only that, a video camera too. That whole buying the film - having it developed and printed - picking up your wallet of prints from the chemist, holiday snap industry has no place in today’s digital world where everything is stored away in a memory card or hard drive. There is still something very enjoyable however about opening a box in the loft to be confronted by numerous wallets of holiday memories on printed colour paper, along with the negatives.
Being on holiday did however give me time to catch up on some reading material I had packed in my luggage. I don’t tend to read equipment or technique based magazines but I do read magazines such as “B+W Magazine” as I like the content. When I read magazines, and books for that matter, I often have a notebook beside me and write down some thoughts or quotes as I go through each article. In going through '“B+W Magazine” No 278, I noted down in my book something that Chris Donovan said in his article. He said by all means we should “Take good pictures of something depressing, but don’t take depressing pictures of something depressing”. This got me thinking about a recent debate on-line and a topic that I covered in Blog Post #57 on what is and what is not acceptable to photograph in people’s opinions. I think his comment adds a new dimension to the debate in that if you are going to photograph something deemed to be depressing or edgy, make sure you don’t just take a quick shot that is lacking in context and doesn’t tell the story. We should put as much effort into this type of work as we would do taking a portrait or landscape etc.
It seems to me, and this is a personal opinion, that wherever you look on the internet everyone with a camera or an interest in photography is doing street photography. I don’t look at Instagram for that very reason as I am starting to feel like I am reaching street photography over load. If you Google “What is the definition of street photography?”, it says; “ a genre of photography that records everyday life in a public place”. Well you cant get more generic than that! So all anyone has to do is point their camera in the street and shoot? I think it is a lot more than that but this definition has become the justification for boring photography. I have recorded everyday life in the streets many times, particularly in my archive work. I did it though as a medium to record the people and the places at that time but in a way that I was happy with from a photography point of view. Anyone can take random snaps of people walking down a street, through windows or on their phone etc., we see lots of this type of shot every day. Does it meet the Google criteria, well yes, but is it good street photography, most times it is not. I also think too many photographer’s heads are filled with cliches that judges come away with and try to take pictures that judges wont fault, if in fact they ever get judged. I think that is why every now and again a street or documentary photographer comes along and stops me in my tracks. Having waded through so much vanilla street photography on a daily basis the impact hits you and right away you see that their work is saying something to you. There are always the masters but more recently the work of Tish Murtha had that effect on me. I knew right away that she had a purpose to her work and that it had a very close connection to her.
I think the take away I get from this is that there is no need to be a prolific street photographer and post up bland images every day. Take pictures of course but remember that the ones you chose to share tell a story about you as a photographer and what connection you have with your work.
I hope you have enjoyed this blog post and thank you for reading it. If you want to comment on this blog post please do so below or you can contact me by using the “Contact Me” facility in the website header.
Pete