Getting To The Essence Of My Photography
Last week I started reviewing and rearranging my portfolio. This was partly because I wanted to make the website experience better and to provide easier access to images that viewers might want to buy, and partly because I just had too many images on the site. Some culling was dearly needed.
Doing this forced me to have a close look at each image, asking "why" I would keep it.
Some images I eventually decided to keep just because they are great to print and display on your wall. Those in the Wildlife and Still Life & Abstract sections for example.
With regard to the other images that made it through the selection process, I, however, realized that there was another, and more important reason I want to keep and share these: they directly or indirectly tell the stories of people.
From the time I was a kid, I always wondered: "who built this church or castle", "who lived here", "who used this tool"? Of course, I was (and still am) awed and impressed by grand architecture and cities, and I am very much interested in history in general.
My questions, however, were and are more related to common and unknown people. Not about the architect who designed a whole city or a grand cathedral, but about the bricklayer or carpenter who actually made the grand design happen. You might find this weird, but walking by an old church and looking at the brickwork I often wonder who actually put a certain brick in that wall. Who was this person? What kind of life had he?
This curiosity is not restricted to buildings. Take for example my images of WW2 Military Aircraft: it is not only about the beauty of the aircraft design. I am interested in the men who flew these machines and the ordeals they went through during and after the war.
Buildings, aircraft, cars, objects: they all have tangible connections to people. Makers, builders, operators, users.
And then, of course, there are the images that actually show people. Alone, or interacting with each other. There always are the questions: what are they doing, what are they thinking?
Reading back what I wrote above, I recognize that this connection with people, and trying to know and understand how they lived, also is the reason why I write my Haiku and Pic Tales. I try to imagine what people think and how and why they act in relation to the world around them. Maybe a Walter Mitty effect?
Having realized that the actual subjects of my photography (visible or implicated) are people and becoming increasingly confident of actually photographing people, I can see my work moving away from fine art / abstract images towards more people-focused documentary and essay-style work. Two examples of this approach are the projects After The Soul Is Gone, and A Morning At The Market.
To reflect this shift in focus in my web site setup, I now present my images in three distinct groups: Fine Art Prints, Stories, and Projects.
The first group contains my traditional portfolio of cities and architecture, landscapes, still lives and abstracts, street scenes, cars, trains, and aircraft;
The Stories group links to the Pic Tales, Haiku, and Essays published in blog posts;
The third section contains projects that specifically focus on people and human nature.
This renewed focus for my work will provide additional challenges for the next two years. I don't have the feeling and confidence yet that in South Africa I can wander around with my camera and take pictures on the street. I, therefore, need to discover how I can realize my newfound (or maybe: better formulated) creative vision within the restrictions and restraints of living here.
So the question in the title of today's blog post now actually leads toward two answers.
Who are you: who is it that I try to find in my images. Who are the people who built, used, operated, or are visible in the frame? What are they doing, what did they think?
Who are you: who am I as a photographer, what do the images I capture say about me? Why am I asking these questions: is it my interest in history, my interest in other human beings, my urge to challenge the viewer and ask questions? Or a mixture of all of the above?
It will be an interesting journey going forward.
Thanks for reading.
Eric