portrait of a street photograph, part 1

I'm about to embark on a selection of images from some recent work from Barcelona and thought you might like to come along for the ride.

First stop is the contact sheet. Click on it for a bigger version.

On first take the contact sheet represents a chaotic, random way of working. I'd like to think there's method in my madness. For me facing the moment I originally took the photograph is one part of my work that has noticeably changed over time. At first it was a time of high expectation, regularly dashed on the rocks of my ambition. Over time as I've put more time between taking and printing images my attitude has become more sanguine, an appreciation of each moment on its own merit.

The Barcelona work is interesting as I've a clear memory of the circumstances surrounding a number of the images. The sequence I've latched onto from the particular contact sheet above is one revolving, literally, around an argument in the street between a young man and woman.

The street at the time was relatively empty so I was keen to be unobtrusive, not for any great ethical motivation, but to try to get as close as possible. The result is two frames, 14 & 17, of the event, spliced by two others where I was moving around it. Intriguingly these four images, presented as they are on the contact sheet, become a sequence themselves related not just by time and space but something, for me at least, more evocative, almost cinematic.

I'll explore this in the next part of the process. Can't say what that'll be yet as I don't know myself!

street view people view

I'm been struck by the parallel debates about privacy on the internet and on the street. Central to both arenas is the image of the individual, the rights of its ownership and distribution.

The rise in popularity of street photography has brought fresh attention to the practice of taking pictures of people without explicit permission. On the web the ongoing debate over privacy is regularly fuelled by the latest Facebook feature or expansion of Google Street View.

There is already technological convergence between the street and the screen. Face recognition to optimise the identification of criminals by cctv is also marketed more benignly to find friends in party photos posted online.

This debate is not new. The tension between individual and state as played out on the street has been reflected in literature, often in a dystopic future. From George Orwell's 1984 to Will Self's Book of Dave a vision of Londoners is portrayed living with the consequences of the gradual relinquishing of our privacy.

My most recent collection of photographs, Between the City and the City, explores an idea of parallel experience, how we each live together alone in the city, our faces more like façades. It now forms the backdrop for a new book, Street View People View, that develops the relationship of our faces and the ownership of their image.

The title of the book has been on my mind for a while. It seemed, for me at least, a logical next step in the enhancement of the digital documentation of public spaces to that of the people within those spaces. We can already identify our friends' physical location courtesy of mobile phone apps. Enhancing that visually would be neat wouldn't it? Imagine scanning a crowd with an augmented reality app that highlights those individuals. Cool.The anonymous crowd, familiar to the street photographer as the human zoo, now becomes a photo gallery of individuals, instantly profiled and packaged. Science or fiction?

As with my earlier books, Portrait of a Street Photographer and The Distance Between Us, I've thought about how those particularly wonderful characteristics of a book could be used to express these ideas. Consequently I've found myself breaking some of my own taboos.

I was looking for a way of simply illustrating the book's title. One design idea I tried was alternating the sequence of images with upside down cropped versions of each picture, including two separate front covers. The not-so-simple idea was the book could be experienced as a set of "street views" in landscape format and "people views" in portrait format. I liked the intention but the execution was a little laboured. I did however, whisper this, like the cropping so I kept that and tried another approach.

I've shied away from captioning my images in the past but I wanted to refer to the ideas that lay behind the book. Including quotes from press releases, novels and news stories satisfied that. Granted not a particularly original idea - I think Michael Lesy's Wisconsin Death Trip was the first time I saw this technique.

I considered really ramming the idea home with speech-bubbles above each figure's head with sample personal details. However I wanted to retain the feel of the images as pure street photographs and not interfere with them directly. This literal sub-text is then there as something for the viewer to consider as a separate but related element, more like a collage.

Finally I chose not to include any rationale in the book itself, This is exclusive to this site!

Street View People View felt like an opportunity to reflect on my own work, and the city I live in, and to consider street photography in a broader context in which it may be practised in the near future, coming to a corner near you soon...

life class

It was wonderful to give another talk at The School of Life earlier this month. Many thanks to Nick Turpin and the participants of the Photographing London weekend workshop for a really inspirational afternoon.

Sean McDonnell street photography 2011 from Sean McDonnell

I am impressed at the quality of work at these sessions. Once again it's a real lesson for me in setting oneself parameters or a challenge. Inevitably I search for a metaphor in these instances and the mental and physical effort required is certainly of Olympian proportions.

Two marvellous images are worth noting from Laura Fitzpatrick and Tony White. Each in their own way exemplify for me the essence of street photography.

