The photography magazine market currently is experiencing some change as small, independently produced periodicals are breaking into a market that - let’s face it - had become rather stale. A wonderful example of such a new magazine is Publication, “a biannual periodical produced by street photographers for street photographers,” the brain child of Nick Turpin.
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At some stage, all photographers arrive at the point where they define their work. This is a crucial part of the photographic process: “This is what I’m doing here, this is what it’s all about, this is how I’m doing it.” In the fine-art context, this is known as the artist’s statement. It’s very worthwhile to talk about statements in more detail, especially since there are quite a few pitfalls to be aware of.
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I sometimes get asked what kind of photography I like, and I don’t think there is a simple answer. However, there appears to be an underlying motif, in that I seem to prefer photography that asks questions instead of giving answers, photography that requires a little bit of an investment and that then repays whatever time is invested generously.
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“I got an email the other day from a very angry and very disappointed individual […] asking, among other things: Why don’t you post any street photography? The short answer is…I don’t like most street photography. I’m sorry, I just don’t. This is not to say that I think street photography is bad, it’s simply my opinion that so much of this type of photography seems to only provide answers instead of questions” (source; my emphasis, because that’s exactly how I feel about “street photography”)
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“There’s the war photographer who dodged bullets abroad only to be beaten up in his own South London backyard by a paranoid parent who (wrongly) thought his child was being photographed. There’s the amateur photographer punched prostrate in the London Tube after refusing to give up his film to a stranger; the case of the man in Hull, swooped on by police after taking photographs in a shopping centre.” - story
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It seems to me that many questions about photography - like, for example, the one just discussed by Shane - boil down to the complex of authenticity. I find it quite interesting to see how many people still want a photograph to be absolutely authentic. It has to depict something that really happened or that really exists that way. So “street photography” is taken as more authentic (or honest) than, say, staged photography (a variant of this is the “reality TV” craze, which shows “real” people and their “real” problems). I really don’t know how useful such an approach to photography is. If we were to make authenticity our criterion for what is good and bad photography, we would limit our experience of photography as an art form quite severely.
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I’m not a big fan of street photography: If you want street photography take a walk! But be that as it may, other people like it, and I thought I’d share the link to iN-PUBLiC.com (yes, that’s how they write it!). (Many thanks to Tobias H., who has been sending many links, incl. this one, over the course of the past months)
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What is street photography? I had a look at the “about” section of in-public.com: “Street Photography is about seeing and reacting, almost by-passing thought altogether. For many Street Photographers the process does not need ‘unpacking’, It is, for them, a simple ‘Zen’ like experience, they know what it feels like to take a great shot in the same way that the archer knows he has hit the bullseye before the arrow has fully left the bow. As an archer and Street Photographer myself, I can testify that, in either discipline, if I think about the shot too hard, it is gone.” (this one recommended by fiatvera’s Albert Song)
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