Second Visits

I would much rather take an interesting photograph than a “good” photograph. In fact, I’m not even sure what constitutes a “good” photograph. I know what kind of photos are promoted via the photo-influencers of Youtube. They’re usually of some predictable kind with subjects we’ve seen a thousand times. And I also know that I can’t resist taking them myself when the opportunity arises. Old people’s hands. Café shots. Streets during the ‘golden hour’. Yes, it’s tough to resist those hard shadows being cast across a street where some beautiful woman wearing something strikingly stylish crosses that line. Hard to say no to the way that shadow/light boundary dissects her. Throw the file into Raw Studio and adjust the balance and, yes, even I will take a moment to enjoy that shot. But it still doesn’t make it the kind of pictures that interest me. 

That’s why I like revisiting the files I took on any specific day. It can be weeks or months later when I find shots that didn’t impress me on the day but are worth reclaiming. 

Again, they’re not going to be clean shots or anything approaching real photography. They might even be a mess with nothing obvious to make them noteworthy. But they’ll be shots that I like because in some strange and totally inexplicable way, they speak to me and my odd brain chemistry. 

I say it’s totally inexplicable and it is. But if I had to try to explain it, I’d say that we don’t experience reality as we do in “good” photos. There’s a kind of authoritarianism in the aesthetics of photography that runs counter to human freedom. It’s why I usually get depressed by ads for Apple (other high-end luxury goods manufacturers are available). Everything is so clean and well-lit. The focus is sharp and the colours so vibrant. 

I know I’m not alone in any of this. There are some extremely thoughtful and interesting photographers out there who get it, just as there even more who don’t. And that’s great. To each their own. There are photographers obsessing gear and those who think it’s about all about technique and achieving a consistent aesthetic. Watch Youtube long enough and you too can have your soul sucked dry of any enthusiasm you might have had because you don’t live up (or even enjoy) their ideals. 

My approach, then, is to do it. Don’t think too much. Just take a camera (any camera) and go take photos. Take enough of them and you will find keepers. And they might not be in pin-sharp focus. They might be blurred. They might even miss every quality that Youtube photogeeks will tell you constitute a “good” photo. But it might also be a photo you love. And it will probably be a picture closer to the model of photography practised by the truly greats like William Klein or Gary Winogrand, rather than some part-time wedding photographer with 100k followers and a sponsorship from SquareSpace. 

Here's to our glorious failures. 

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