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Weesp The Netherlands August 2013 http://flic.kr/p/yJDUzF

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Nottingham England August 2013 http://flic.kr/p/zGoagi

Street Photographers Can Help Change the World for the Better

Lovers at the Shop Window (Amsterdam August 2013)

Reading a post from the Book of Life site, reminded me of a dilemma many artists, many street photographers face: how do we practice our art in a world cursed by suffering, conflict, environmental decay, corporate greed and the rest?

The post poses this question.  The opening paragraph reads:

The cultural elite gets nervous about cheerful or sweet art. They worry that pretty, happy works of art are in denial about how bad the state of the world is and how much suffering there is in almost every life.

It goes on: have we forgotten about the misery, corruption, and suffering?

The author proposes that, rather than having forgotten, the reality is we feel too small, too inadequate to the task of doing anything, so we withdraw from the struggle.

At this point, I have a confession to make. I wish I knew far less than I do about the suffering that is going on (and always has) in the world; I wish I knew less about history and how the political and economic systems that plague us all work*.

It’s hard to be optimistic, to have hope that things will change for the better. But the author suggests: ‘Cheerfulness is an achievement and hope is something to celebrate.’

That’s where artists come in. That’s where street photographers come in. I know, not all street photographers believe what they do is art. That’s okay; doesn’t matter what you call what you do. Same difference, as we used to say. The point is, artists need to produce art that inspires hope, that celebrates the good in the world and celebrates humanity.

Of course it is also the artist’s role to highlight the suffering, the inequalities, the injustices, the threats to the planet. In fact without these artists there are many people who would be able to say, “but we didn’t know about … . " The role of the artist is to make sure nobody can ever make this excuse.

But, I and I suspect many other artists, aren’t able to focus on that side of things. For me at least it is not a case of not wanting to, or that I don’t care. It’s more that I am physically and mentally not able to.  However, I do not ignore the suffering in and of the world; I do not deny it and pretend that all is well.

What I choose to do about it is celebrate humanity through street photography. I choose to photograph the ordinary moments in people’s lives; moments in which they might be expressing joy or sorrow, laughing or crying, going about the normal business of daily life. I choose to do this as my way of contributing to change in the world.

Sound pretentious? Sound a tad immodest? It’s true that street photography doesn’t seem on the surface to be a part or the political or moral and ethical battles which at this very moment in history are determining the future of humanity and of the planet. After all, one might ask, how is the making of photos of people doing ordinary things in the street help anybody?

It is a valid question and I will try to give an answer that means something.

After World War II the French Humanist photographers, as well as other artists around the world, sought to shift the focus; after so much death and destruction, they turned their cameras (and paint brushes, music and the rest) towards the good in humanity. They sought to celebrate life.

In France, photographers began focusing on a number of themes which, for them, reflected this desire to celebrate humanity. They seem obvious to us now, but then, after so much pain, their work represented a revival, an affirmation of survival and the possibility of a good life:

• Lovers. Couples kissing or otherwise showing affection. Couples strolling and enjoying each other’s company.  Such scenes, such moments, demonstrate our resilience as a species.
• Children. Children playing. Children enjoying life, laughing and being, well, children. After years of war people must have been overjoyed to see children once again free to be.
• The Family.  Photographs of family groups, of families around a table enjoying a meal and the company of loved ones. Weddings too, played a part. Again images of normality, of hope in a future brighter than the past.
• Work. For so many years the main role of working people had been to fight or to otherwise support the war machine. Humanist photographers saw the workers as the new heroes, so they showed people engaged in all kinds of labor and occupations to celebrate their efforts and nobility.
• The street. As life returned to normal, photographers began to portray people going about their ordinary business: shopping, chatting in cafes, gossiping on street corners, buskers, stall holders and others making their lives or living on the street. All the ordinary things that for so long people had been denied.
• Public Gatherings. During the war years, there was little tolerance of public gatherings. So, now that peace had come, photographers spent time recording fetes, carnivals, festivals and the like. Documenting  these celebrations of community became a big part of humanist photography.

Of course for a great many street photographers these themes form the foundations of who and what they photograph. But how many of us think that we are helping to change the world?

Now, intention is key. It is why you make photos that will, at least in part, determine the impact they have the potential to make.  I can’t speak to anyone else’s reasons or intentions. I can only say that for myself, photographing ‘ordinary people’ doing ‘ordinary things’ is an act of resistance to the dehumanizing and numbing power of the obstacles all people of goodwill are up against.

