St Helens 23rd July 2024

Shooting from the hip is one of those controversial subjects in the photography community, which is precisely why I don’t listen to the photography community.

I realised a long time ago that I don’t want to belong to communities. I’m not a mixer among other enthusiasts. Seeing somebody enthusiastic about something I’m enthusiastic about makes me less enthusiastic. Perhaps I see myself in them: my traits, habits, delusions, failures… 

Do I really breathe through my nose and snort when somebody says something controversial about a shutter setting? 

No, I don’t think I do. 

I also shoot from the hip. I shoot from the ear. I sometimes hang the camera upside down between my legs. I’ll shoot from any body part, with a camera at any angle, to compensate for a world which doesn’t sit still for me to photograph it. 

I might suddenly see something happening off to my side. I’ll spin the camera and fire even as my body is facing the other way. 

Another thing you’re not supposed to do is crop your photos. 

Fuck that.

I remember when I first started to draw cartoons, a friend told me that you’re not supposed to use Tippex/Liquid Paper to fix your mistakes. You’re meant to start again. That bad advice lasted until I visited the Cartoon Museum and noticed that all great cartoonists use Tippex. Hell, I once wrote to Robert Crumb who wrote back to me and mentioned his use of Tippex. He even drew something for me. It too had Tippex on it. 

I guess there are great photographers who never or rarely crop. I suspect Henri Cartier-Bresson was one. But, much as I like Cartier-Bresson’s work, I’m a bigger fan of William Klein, who admitted he’d do anything to get the shot he wanted. He’d enlarge and crop with abandon

All of which is to say: I wasn’t feeling confident in St Helens yesterday and some of the shorts are hip shots. Some are blurred. A few were too much in the dark but I like what emerged when I boosted the exposure, even if the result has far too much noise (the photo of the woman starting out from the depths of the snooker hall). Some, like the picture of the woman in front of the pawnbrokers, are both hip shots and cropped. But that photo -- which I like for the shadow of the glasses across her face and the phone tucked in her top -- exists, which it wouldn't if I'd left it uncropped. 

So, fuck it. I'm doing this for me and in the very very unlikely chance that others out there will like what I do. It is what it is. I am what I am. I don't want to change either.

 

  

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