You are certainly an expert documentarian. The eternal take or make question. I once saw in a photo magazine (remember them?) a shot of people walking in a hilly suburban housing development. They were placed there. After realizing this I said to myself, why not just go out and and photoghraph people on the street? The paranoid part of me thinks if one is not careful enough you could be seriously injured or worse. The late Helen Levitt in her later years once remarked that she couldn't photograph in the neighborhoods where she once did. Drug dealers. Keep you fine channel going.
there's always a bit of i-me-me-my in photographers, some more so than others. is it more about what the medium offers in the form of potential and what one does with the medium to realize that potential? if that's the case, and it is for me in the form of abstracts, then it's more about discovery and what discovery leads to. a personal discovery for example was not liking street photography for its intrusiveness and coming up with a way to shoot surreptitiously with an intended blur and that lead me to Moiyama and a whole different approach to photography. not what i intended, but a discovery none the less. thanks, Kenneth. always engaging.
Hi Kenneth, i find it a strange thought to consider they way a photograph was made as a measure of about who; for who or why a photograph was made, 'look at what i can do'. As you said in another video, we create a photograph, we don not take it. A photograph is a way to convey something in our heads, in our thoughts and translate it in a visual art; it is but a means of visualization, just like carving a perfect David from white marble is another. Many paintings are also about 'just a scene' or contain staged people; a year 1611 Rubens painting of people skating and playing on a frozen pond; it is not about a person, nor for a person; it is art being shared, a memory, a moment in time, a thought, a feeling. Kind regards from Belgium.
I’m sure I’m not alone in wanting to see you on the street doing what you do. GoPro video or some way that we can see you in action. Because you have a very kind welcoming persona, I’m sure there’s much we can learn from seeing you, camera in hand, on the street as you do.
Here in America , or in my part of this country you cannot shoot street people are so cold and being a tall man , I am rebuffed many times. Maybe if I were a cute little blonde young girl ... people would be warmer . In Asia I had no trouble people were not rude or cold they are kind. Street in the US is rough.
Now THAT'S gonna be a "cat amongst the pigeons" video. A point well made, of course. 🤩
I very much appreciate both approaches. I guess I get the best of both worlds 🙂
I never thought about the subject like that, that is a very interesting and logical take you made 👏
Subtle distinction, my friend. I've never looked at it in this way. Thanks for the perspective. Andy
Thanks, Andrew!
You are certainly an expert documentarian. The eternal take or make question. I once saw in a photo magazine (remember them?) a shot of people walking in
a hilly suburban housing development. They were placed there. After realizing this I said to myself, why not just go out and and photoghraph people on the street?
The paranoid part of me thinks if one is not careful enough you could be seriously injured or worse. The late Helen Levitt in her later years once remarked that
she couldn't photograph in the neighborhoods where she once did. Drug dealers. Keep you fine channel going.
there's always a bit of i-me-me-my in photographers, some more so than others. is it more about what the medium offers in the form of potential and what one does with the medium to realize that potential? if that's the case, and it is for me in the form of abstracts, then it's more about discovery and what discovery leads to. a personal discovery for example was not liking street photography for its intrusiveness and coming up with a way to shoot surreptitiously with an intended blur and that lead me to Moiyama and a whole different approach to photography. not what i intended, but a discovery none the less. thanks, Kenneth. always engaging.
Good point. The image is about them. The story is what I first see, and then modify as I talk with 'them'.
Hi Kenneth, i find it a strange thought to consider they way a photograph was made as a measure of about who; for who or why a photograph was made, 'look at what i can do'. As you said in another video, we create a photograph, we don not take it. A photograph is a way to convey something in our heads, in our thoughts and translate it in a visual art; it is but a means of visualization, just like carving a perfect David from white marble is another. Many paintings are also about 'just a scene' or contain staged people; a year 1611 Rubens painting of people skating and playing on a frozen pond; it is not about a person, nor for a person; it is art being shared, a memory, a moment in time, a thought, a feeling.
Kind regards from Belgium.
I’m sure I’m not alone in wanting to see you on the street doing what you do. GoPro video or some way that we can see you in action. Because you have a very kind welcoming persona, I’m sure there’s much we can learn from seeing you, camera in hand, on the street as you do.
Here in America , or in my part of this country you cannot shoot street people are so cold and being a tall man , I am rebuffed many times. Maybe if I were a cute little blonde young girl ... people would be warmer . In Asia I had no trouble people were not rude or cold they are kind. Street in the US is rough.