In this way, there is a possibility that my photos might bring a smile to someone, or perhaps prompt a happy memory or even suggest a course of action.  And then there might be a time when a photo of mine brings a tear to someone’s eye, or brings up a sad memory. Both are valid; both are about what makes us human and both  just might have a chance of engendering a little hope.

Why do you do street photography? What do you hope comes from your photos?

Peace

*     * No, this isn’t true. After all, ignorance isn’t bliss, it’s just ignorance.  I just wish it didn’t upset  me as much as it does, but then, if it didn’t, what sort of person would that make me? And what  use would I be as an artist?

Your Camera: An Instrument of Your Sub-Conscious Mind

Only art penetrates the seeming realities of the world. There is another reality, the genuine one, which we lose sight of. This other reality is always sending us hints, which without art, we can’t receive.
                                Saul Bellow (Nobel Prize lecture 1976)

Whenever we read something there is a part of our minds that immediately interprets what we are reading through our stored knowledge and experiences; through the unique filters we all have.  Same thing happened to me when I read this little excerpt from a famous speech. Immediately I saw how it relates to my own art, street photography. At least to the street photography that I practice.

Of course for many street photographers this is simply not the case. Much street photography is planned, searched out, hunted for (now this is a term I loathe when it’s used for street photography. We really have to do something about the language we use.), designed to highlight technical skills or even as an act of compliance with the current paradigms in the genre.  None of this is criticism, not at all. I’m just saying that while I consider what I do to be art, many do not. Fine I say.

Naturally I am alert to and aware of (not to mention constantly trying to learn more about) light, composition and the other factors that go into making a technically correct and decent photograph. The people I photograph deserve no less. But, I would say that more than this, or rather, before and in addition to these considerations, I try to open myself to the people and situations I photograph, to the moment. Yes, the moment. Again, pretty much like a lot or most street photographers.

My best hope is that I am open to receive moments that, while on the surface appear to be ‘ordinary’, and without any special or obvious meaning, are nonetheless able to reveal in some small (or perhaps not so small) way something of the essence of humanity, some small (or again perhaps not so small) insight into the human condition.

I think it’s true to say that for the vast majority of the time as we all go about our ordinary lives, we do not notice even a fraction of the moments that flow around us in the lives of the people who cross our paths.  (not to mention the amount of time we aren’t even aware of moments in our own lives that go unnoticed.)  And even if we become the flaneur as so many of us street photographers try to do, we still cannot on any kind of conscious level see and register every tiny little thing that goes on in our field of awareness.

But it seems to me that, at what we can call the sub-conscious level (I know that’s a huge space, there are levels below levels. Besides, let’s not get too technical here!) we do see more; we do take in a lot of the small, quickly moving and changing tiny details of things. Of gestures, of looks; all kinds of things enter into us at those sub-conscious levels.

This ability is inherent in all animals, including human beings. I think we all know that we would not have survived this long as a species otherwise. I know this is all pretty broad, but I think you get where I’m going, so stay with me while I get there please. Thanks!

Anyway, suffice it to say, we all take in all kinds of things, all the time, and at all kinds of levels from the glaringly obvious conscious level, right through to the very deepest of sub-conscious levels (and some say there are levels below that).

Those of us lucky enough to be roaming the streets of the world with a camera, have an instrument in hand that works very well in recording some of these little things (gestures, facial expressions, movements, and the rest) that under cameraless circumstances would only be received at some sub level and perhaps remain buried there never seeing the light of day.

So, many of these little details, while they may or may not be important to our survival, or even to our ability to navigate in our environment,  can be for street photographers the extra ingredient that makes an okay photo suddenly become a little more than an okay photo.

I came across one such photograph recently. This one was made back in 2011.

A Decisive Moment Best Forgotten

(Echuca Australia Nov.2011)

  

I spotted this parent sitting on that wooden wall with her children (there is a toddler to the left of the frame in this photo). The nice little family scene drew me in. I made one image of her sitting and including the toddler, then, suddenly, she stood up and went to grab her bag. I instinctively pressed the shutter again. To me looking at the camera screen after the event it seemed to me to be a good image of a parent’s burden, as she strained to lift the baby, grab her bag, watch her toddler and get moving all at the same time.

These are the things I saw on a conscious level. What I didn’t see till later on the computer screen was details of the baby’s face. Now, it’s a bit out of focus or blurred, but there, plain as day, we can see the baby being sick. Gross, you might say. Why make a photo of that for goodness sake?

