Hugh Rawson 6/30/19 Hugh Rawson 6/30/19

Why do you take photographs?

In a recent post (What are you trying to achieve?), I wrote about some of the reasons I take photographs. In my Instagram (@hueyraw) stories I had also asked why you take photographs and this post captures your responses and builds on my thoughts.

As I expected, the therapeutic nature of taking photographs for pleasure registered highly. For most people, in this age of photographic democratisation, with almost everyone having a camera via their phone, photography is not a means of making money and is secondary to the day job. Many of you, like @sleepingastronaut, see it as away to relax; something that takes your mind off work (@mybeardandmypenguin, @chris_silk_street). It’s an escape – something which should not be underestimated in this busy world. As @zenostr33t, puts it “…ultimately it comes down to escaping work day pace.”

““It’s therapy for me; when I go out to take photos all of the other things in my life vanish for a short time.” ”

— @billtakesphotos

That therapeutic effect is reason enough to get out and make photos. For some of you, it is clearly more than that. Fabienne (@fabiennehanotaux) recognised “…a deep need to create, to express myself, to escape.”

I think this need to create is deeply human. Furthermore, the artistic element of creation which enables us to express ourselves, our emotions and our feelings in response to the world around us, is enjoyable, communicative and, therefore, sociable. This is underlined by the huge success of social media, such as Instagram, where photographers can now share their work, and enjoy the work of others instantly, and like never before.

This creative process changes us. I know that since I have been taking photos I have become far more alert to my surroundings, spotting things I would never have noticed previously. This is enriching. As @atelier_dope puts it, the “… process of creation is enjoyable and every now and then I’m rewarded with an image I enjoy.”

Many of you commented on how this enables you to see things in a new way and to seek to make the mundane beautiful (@sixframestreet; @piyush_mishtra_18; @theweijian). That is certainly at the heart of street photography and involves self-expression. No one photographer sees a photographic opportunity in exactly the same way as the photographer standing beside them. The slight difference in viewpoint is one thing, but the personal experiences that each of us as individuals bring to bear, our likes, dislikes and individual taste, all impact upon the final image created.

Perhaps the more scientific among us only seek to record daily life, something more like an objective view of a crime scene or scientific evidence. The camera has a unique ability to take a slice of life, a fraction of a second, and freeze it forever to be scrutinised and analysed for as long as the image exists. @frances_pegg wrote about catching a personal moment in order to “taste it when I get old.”

Recording daily life for oneself is the personal version of storytelling, which is usually more about the lives of others. For some of you, it was this that was your motivation. @mrtimothypeter put it simply when he explained “I love telling interesting stories.” As humans, most of us find other people fascinating to a greater or lesser extent. I have always enjoyed looking back at photographs of places I know and seeing how they have changed but this experience is far better when there are people in the shot. If we recognise them it is heightened because we can see how time has changed them. If we don’t, then we can also pick up on the visual clues in the changes of fashion, of the street furniture, shops, styles of cars (or lack of) and so on. @sixframestreet speaks of documenting the human experience and this is an important element of street photography which is not necessarily about aesthetics and creating something of beauty but is about building a record which will inform the future. Many pictures improve with age – an ordinary scene today will take on many other qualities in years to come. If you don’t believe me, think about a typical High Street today with a huge number of people lost in mobile phone land. Will those phones still exist in half a century? If they do, will they really look like they look today? What about the clothes? And for the acid test, find a photo of an everyday, ordinary street scene from 1969 and see how nostalgic it feels.

Some of you recognised something powerful about the actual process of making photographs. Specifically thinking about street photography, @ashsmithone cited “…the thrill of the chase.” And I totally get that. The adrenalin rush of going out to shoot and not knowing what you will get, what lies around the next corner and what may happen next is exhilarating – if not for everyone. It is a thrill and there is a fear to it; fear of being caught, fear of not getting the shot even. That brings adrenalin.

