When I started doing street photography, I put more emphasis on visual drama, capturing images that look appealing to the wider audience. It was about the use of strong colors, creative composition, play with interesting lighting and forcefully carve images that are striking on the first look. However, as I journeyed on many years further down the road, still doing street photography, I craved for deeper meaning in the images that I framed. Instead of just making images look stunning, I also found that it was equally important to tell a compelling story or idea through photographs. Is the content of the image more important than the visual appeal?
A lot of modern street images invoke a typical look and feel. The creative play of highlight and shadow, the comedy of juxtaposition between different elements within a frame, the playful contrast between two opposing themes. Beyond the pretty imagery, you don't know where the photograph was taken, you don't know the context or the story behind the images, you don't get any more interesting information other than - the images just look good. Everyone is so fixated in chasing that viral image, the Steve McCurry's Afghan Girl moment. They dissect the composition secrets, the lighting techniques, and slapping the most obscure looking film simulation tones in their image post-processing hoping to get that winner shot. In the process of overdoing things and striving for maximum visual appeal, the image has lost its meaning and purpose in the first place - to convey a message to the viewers.
The "who", the "what", the "where" and the "why" are no longer important. All the modern photographers are chasing - the harsh shadow and light silhouette play, the typical nice background and someone walking into it kind of moment, the intentional placement of body parts or human heads in unexpected places to induce humor. We don't get to understand the story of the human in a particular location or explore his background and the uniqueness of the setting. Or what the person in the photograph is doing. The story is not the subject. The subject is the visual drama, and I think something is wrong somewhere.
Or worse, there is a new crop of street photographers, well they call themselves street photographers, but they are more like terrorists operating like guerillas really. Armed with wide angle lens, ideally 24mm or wider so they can shove the lens into the victim's face of choosing on the streets and fire an off-camera flash half a meter away at maximum power to induce maximum harshness in the image and maximum discomfort and annoyance in the victim's retina. Seriously, I think there should be a law to stop this from happening. It isn't about the freedom to do whatever you want, there should be some limit or safe zones that the photographers should not intrude. The worst part? The "Bruce Gilden" style images look neither artistic nor journalistic. What kind of story can you tell when someone looks at you in shock and horror? Why would you want to portray a person in their worst possible look with the use of direct flash? No matter how you look at it, such is the poorest form of photography and should be banned altogether. If only I have the power to do so. I will.
What happened to the good old storytelling through images? What about the saying "an image speaks a thousand words"? Why did we pick up the camera in the first place? Was it to stroke our own personal ego, or win validation from thousands and thousands of likes and praises on Instagram? Has photography devolved to crowd pleasing service, that we worry more about what others think of our work than we actually doing what truly matters to ourselves?
I too, fell into the trap of choosing style over substance. For the longest time, I was chasing the best light, the most creative framing, the most striking visuals to show off what I can do as a photographer. At the end of the day, what truly matters was what I actually felt when I looked at my own images. If I did not do it the way I wanted to, where was the fun in photography? So, I stopped worrying, I even stopped posting on Instagram for more than a year, I stopped looking at the endless streams of images on IG/FB/Social media of your choice's feed. Instead of consuming and consuming, I spend more time going out with my camera and shoot. Instead looking for visually pleasing images, I look for stories.
The stories make stronger images.
If you have something to say in your photograph, if you can convey a certain mood or emotion, that is a powerful photograph. It can be a simple image of a man selling noodles by the road, that is a valid story, and can be effective, the challenge is for the photographer to figure out the right technique to tell this story through his photographs. It can be a taxi driver, or an old lady crossing the road, or a tattoo artist working on his craft. There are endless stories everywhere to be discovered and photographed. Instead of chasing empty images that look good, why not take meaningful images that also look good?
The challenge to myself is to change the priorities when I am doing my own street photography. Instead of looking so hard for the visual elements, I shall shift my priority to finding meaningful stories first. Content first, then visual drama. I am still learning of course, this is a long process, I am in no rush, but hey, one step at a time right?
