I've grabbed a chance to spend a few days in Berlin. It means putting my zine project on hold but if I can add some new ideas as I managed with my Stockholm visit last year then it'll be worth it :)
On reflection it's unbelievable this is my first visit to Berlin. It represents so many of my fascinations. Streets layered with history. A city divided geographically and psychologically. At the heart of a continent with a traumatic history that echoes today.
For me it's a great lesson in bringing to life historic events I've experienced through other's eyes. Travelling to Alexanderplatz on the U-Bahn, stepping across the stumbling stones, witnessing political demonstrations in the streets of Potsdamer Platz are powerful and inspirational.
Channeling that while working intuitively is my goal. Following not just what's become my natural inclination to look for instances of street serendipity but also moments that have a layer of symbolism without analysis paralysis is challenging but it's pushing me into a new way of walking as well as working. London's waiting.
Despite best advice to approach my new publishing project with a cool head, systematically categorising my photographs according to style, composition and symbolism I've gone ahead and put a flow together intuitively, serendipitously and accidentally.
I've just realised it echoes my Three Graces of street photography so perhaps there's a method to my madness.
The sun's splitting the stones in London and I'm torn. Sun is the prime ingredient of my photography. So what's the problem? It's February and I'm out on the streets, a month ahead of schedule. That's the problem.
I confess I'm already uncomfortable with the environmental impact of using film. Now I'm facing up to fact I'm literally fiddling while the world burns. Movies set in the future but made in sixties had a big impression on me, especially, no surprises, ones set in London.
Now I'm wondering if my work is becoming more like a nature documentary. The sun is so strong yet still low in the sky. Shadows are still relatively cold. People wear sunglasses, shorts...and scarves. We're in the headlights. Transfixed by the sun, knowing the danger but compelled to stare.
It was really rewarding in ways I didn't expect. Elisa Perrigueur described the motivation behind her powerful illustrations of refugees seeking to enter mainland Europe and the UK was to find a better way of describing her experiences than through her primary role as a journalist. The practice of photojournalism is well known but Perrigeur deliberately didn't choose this medium. Illustration as an art form without any obligation to be faithful to reality, visually at least, gave her the liberty to tell her own story.
For me it illuminated a topical debate about truth and photography. It's easy to say we're at the point now where it seems naïve to put both those words in the same sentence. As well as the ease and sophistication with which images can be manipulated, there is a broader cynicism about any attempt to document real life in words or in pictures.
For those taking pictures on the street it's an even more contentious topic and the preservation of an unadulterated decisive moment an article of faith for many. Using film my only involvement with post production is scanning prints to publish on my website so my opportunity - and interest - in any manipulation is minimal. My interest in this topic has always been around context and the caption in particular which can be a far more powerful way that the viewer can be misdirected.
All of which brings me back round to thoughts on my own work. Apologies for the tangents but hey it's why I blog. I've never used captions on my work - well OK then, maybe Untitled once in a while - but inevitably any kind of titling of a collection or a book certainly leads the viewer towards a particular interpretation of the related photographs. In the past these have been more around their compositional relationships.
That technique will certainly be a factor in the New Europe zine but I'm looking at another strand to help tell my story. Will it be purely how I sequence and layout the images or are there are other techniques I can use. Introducing other media as I've done before in Portrait of a Street Photographer? Perhaps different sorts or paper to give a more tactile impression? Or is now the opportunity to use augmented reality to really engage the senses?
I'm thinking of making a zine with the photographs from my New Europe collection. Why zine? Wouldn't it be an opportunity to add to my fabulous publishing empire? Well I'm seeing this as a punctuation point not an end. This is still very much a work in progress, as is the immigration debate itself of course.
I have to credit my friend Fabrizio from my local LIP groupfor the inspiration as he has used the zine format to really complement his wonderful work.
One characteristic of a zine I like is that you can do away with the reverence of the high end reproduction values of a book. For me it's a more accessible way of presenting images and their sequencing in a visceral way that can really engage you. It reminds me of my conscious rejecting of what I called the white gloves schoolof photography back in the day. For me the word zine recalls the work of Jamie Reid. In no way could I call myself a punk but the DIY ethos of creating art - whether music, design, film or photography - of picking up whoever or whatever is around you and expressing yourself is really vital to the individual and society.
This is also another opportunity to do something different to how I've worked before by collaborating on the selection and flow of my pictures. Typical of my practice it's always been a solitary process. I had a foray into collaborative working thanks to the Ambiguous Book Project which was quite magical so the seeds are there. This time I'm keen to use the process to interrogate my own work.It's taken me time to feel comfortable doing that myself so I'm excited...and a little nervous.
Fabrizio and I have shared our separate experiences of taking photographs in Tokyo and so listening to the radio this week I was caught by the Japanese phrase Renga. It's a genre of collaborative poetry but for me it captured perfectly what I'm trying to do...and I never miss an opportunity to see serendipity.
I've been pursuing a style of photography now called street for a number of years. A south Londoner by birth I am pre-occupied with the West End and spend too much time there taking black and white pictures on film.
I nurture a hope that one day London will be recognised like Paris, New York and Tokyo as a great city of street photography but secretly like the fact that it is still the underdog.
For someone who enjoys the solitary practice of his work I am surprisingly talkative about it - although not at the same time.
Here's a collection of idle musings and distracting links. If anything catches your eye drop me a line at sean@waysofwalking.net
