Childhood in Street Photography

4 Apr

When it comes to shooting street I don’t often have a specific goal in mind and often times will photograph wherever my curiosity takes me. I am just out, usually alone, enjoying myself taking photo for the sake of switching off my brain from the usual noise.

That’s all well and good while you’re out, but in the short term when reviewing the photos what would typically follow for me was a feeling like the photos I’ve taken do nothing else for me. Which wouldn’t be a problem, except I do want to be a good photographer. Fuck.

The only remedy I’ve got for that is to just keep going. Lame, but it works for me. And over time I’ve recognised and split the process into two key starter stages which help prevent me getting too in my head about what I’m doing. The gathering stage, which predictably is just getting out, paying little to no attention to what it is I am doing. Existing purely on vibes. Then after a month or two, it's the curation stage. Taking just a quick look through all the photos, I can start to find themes or ideas that bring photos together.

“That person has nice shoes. Oh, so does this person. Ehhh, this one has nice trainers. Why am I photographing strangers footwear?”
”Oh, I got two photographs of milk cartons last month - I’ll build on this, it’s oddly appealing.”
”Oh, wait, there’s a small collection of photos of children just having fun with no phones or ipads in their hands? That’s a nice thing. Maybe the future isn’t so hopelessly bleak.”

My milk carton collection isn’t up to much right now, but in the meantime here’s some children being children and experiencing joy and it’s nice to see.