Tony's image, and style now I'm glad to have discovered more of his work, has a real warmth and a resonance with the sensitivity of Tony Ray-Jones. There's certainly an undefinable Englishness to this picture which is a joy.

In contrast Laura's photograph at the foot of Nelson's Column is a tour de force of geometry and timing. It feels so perfect that it ironically touches on contemporary practices of digital manipulation and staged flash mobs, even though the image is entirely of the moment, taken as found with no intervention other than being in the right place at the right time and having the presence of mind to take the picture.

Easy, eh?

between the city and the city

I'm pleased to share some new pictures with you. Despite my dalliances with colour and video it's very much a case of ploughing my lonely furrow in terms of technique. What I have done is also develop my fascination in ideas of the city as expressed in novels.

At the heart of the The City and the City by China Miéville is a magnificent leap of imagination. Taking a concept of how we relate to one another as strangers, sharing the intimacy of the street while constructing our own personal narrative, accounting for but not recognising others, the author creates a world where that's been institutionalised. 

Two cities exist but not in the way of Belfast, Beirut or Berlin, topographically divided by walls or no go areas. While these two cities simultaneously occupy the same streets, each set of citizens exclusively experience their own, with the threat of instant prosecution if they ever let the veil fall. 

The beauty of the novel is that there are no passages that neatly describe this state. It's subtly revealed, incidental to the main narrative. 

There are places not crosshatched but where Beszél is interrupted by a thin part of Ul Qoma. As kids we would assiduously unsee Ul Qoma, as our parents and teachers had relentlessly trained us (the ostentation with which we and our Ul Qoman contemporaries used to unnotice each other when we were grosstopically close was impressive).

The symbolism of such a city is far-reaching and raises political, social and ethnic issues. Personally I find inspiration for my own work. Mirroring the distance between us which recognised those moments when we are in momentary accord with one another, The City and the City is a place when we are quite literally in our own worlds, unseeing and unnoticing one another.

It's hard for me not to relate these ideas to the recent disturbances on the streets of London where, arguably, those rules of engagement were literally torn up. There's enough analysis on the events themselves. Worthy of reference is Peter Marshall in particular. 

So, without intending to use them as material for an abstract intellectual analysis, my response is framed by my obsession about the streets and our relationship with them. 

For me the fine line between two or more Londons that exist at once in our own non-fiction world was disturbingly exposed. I practise photography on the streets because, as I've written in my recipe for street photography, I love the mix of people that share them. As a street photographer I have to transgress that conditioned state of unseeing, ironically creating its own conflicts although safely contained within my own mind, occupying a place between. 

My enduring experience of the riots was witnessing the fragility of those boundaries and recognising the very nature of the city is temporary. As another well known thinker phrased it, all that is solid melts into air.

25...and counting

I had anticipated announcing the completion of the first part of the Ambiguous Book Project around now. The initial response of "I'm in!" from nearly thirty photographers however has almost doubled thanks to the fine support of the good people at Blurb.

Their Q&A with me prompted a second wave of participants from all around the world. I did contemplate starting-up Ambiguous 2, the Sequel, but felt it little presumptuous as I hadn't even published the first one! In fact the second wave of ambiguants have really enriched the project.

For a start there are more women. I've self-consciously written before about the gender bias of street photography. (On a side note I'd recommend the current show at the Photofusion Gallery, On Street Photography: A Woman's Perspective, part of the marvellous London Street Photography Festival.)

In addition countries represented now extend over the horizon to India, Russia, Ireland, Colombia, Spain, Austria and Australia.

There is also the promise of even more wonderful images to discover.

The only direction I give participants is to interpret the photograph I send them as freely as they wish. In fact it's interesting to consider how much curation is behind this project. At one level there is none. There's no qualification criteria, no committee sitting in judgement, no entry fee, no sponsor to satisfy. It's an entirely open collective effort and I'm just acting as a mailbox.

And yet, and yet...I have to accept that this particular utopia has been founded in my shadow. In the city of Ambiguo there number Blurbarians, Blurberati and Blurbaristas. A significant majority of Monochromists and at least one fundamental Analogue-Monochromist. Romantics rub shoulders with Realists. Watchers flirt with Waiters. Bus Riders vie with Train Catchers. Barflys, Beachbums and Fastfood Junkies indulge themselves...It's my kinda town.

However what's even more of a bonus are the thoughts and words behind those pictures.

I'm delighted that the essence of the project - the capricious, mutating meaning of any photograph - has connected so well. People really spend time, revisiting their archive, mulling, finding a nugget of possibility. I receive emails of frustration. I empathise. I say, I know. It's not easy. But believe me it's worth it! We're building something special.