This is how a certain sort of photographer operates. Americans call them street photographers, not a description I'm particularly happy with. I'm not sure how Europeans describe them. Us. We inhabit the spaces bypassed by tourists, generally.
The doorway, the cul-de-sac, the concrete nothingness of modern living space.
It's easy to aim your camera at a public icon, alongside a whole army of chimping gawpers, safe in the anonymity of numbers. It's almost expected.
Take your camera off the beaten track, concentrate on some little incident that tells a different story, and you are on your own, staking a claim in a minor happening that immediately raises it's importance.
Here are some minor happenings I've photographed over the years.
The child at Uttoxeter Racecourse was gazing with some interest up the skirts of the woman (who I assumed to be his mother.) I photographed them with a rangefinder camera and 35mm lens from about ten feet away.
Not too many years ago, a photographer could wander the streets and parks engaged in a shared innocence with adults, children, household pets, pretty much anything that was out there. Newspaper photographers regularly went out in search of 'fillers,' pictures to fill spaces in the paper when news was light. So pictures of children riding their Christmas bikes, families enjoying a bit of summer sunshine, real pictures of real people enjoying a slice of real time, were the norm. Just try that nowadays.
Even though more people than ever before are taking more photos on a greater variety of media, the obsessive clamp down on image makers in the name of data protection, security, and paedo-panic rationale makes it increasingly difficult to operate as a free photographic agent.
Yet we nod with approval at the announcement of more eyes in the skies to monitor our movements around shopping malls, art galleries, garden centres etc. We pay people to watch us, but we're discouraged from watching each other. How queer.
I think we should all go out onto the streets and have a damned good look at each other. Don't bother with Big Brother, there's a better show going on round the corner.
The woman in this picture demanded that it be taken out of the exhibition in which it was being displayed. The curator of the show refused. The children didn't react at all. Rangefinder camera, again with 35mm lens.
Fly on the wall. Voyeurism. Socio – documentary. Peeping Tom. I suppose the term you choose to use for watching other people depends on which side of the fence you think you are sitting. Call 'Big Brother Celebrity Whatsisname Why do You Think I Should Watch This?' a fly on the wall documentary, and it's possibly alright, in some eyes. (Shed a tear luvvie, they'll lap it up..) Call it voyeurism, and suddenly it's something else.
I suppose when the BBC or whatever decide to give us a good looking at, it's immediately classed as entertainment (light or otherwise) and that makes it ok. After all, you can't accuse a national institution such as the Beeb of being peeping toms, that's what we pay the police and various other agencies for.
If you're going to go out and stick your camera up people's noses, as an individual, be aware that whereas your subject might thoroughly enjoy and expect regular glimpses into the private lives of countless worthies who parade themselves daily in the corner of your living room, they will have a raft of human rights and data protection laws to quote to prevent you from doing just that.
Happy snapping.
These butchers were trying to sell the last joint of meat to a shopper. A Black Country hard sell. Can't remember whether she did or didn't.
Phil
www.thesilverimage.co.uk
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