Coca Cola - Sonepur. by Maciej DakowiczThe longer I have intensely studied photography, the less interested and enamored I have become of street photography as a genre. One of the major reasons being the phenomena of the universal camera. We are all photographers now; ergo, we are all street photographers now, and the overwhelming majority of us suck at it. Keep in mind that I am currently in one of my reoccurring cynical photographic moods where almost nothing excites my eye. I'm not shooting anything myself and the majority of work I see from other photographers leaves me stale. These moods come and go throughout the year, and I suspect they are brought on to some degree by over exposure to images. Just before the holidays I had promised myself I would retreat from the internet. I managed to do that for about three days, and I did spend most of the holiday week with my head in a book instead of in front of a computer screen.
Getting back to street photography, beyond my own current cynicism lies the sad fact that most people walking around with a camera these days have nothing much to say and therefore shoot anything they see that appears visually exciting. There is an old saying... "Say not always what you think, but always think about what you say". And I feel very strongly that this notion can be applied to the craft of photography, and explains most of what is lacking in mega-photography today. Most of what is out there is merely feeble attempts at trying to record what is pretty, quirky, ironic, sad, happy, etc. I'm not against having fun with a camera. We all like to shoot wistful sunsets and bunnies and flowers and pets when the mood strikes us. We're talking about what is being passed off as street photography here. Where is the human condition, the decisive moment, the velvet hand and hawk's eye? Story telling. I want a visual narrative. I want to be confounded and confused. I want to reply with many questions.
This photograph by Maciej Dakowicz did all of those things for me today, and I am slightly less cynical because of it.
Maciej Dakowicz website
3 comments:
that is a good one. and i agree with what you say but then i always flip and do the devils advocate thing. maybe it is a good thing we are all so over saturated with images (the same applies to novels and music and food if you ask me). perhaps then when something truly good pops up people will REALLY notice it.
I completely disagree with Chris. You are mistaking having a camera with being a photographer. I have a big pad of paper sitting next to me, does that make me a writer ? I have a car too, but I am not a race car driver. I am more confident than ever that there will always be the specialty of photographer, even more so now that features and conveniences of equipment obscure their functions and correct uses. Your premise should be " Everyone has a imaging device now".
I am only referring to the genre of "street photography"... and the millions of images being passed off as such.
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