The thrill, the adrenalin and even the fear very quickly lead to what @gianpy_s described when he said “It’s a passion.” That is certainly something many of us would agree with. Why else would we spend hours walking our shoes down to nothing, only to come back with a small handful of decent shots - if we’re lucky?

A passion can become a necessity and for @mark_lev-photo it seems to be a compulsion: “I don’t know why! I just feel compelled to do it.” Whereas @ke_vin_joseph says “The voice in my head tells me to.” For @mandym.photos it is “Just something I can never switch off from – which is mostly a joyful thing.”

Whether it is something you have to do to balance up your life with the part of you that is work; whether it’s something you just need to feel complete creatively; whether it’s a voice in your head making you do it; photography clearly plays an important part in making each of you “you”. That has to be a good thing. I certainly feel that it completes me. And there are far worse things you could be doing in your spare time.

I leave the final comments to @oohbaaanana who says: “It’s the only thing I think about all day and it’s the only thing in life in which I’m really free.”

Amen.

A huge thanks to everyone who shared their thoughts with me but especially to these good people who you should check out on Instagram:

@zenostr33t

@sleepingastronaut

@mybeardandmypenguin

@chris_silk_street

@billtakesphotos

@fabiennehanotaux

@atelier_dope

@sixframestreet

@piyush_mishtra_18

@theweijian

@frances_pegg

@mrtimothypeter

@ashsmithone

@gianpy_s

@mark_lev_photo

@ke_vin_joseph

@mandym.photos

@oohbaaanana

Hugh Rawson 6/5/19 Hugh Rawson 6/5/19

Best of April 2019

Sixteen from the streets of London and Venice. Feel free to comment.

Click to go LARGE.

Hugh Rawson 5/28/19 Hugh Rawson 5/28/19

What are you trying to achieve?

Venetian Stretch.Venice, Italy. Apr 2019. — Venetian Stretch.
Venice, Italy. Apr 2019.

This is the question that was asked of me some months ago and that keeps coming back to re-play in my head. It’s not so much that it bothers me - I don’t take photos for a living or even make money from my photography. It’s more that it surprised me. It forced me to look at what I do from the perspective of those who know me best.

I’ve always been a passionate person and my interests (obsessions) have led me down many alleys, nooks and crannies of exploration. For the past few years, photography has been my boulevard of choice (and, yes, sometimes dreams). When an interest takes me like this, I want to know as much as I can about it. I immerse myself in its history, its culture, its traditions - I want to know what it feels like, to taste it, to live it. Books, galleries, the internet … anything can support my habit. Taking photos and editing them is drinking from the source.

I suppose that is what I have been doing. So, while friends and peers are of an age where they are having a quiet morning with the cafetière, hot buttered toast and the Sunday papers, I will be catching the early train to the big city hoping to return a few hours later with a camera full of more images than you can shake a selfie-stick at before I get a chance to go and do the same thing again.

So, okay, fair enough. What am I trying to achieve?

It does have a slight ring of "Aren’t you a bit old for this kind of thing?” and it is true that most street photographers who I follow (and who follow me) on instagram are 20 years (gulp - two decades) younger than me. Not that that should bother me - there are no age restrictions to developing a good eye or understanding the exposure triangle, or indeed breaking any of the rules that aren’t actually rules and that need breaking anyway (ahem). I digress. Maybe it’s more that most of my peers don’t feel the passion that I feel or the excitement for learning new skills, seeing things in new ways and, most importantly, having a chance to be creative.

That is what is at the heart of it for me. Being creative. I have realised over the course of my life, that the creative urge is more of a creative need in me. I need to feel creative to feel complete - to be me.

Mindfulness

There’s a great deal of talk about mindfulness and mental health these days. For me, I know that the creative process is key to my mental health. It is where I go to be mindful. It just so happens that it is street photography that provides that creative process.

