Personal photography
I often see people looking at photographs and talking about their composition, colours, and message like they’re paintings. It seems expected that great photos have been thought through, planned, and perfectly executed, as if made in a studio. But does it make sense?
I really like Substack and the people I’ve interacted with on it so far. But I’ll be a bit controversial. Because sometimes you need to look at the less bright side of life to know where things really stand. I’m feeling frustrated with some of the trends I see on Substack: if you’re on Substack but you only have a paid subscription, you’re there to make money. Not to write. Not to share. Not for readers. For money.
To me, street photography feels like an intrusion in other people’s lives. The more I think about it and the more I try to do it, the more I feel uncomfortable about it.
This is of course ignoring the issues with truth, representation, ethics, and consequences. This is really the first step of that more general reflection: whether the activity should or can even take place and its place in reality.
Sometimes you have the idea of a photo in your head, but it takes a few iterations to get there.
We exist in time. Not as discrete snapshots. One of the difficulties of photography is to capture in a single frame what is part of a stream of consciousness. This idea has bothered me for a long time and it feels like a failure that photos aren’t part of the stream of consciousness.
Not a usual discussion about photography this time. As this post is out of schedule, I decided to cover something more in line with A day in the life. I’m taking you on a walk around my village.
As I mentioned before, I normally walk on my own after each meal, often in the house because of the weather and to be available for work just in case an emergency arises. But at the weekend, I sometimes go for a walk with my wife instead if the weather is nice. As spring has arrived (the geese and cranes are back and the birds are starting to be noisy in the morning), we went for a Sunday walk after lunch.
In a world that often feels overwhelming and difficult to decode, I’ve found a lens to be more than just a tool. It’s become my interpreter, helping me understand and connect with a reality that sometimes seems to speak a different language than I do.
I’m not used to be on the lens end of a camera. I’m usually the one taking the photos, to such an extent that my mother complained a few years ago that when she went over the family photos to create albums of her kids (a thing mums do, I guess), she could only find a few of me. And I’m happy with that.
But recently I decided that I wanted to capture more of everyday life and people around me for my personal record. I’m getting old and I’m increasingly aware of the passage of time and how I can’t go back.
So, this time, a slight departure from the usual ramblings: I’m going to show you a day in my life. If you’re interested in pushing the fun further, we could turn this into a loose collaboration (I know I don’t have a large reach here, but whoever wants to take part is welcome): show me a day in yours.
This post might be long…
Continue reading “A day in the life”I see photography not just as the activity of producing images/art/a record, but also as a bridge between our internal landscape and the external world we selectively engage with. While we cannot directly photograph thoughts or emotions (yet), our choices in subject matter, composition, and timing reveal the invisible threads of our inner narrative.
In today’s world, we’re constantly bombarded with photography. The perfectly curated, Instagram-ready images that tell a story in a single frame. But one of the most important things I’ve realized in the last few years is just how significant it is to take photos of the people around you. Not the posed, carefully staged portraits we think of as “important” pictures, but the candid, everyday snapshots that capture the essence of who these people really are.
