Shooting on the streets is a blood sport. It’s an orchestral piece with highs and lows, of stillness, silence, then intense, sub-second movements. Often you’re stalking the streets, your prey, ready to catch it, aggressive. Or else you are dancing, languid, flowing in and out of the crowd, lightly, oily. Snapping without an eye on you. You feel the throb, the flow, the shifts in the heaving crowd. You sense where there’ll be an opening, where the interesting face is, where the fight is about to erupt. You don’t need to look. Your mind calculates how to get close, your body shifts the subject into the right light. You take the photo. You take another. You’re gone. The person is left wondering what happened. Or most often, they didn’t feel a thing, they’re wrapped up in some personal dream, some hidden, secret anguish, or some public drama.
But most of the time, it’s a slow, teeth-gritting grind. Moments, events, actions appear, happen and disappear. You’re watching a river of human activity, bubbling up from the the bottom, or rippling across the surface. You’re noticing. You’re predicting. What will come around that corner? Who’s behind you right now? Turn, snap. You’re constantly checking your settings. Adjusting as the light shifts, clouds, shade, colour, time, distance. You are constantly being. You’re choosing. Is that important. Is that the right configuration of reality. Can I frame that? Is that interesting enough. Should I wait? Should I go? It is a constant, unbending focus. You don’t stop. You try to but you can’t. You are a reactive machine, something happens, and you ask yourself how to react. You don’t. You react.
There is a permanent, overwhelming inquisitiveness. I wonder what’s down this alley? What’s behind this door? Is it unlocked? Who’s that? What’s she doing? A constant interrogation of your environment. You’re greedy. You want something interesting, a story, something visual. Most of the time it is just emotion, or intuition, you can’t name it. You react to a light, or a colour, or a face, or a girl, or a man in spiralling distress. You react because it’s you. Someone might not have chosen that exact thing to look at, inquire about. You find out about yourself every time you’re out there. You forcibly shut down your analytics, and let your eyes and muscles react. It works.
You’re not a bystander. You get pushed, prodded, picked on. What are you doing here, who are you, why do you want from me? Often they just ask with their eyes. You don’t have time to answer. You don’t have the answers. You’ve got to keep moving. You move. You get physical. You shoot mid-step. You shoot falling back. You shove yourself in between flying fists and take what you need. You need more room, and you swing over the railing to get it. Be quick, be decisive. Noticing someone falling over you start running, you have to be there for that. You have a camera, it’s important. You ask yourself if it really is important.
You forget who you are and what you want. It’s the happiest moment of your life. You shoot, you move on. Your eyes are relaxed, scanning, your finger tense. The camera is always there, it never says a thing. It knows you.
Posted 2 years ago