Passion is an important idea here. Shooting street does bring out a passion in me. That doesn’t mean it always is easy or always pleasurable. Remember passion, as a word, has its root in the Latin for “suffering.” So if we are passionate about something, we are putting more into it than is absolutely necessary. How many times have you spent a day shooting only to feel that what you’ve shot is rubbish and all you have to show for it is a thinner sole on your trainers?

What am I trying to achieve? I do it because I have to.

It feeds me.

It completes me.

How about you? Some weeks ago I asked my instagram followers this question and I will be sharing further thoughts soon. If you’d like to comment, please feel free. I look forward to hearing from you.

Hugh Rawson 4/20/19 Hugh Rawson 4/20/19

Best of March 2019

Sixteen from London’s streets from March. Let me know your thoughts below.

Click on the image to go LARGE.

Hugh Rawson 1/16/19 Hugh Rawson 1/16/19

They shoot children... don't they?

The history of street photography is full of images of lively children - shoeless and happy playing in derelict city streets, smiling in an outsized pair of mothers shoes, carrying home the shopping or, as in Henri-Cartier Bresson’s famous shot, a bottle of red under each arm and a cheeky grin.

Look through the average street photography account on Instagram, or any other social media stream, you will be hard pushed to find the younger generation at all. Sadly, this is not surprising.

We all know why. Nobody wants to incur the wrath or worse, the stream of abuse, of an irate parent fearful that their child’s image has been stolen for all the wrong reasons. And, therefore, many of us don’t try. Those images of children not only never appear - they are never taken. A hidden generation is being created at a time when we take more photos than ever.

Yet, if you walk into any town centre, children from decades ago, now adults or well-beyond, stare out from the ranks of birthday cards in stationers and supermarkets. Pick up a book of street photography from the last century, there they are; captured for posterity like ancient insects in amber. It’s almost as though children and their beaming smiles belong to another age and the streets today are devoid of children. Anyone remember the child catcher in Chiity Chitty Bang Bang and the empty square around the castle?

Are we to become the generation that didn’t have children? Or, at least, that airbrushed or Photoshopped them out of history? We would be much poorer for it - but that’s the risk.

Of course it is about intent. Why is the photographer taking the photograph in the first place? What is it they want to show? It is this intent which raises photography beyond a simple and precise record of a scene or object - almost for classification purposes. It isn't simply a scientific practice concerned with obtaining a correct exposure through combinations of shutter speed, size of aperture and sensitivity of sensors or film. It is an art form in which the photographer expresses an emotion, idea or even just a viewpoint. Surely any photographer who takes a photograph of a child for the wrong reason or with ill intent, will produce work which sets alarm bells ringing or, at the very least, leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the viewer.

Children’s lives hugely enrich our own. They remind us of a distant past that we often hanker after. They point to a future full of potential. They provide moments of great humour - often through their attempts to be more like us, the grown ups. They possess a wide eyed sense of wonder that reminds us just how amazing our world is at times when we have grown weary of it ourselves. And photographs of children can do all of these things too. They often point to a truth that, as adults, we need reminding of.

Of course, the problem of the disgruntled and anxious parent doesn’t go away. However, we will only perpetuate the situation if we accept it. We can challenge it by taking good photos of children. If we are open and upfront about what we do then maybe the disgruntled mum or dad would recognise the same things in the image that we saw. We should be less inclined to be furtive, secretive and hidden but be prepared to share positive ‘good’ images of children on our feed. That way we can demonstrate our good intent next time we meet an anxious mum or dad. And, as with any street photograph, smile, share your Instagram or website details and offer to email them a copy. All parents think their children are the best thing since bread arrived sliced - hey; they might even ask you to take some more.

Hugh Rawson 9/23/18 Hugh Rawson 9/23/18

Perfection Postponed

I’m writing this for myself, as much as for anyone else. I need to remind myself that sometimes I just have to get on with it. Stop putting it off and just do it, to coin Nike’s phrase.

No more waiting until everything is in place. Because it never is.

Let’s face it, we will never ever feel that something is completely ready, never feel that it’s good enough, never feel that we have said it, photographed it, processed it... in the best possible way.

