Dragged by the Current

Not much progress in my desperate search for that next thing with my photography. When I have the available time to go out, I can't muster the enthusiasm. However, my photo life is not sterile by any means. As is my custom, I ALWAYS have cameras on my body (including a mini-camera I keep stashed in my coat pocket) and most of the time, I'm on alert for things to shoot.

And in the evening, I am going through some of my photograph monographs, which is where I think I learn the most about photography, looking at the photos I like, sometimes wondering 'why.' The most important point I think I've learned from pouring over these collections is that rules only apply if you want them to apply. Some of the photos I most enjoy are not that dramatic. I think we have a built-in filtering system integrated into our inner photographer which finds certain scenes, objects, colors, forms, whatever...interesting to our sense of aesthetic.

Two photographers on my study list at the moment are William Eggleston (who I mentioned in an earlier post) and Diane Arbus. I have the huge Diane Arbus Revelations collection. I want to know why she created her body of work, what was it that drew her in. She dealt with her subjects differently than most portrait photographers, and I am fascinated by her drive to see in her subjects the part of themselves they really do not care to be seen. It's strange, from the inside, we might think we have a certain appearance when in fact what the camera sees is very different. Flaws. That's something that Arbus noted. It's what most of us note when we scan a person. Symmetry - asymmetry. What is out of place? What is revealing?

I'd like to do more portrait photographs but not just shooting randomly on the streets. I seek characters who are more than just an image, but rather are a story themselves.

I need to think more on a strategy to achieve this goal.

Another book I have on the horizon is one that investigates voyeurism and surveillance with the camera. Exposed. Anybody with a camera in hand, street shooters I mean, IS voyeuristic, trying to access views of people unaware, looking for secrets about them, or catch them in the act of being themselves in an uncensored manner.