5 Photographic Links For Your Weekend
Discover
Photographer of the week: Jack Simon
Watch
Video of the Week: Let There Be Rock: The Mick Rock Interview
From Ted Forbes and The Art of Photography
Read
Article of the Week: Street Photography Has No Clothes
A blunt, but thought provoking article written by Michael Ernest Sweet that questions both the term and state of Street Photography today.
Travel
Photography Destination of the Week: Havana, Cuba
Look
InstaGram of the week: @graciela_magnoni
Hi Forrest. Wasn’t sure which post to comment on but I’ll go here. :)
I think the ‘Street Photography Has No Clothes’ article is a really good read. Similar to your own ‘7 Habits of Boring Street Photography’ in that both have made me look at the work of a few street photographers I follow on social media in a different light. More critically, certainly.
I think a lot of people know there’s a lot of uninspiring stuff out there. I know I’m guilty of a lot of the cliches myself, but it’s pieces like the one you’ve both linked and written that inspire us to push things forward.
I think a lot of your own pictures have something more than most of the street photography I see shared online (although perhaps I’m looking in the wrong places). Good composition rather than cliches, I’d say.
The projects like the Train Window Portraits and College Street are great too. Whereas a single ‘train window portrait’ may still have been a good standalone image, the depth and time taken to create the project is something I reckon more people should be doing. I know I will.
Keep up the fine work anyway mate. It’s making me want to get out and shoot better photographs/projects, so I’m grateful for that. Cheers.
Hi Lee! Sorry, I was in Crete, Greece without much access to internet so it took me a while to reply.
Thank you for the kind words and also for writing such a thoughtful comment. It’s an interesting topic. I do feel that a lot of photography gets away from the focus of making a photo today, but there’s still plenty of great photography out there.
Maybe it’s a shift in focus to gear, smart phones and editing, maybe it’s that a random photo of a street is interesting enough to many people, maybe it’s in taking the term “street photography” too literally or maybe some people are just having fun and don’t care about the photos they make. Who knows.
As for being guilty of cliches, we all are at times :) It’s hard not to take those photos too, but I think as long as you try to focus on training your eye to see, adding interest and trying to make your photography more then that’s what matters. Projects can really help with this too.
Thanks again for the comment and good luck shooting! Cheers.