So get on with it. Print your work. Make a book. Host an exhibition. Launch your website. Photograph strangers. Whatever it is…do it. Unless we actually begin, we will never finish. And, do you know what? Sometimes, when we begin, we realise that the finishing part isn’t quite so hard.

Last time I said "We are all seeking the ultimate photograph. That one shot that says it all!” That wasn’t meant as a reason to give up because we will never be satisfied. It was meant as a recognition that it is that very act of striving that makes the likelihood of achieving it more likely. As Elliot Erwhitt said "Nothing happens when you sit at home."

So what is the ultimate photograph? We assume that every great photo we see is perfection itself, don’t we? Just because it’s in a book, or on a gallery wall or on Instagram. But every artist, great or small, from Sebastian Salgado to the girl next door with her selfie stick, must surely feel as we all do. That they could have done it better if…and you can finish that sentence yourself with one of over a million different reasons.

Think of your best photo. The one that you are most proud of. If you have a website, it’s that one there, right on the Home page. If you could show me - I guarantee you would also point out where it could be improved. If the light had been better; if you’d got there later, stayed there longer; if you hadn’t over saturated the processing… We all do it.

It is human nature to compare ourselves and our achievements with others. And to put ourselves down. It stems from a primeval need to survive, from a time when we humans were always on the look out for threats. But there are no sabre toothed tigers on Instagram.

We are all constantly striving for artistic perfection and never feel that we achieve it. And, do you know what? That’s fine. It’s the striving and envisioning that is important. That is how we hone our craft. By taking the shot, putting out there and gauging the response. Not by sitting back and waiting for the perfect moment.

Hugh Rawson 3/11/18 Hugh Rawson 3/11/18

Never a dull moment.

I find that when I go out specifically to take photos that I can’t allow myself other distractions or it just doesn’t work. I’m not the kind of photographer who can listen to headphones while I shoot (much as I wish I could) or text, eat, drink or any of the other things which seem to count as essential to modern life. Maybe it’s a bloke thing - after all, I’m not half as good at multi-tasking as my wife or female colleagues. I have to be in the zone and focused on just that one task.

I am rarely bored. Whenever I find I have time on my hands, my camera seems to magically create a host of photographic opportunities. If I’m alone, even in the most familiar of places, give me time and a camera and suddenly the scene has great potential. It doesn’t matter if I’ve never been there before or I know the place like the back of my hand. There is aways something to see.

Obviously, having time means I will look around and notice things that otherwise may never have caught my eye. Throw a little patience into the equation and, of course, opportunities will appear the longer I wait.

This morning, sitting alone in a cafe I know well, I became aware, for the first time, of the light coming through the doors. These are doors I’ve walked through many times. This time I was alone, with time to kill. That light was just waiting for the right character to silhouette themselves there. And suddenly my morning was transformed.

Hugh Rawson 6/18/17 Hugh Rawson 6/18/17

A Link from the Past

The more photographs I take, the more I am convinced that photographers learn from those greats who have gone before...

The more photographs I take, the more I am convinced that photographers learn from those greats who have gone before; standing on the shoulders of giants to capture that awesome view or decisive moment - and an occasional indecisive one too. Of course, being in the right place helps.

Last weekend I had the truly great pleasure of being invited to spend the evening on one of the corporate boxes above the finish line at Goodwood races. Even better, this included a car to and from the racecourse; champagne to drown our losses and toast our victories [few]; our own chef; and the perfect reason to leave work about as early as was both feasible and polite as the boss on a Friday night.

Weather wise, it could hardly have been better. The Sussex downs were bathed in a golden light for several hours and stretched for as far as the eye could see and further than my 35mm lens wanted to go.

Between courses there was the opportunity to escape the air-conditioned life of the box and mingle with everyone else by the track. This is where the bookies with their fixed faces line up to relieve you of your notes and replace them with dreams while their expression switches to the next punter in line. This is where overdressed men swelter in the late sun and under-dressed women, fuelled by plastic pints of warm beer or swinging half empty bottles of Moët, stumble precariously on skyscraper heels. It's an oasis for a thirsty street photographer.