Well, that’s the point you see: I didn’t make a photo of a baby being sick. At least I didn’t know I had at the time. But, looking back, I thought I must have seen that little detail at some level. And you know, I think it makes for a better photo. It tells that story of an overburdened parent even more strongly. Don’t you think? ‘Oh hell,’ you can hear the mother sighing. ‘What next?’

So, perhaps some deep level of my mind saw the whole story while my conscious mind (and my eyes) only saw the overall scene and my mind took action and made me press the shutter at that exact moment. Hence the title: A Decisive Moment Best Forgotten.

This sort of thing has happened to all of us. Share those moments with us!

Peace

I Call Myself a Humanist Street Photographer And With Good Reason Too

Over the last few days I've been reading and researching the French Humanist Street Photographers for a project I'm working on (stay tuned for that!) and while looking around, I came across a great post on the (possibly soon to be defunct) F/50 International Photography Collective site. The post is headed 'I'm not a Street Photographer' and is by Collective member Peter Barton, In the post Peter points out the problematic nature of calling oneself a 'street photographer', especially nowadays.

'I’ve never been happy calling myself a "Street Photographer". There’s something about the term that makes me shudder – especially when the short form "togs" is used.' Peter says in the post.  He then goes on to talk about the famous (or infamous depending on your point of view) street photographer who is well known for the statement, 'I have no ethics' and who Peter describes as 'aggressive and bullying'.

While accepting that there is more to street photography than this particular photographer's in-your-face style, Peter says that 'if that's what it takes to be called a street photographer then it's not for me.’ Barton laments that the photographer described above and 'his ilk' have such a high profile. What to do? he asks. 

In a search for the answer, he came across the term Humanist Photographer. The term resonated with him and he tracked down a definition in the introduction to a course at the Simon Fraser University:

Humanist photography is the celebration of life and its inexhaustible diversity as seen through the lens of a photographer. Often called poetic realism, this genre celebrates the ordinary, the small pleasures of life, and the daily pitfalls of our existence; it never ceases to enchant us with its truthfulness and poetics.

Now, I've written to Peter to thank him for his post and for quoting this definition. Why? Because it's exactly what I do and his feelings more or less mirror my own. Well, I suppose anyone who reads this blog already knows that, right? Anyway, Peter prefers the term Humanist to Street. 

And this is the only point on which we don't agree. I have for a long while now called myself a Humanist Street Photographer, and I intend to continue. In fact, if I weren’t already disposed to do so, I would anyway for exactly the reasons Peter is rejecting the term Street. Here's why:

I am very pleased, very honored and very privileged to be a photographer. Or, let me rephrase that. I am privileged to be a Street Photographer with the same kinds of motivations that drove (and drives) the great humanist photographers of the past such as Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau, Willy Ronas, Edouard Boubat, and people like Joel Meyorwitz and so many others nameless and unknown in the present, who have sought to celebrate humanity as described in the definition quoted above

So, I will not allow the faddists, the hucksters and the social media hammer wielders to dictate what I choose to do or how I choose to label myself and my work-even as a way to distance myself from them. Why should I? Street Photography is a really huge business these days. Camera companies, social media "gurus", workshop "teachers", all are on the bandwagon. Well, not all of course, but there is definitely an industry called ‘Street Photography’. 

And it’s a business based on fads and on fashion; and, like any fad or fashion, there’s a lot of hype and marketing surrounding it.  But, like any fad, it will pass; the business people involved will move on to the next latest and greatest thing.

What will be left amidst the who knows how many millions of 'street photographs' (the good the bad and the ugly and in all the multitude of sub genres and styles) will be the work, the photographs, made by the street photographers of the past and of the present who were and are motivated by a humanist view of the world and have an intent to simply record the daily lives of the so-called 'ordinary people'. That's history I guess.

I am not saying that my work will last; I am not comparing myself with the greats from the past or even the present. And there is one thing you can say about me: I most definitely do not have a high profile; in fact no profile is closer to the reality. But in my work as a Humanist Street Photographer, I strive to 'celebrate the ordinary, the small pleasures of life, and the daily pitfalls of our existence.' And I plan to keep on doing it too, long after the fad has faded, just as I was doing it a long time before the fad was fomented (or was it fermented?) in the minds of the marketeers

And I have a dream: I dream that my photographs will 'enchant [people who see them] with their truthfulness and poetics.'