welcome to my world

If you've stumbled across me courtesy of the Street Photography Now Community then I'm very pleased to meet you. The brief I've set is very much open to your individual interpretation. If you're interested in understanding where I'm coming from with it then please read on. If not, then just get out on the street now!

I'd toyed with a more directive instruction. There's certainly been some great ones already in the series. My first instinct was to reflect my own approach

"Take a picture without looking"

However when I thought about it a little longer it didn't feel particularly inspirational for anyone to follow so I tried

"Let the picture find you"

That felt stronger.

Then it struck me that successful street photography for me is about moments. Not just decisive ones where all elements of an image meet each other in a happy accident to create something substantially more than the sum of their parts, but those instances when I connect to the flow of life around me, where I feel both inside of it yet outside too, like a musician finding a perfect riff out of thin air.

Helpful? Even more confused? Don't worry! No pressure!

"Be of the moment. Let the picture find you"

one chapter closes, another opens

Ambiguous is now available to buy on Blurb! I've attempted to keep it as affordable as possible - hence using Bookify and a small format - but there are plenty of ways of upgrading it with finer paper and covers. I actually enjoy the pocket-size feel of it: it's more of a travelling companion than a coffee table ornament. I really think it's stayed faithful to the original idea too. Hope you agree!

So, what next? Well I'd like to introduce you to a new project. No, not Ambiguous 2, with twice the budget and half the ideas, but something a little more ambitious and no it's not Ambiguous 3D!

The principles of this new project are familiar. Images from your archive, hard drive, shoe box, what you will. A re-viewing of them, putting to one side the original intention behind taking them. Some words too.This time I'd like you to pick out a bystander, someone with nothing to do with the original subject of the photograph. I'm not talking photobombing here. Just a face in the crowd, the back of a head, a reflection, a shadow,  Still with me? Good. Now the hard part.

Have you ever played a childrens' game of story-telling, making the plot up as you go, one line at a time? Well that's the simple idea behind this project. This time, instead of drawing on a personal memory based on fact, I'm appealing to your fictional flair! I'd like us to tell a story of that character in the picture - adding one or two lines at a time - threaded together by our images.

For example, here are some candidates of mine in mind to kickstart the project.

It could be the woman to the left closing her eyes, because of the sun perhaps, or the man seated scratching his nose, maybe it's itchy, to the right.

This won't be everyone's cup of tea I know. However I'm not anticipating Shakespeare. It's about seeing how far we can stretch reality and explore the truth of any photograph. Kids' stuff.

Interested? Willing to give it a shot? Of course you are!

To join the book project - no obligation, no fee, a small chance of immortality - please send an email with the subject line "Me too!" to sean@waysofwalking.net

I'll then be back in contact when I have a picture for you to respond to.

Oh one more thing. The name of this project?
Naturally, it's Incidental.

eyes on the street

I try and mix my reading between fact and fiction. Much like my life really. Two books I've recently enjoyed, Ground Control by Anna Minton and The Man of the Crowd by Edgar Allan Poe, have given me some great insight into my street photography.

I've always been conscious, and used to my advantage, the aversion of most people on the street to actively looking around. This self absorption is a natural defence mechanism to unwanted eye contact. However the act of looking can be interpreted as an act of social responsibility. Drawing on Jane Jacobs's portrait of New York neighbourhoods of the fifties, their rhythms of daily life observed by a cast of characters from a Helen Levitt street scene, Minton contrasts that particular form of natural surveillance, mutually acknowledged by strangers for the common good, with our modern experience. 

Granted it's a jump, perhaps not so great, to the anonymous, unsyncopated churn of London's west end of today but what struck me was her description of this activity as the "eyes on the street". Who now occupies this role? Who is sensitive to the hour of the day, to the random acts of strangers?

This notion of eyes on the street, of a self-anointed guardian angel, sprang to life when I then read Poe's short story. In The Man of the Crowd I'm dragged through the streets of Victorian London in pursuit of an anonymous figure, an odd man out, a consequence of the author's surreptitious survey of the passing scene.

The wild effects of the light enchained me to an examination of individual faces; and although the rapidity with which the world of light flitted before the window prevented me from casting more than a glance upon each visage, still it seemed that, in my then peculiar mental state, I could frequently read, even in that brief interval of a glance, the history of long years.

Published in 1840, neatly coinciding with the pioneering work of Fox Talbot, Poe foreshadows a street photography routine, one in fact taken up superbly by Sophie Calle's Suite Vénitienne.

On reflection these two sources give me a real sense of the significance of street photographers today, just in the simple act of doing what we do: stopping, looking, stopping, following. Minding other people's busi-ness.

Land, ho!

Captain's log, March 14th 2012...
I'm proud to announce the safe arrival of the good ship Ambiguous. Passage has taken just over 12 months and taken in a number of ports around the globe. Progress had been constant, only becalmed around the turn of the year. The crew are a disparate bunch but all shown great endeavour in our enterprise.

Yes I imagine many of you believed this mission had proven the world really is flat, and fallen off it, but you are mistaken! I had little idea this project would take the time it has but I'm still incredibly pleased.

Looking at all the images submitted since last March is a walk through a family album of sorts. In the same way a snap of a childhood day at the beach prompts reflection beyond the frame on the circumstances of the event, each participant in the Ambiguous Book Project has not only given up an image but also some real insight into their lives. For me the ideas I've harboured around the meaning of images and the interpretations they are open to has been wonderful to explore.

Now we enter the Book part of the project. I've been working on layout ideas and will be shortly contacting all the participants with details.

Prepare for landing!

portrait of a street photograph, part 2

Well I've made an edit of the images from Barcelona which, on a cold, dark day in London, is a welcome tonic! One of the consequences of the gestation of my work is an appreciation not only of the passage of time but of season in particular. The scraps of sunshine in the winter city are both a promise of days to come and a reminder of the capriciousness I'm at the mercy of.

I'm really happy the potential mise-en-scene of the contact sheet I was particularly occupied by has been realised. This is a first for me! I've left out the don't go back ingredient of my own recipe for street photography. Before now my experience has been that I can never beat that initial, gut response to a possible picture. Any second attempts become 3T: too thought through. 

On this occasion I managed to keep the spontaneity of the first contact and, by turning the dance of the street to my advantage, come away with two images that both stand alone and together.

Hope the London saying about waiting for a bus for a long time and then two come along together will be true for me. Twenty years will be a long time to wait for another such opportunity!

See more sunshine here.