Each race brought a new flutter and a five minute amble among these gradually less stable fellow racegoers as their expressions became more jovial [or less so] as their own personal cocktail of winnings, losses and alcohol slashed back and forth.

Most of my shots were taken up close (obeying Robert Capa’s maxim that if your photos aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough) but I took picture above as it seemed to capture the evening en masse. I particularly liked it because it reminded me of Winston Link's drive in movie shot and it was this classic image that I had in mind when I took it.

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/97601516906397814/

We truly do learn by looking at the masters and the more we invest in looking at the great photographs the more our own work will grow, I'm convinced of this.

Hugh Rawson 1/15/17 Hugh Rawson 1/15/17

Shoot first. Ask Questions Later. or Better to seek forgiveness than ask permission.

I think the question that I am asked most often is whether I ask permission to photograph people on the street. And if not, how do I get away with it - by which I assume there is surprise that I haven’t been thumped or beaten around the head by my rolled up street map. Or worse.

I don't ask. Fundamentally, I guess the difference is that while the people I shoot would like the world to see them as they would want the world to see them ... I don't. I want the world to see them as they really are. Or as they sometimes are - when they are off guard. This isn't out of some inherent cruelty. It's more a question of truth. After all, isn't that what Art concerns itself with?

The other element in this is that I am not a typical portrait photographer. I wouldn’t know where to begin with posing someone or giving direction. So I have to take what I see.

Finally, I would much prefer to shoot someone caught in what Cartier-Bresson called "the decisive moment." Not some clever, long held pose.

So, I rarely ask permission. There have been rare exceptions. A few months ago, I happened across a Harley-Davidson biker run for charity with all riders dressed as Santa Claus and collections made for local primary schools - something of an interesting shift away from cultural expectations and therefore rich with opportunity. I prowled among the riders with my camera at my hip, finger on the back-button, ready to shoot. And I shot a few. Then I made eye contact; a fatal error. Eye contact with a tall, tattooed, bearded and leather clad ring-leader in his worn waistcoat adorned with his name. Basher.

The omens weren’t good.

So I asked. And he smiled. Posed. And I clicked. It should have been mean, moody and confrontational. Had I had the sense to direct him, I could maybe have got something halfway to what I wanted. And what I wanted was definitely Basher going about his business as, well, a basher. Instead I got the smiling, bearded, Santa imitator - no amount of gritty post-processing would deliver the shot I wanted; the shot I could have got if I’d kept my mouth shut and my eyes down.

Most recently, on a street photography jaunt around London, I noticed two young office workers enjoying early refreshment along the south bank of the River Thames. Nothing unusual about that except that it was extremely cold (being January), they were already gulping down Laurent Perrier champagne, and had clearly been out all night since finishing work the day before. “Make us Facebook famous,” they laughed; I had already shot them from the hip, capturing the wide open champagned arms and flailing cigarette. Would they have chosen beer stained shirts, sleepless eyes and hangover hair for their portrait shoot? I doubt it. Yet somehow, the shot was closer to the truth - for that day at least.

Surely that is the essence of street photography.

Hugh Rawson 8/14/16 Hugh Rawson 8/14/16

Starting out - why now?

When I do things I do them with a passion. Pretty much an obsession. And this is where photography is with me right now. A camera has never been far from my hand over the past three years and it has taught me to see things very differently; definitely to appreciate things more. I even notice what's around me these days.

In April, I took a photograph of a man, wrapped warmly against the cold spring morning, standing on the south bank of the River Thames, looking across the water towards St Paul's Cathedral. I went on to take many other photos that morning, wandering the streets of the city as they began to fill, before heading home for lunch. A great way to spend a Sunday. I was already pleased with this one, along with half a dozen others that day.

Too old for this kind of thing?

Mindfulness