"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst" - Henri Cartier-Bresson
Now 2 years into my return to street photography, and almost 20 since I first picked up a camera, I have been considering why my success rate per photograph has fallen. For every roll of film that I shoot, there seems to be fewer frames worthy of consideration. Have I spent recent times regressing as a street photographer? I feel quite the opposite. My photography has come on a distance in the last year or so. The operative phrase, I suppose, is "there seems to be fewer worthy of consideration". In fact, if anything, there is an objectively higher quality to my recent work than before the hiatus, yet I choose to show far fewer of them to the world. I wonder why that is?
The answer lies, I think, in experience and good judgement, or - in the past - a lack thereof. Photographers starting out on their creative path will share an abundance of images without ever determining those that represent their best work. At this early stage, they still need to learn how to edit and are excited to show improvement day by day. Beginners do have discernment in their choices, but their range of what they find acceptable to show is wider as there is much to learn. And, incidentally, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Don't get me wrong. You'll find no gatekeeping here.
In time, through exposure to other photographers work, criticism from peers, and with an open mind and a desire to work hard to improve ourselves as we walk the streets, we start to see what other photographs have that make them stand out when ours don't. We learn what makes a strong rectangle and what might detract from the image. We begin to incorporate those lessons into our compositions. Through constant revision and review, we develop an intuition for a good edit, and become more comfortable with cutting out weeds we may once have looked upon as flowers.
While a hard lesson to learn, it is also important not to confuse the intention with the result. A key lesson learned from a street photography masterclass with Richard Kalvar was the intention is irrelevant if the photograph isn't any good. It's tempting to share a photograph you know in your heart isn't up to your own high standards, because you remember what you intended when you took the photograph and you came so close. Unfortunate though it is, it's important to forget that intention and look at the frame objectively. Is it any good?
With experience I've come to discover in my own work what I see as a strong street photograph, and one that is either mediocre or just bad. With help from masters and amateurs alike, I've developed - what I like to think of as - a discerning eye to recognise the difference. While this has the occasional adverse effect of causing me to overlook a photo I should include, it has made a marked improvement to the choices I make in an edit. This is never more clear than when I compare recent photographs to those that I would post to Flickr as my best work of the time. I can even see it in the comparison of photos I posted to Instagram in early 2021 versus choices that I would make now.
With experience comes better judgement and we are always learning, growing, and improving. To consider my original question, then, rather than fretting about a perceived drop in acceptable photographs found on my spent rolls of Tri-X, I choose to think of it more as an obvious sign of growth in judgement, and a stronger resolve to continue to better edit my own work.
What do you think? Have you had a similar experience? Let me know in the comments.
Digest, December 2022
Making up a chunk of the regular content in this newsletter's monthly digest will be "On the Street", a new wide-ranging series of street photography blog articles. To kick it off, I have begun to answer the “5 Ws” of street photography - who, what, where, when, and why.
Continuing my series of street photography articles for Shoot It With Film, I wrote about my love for Kodak's Tri-X black and white film, and why you should love it too.
Live music photography will continue to elbow its way into this newsletter as we step into 2023. Late last month, 35mmc published my article of 5 frames of '...Trail of Dead' live at Warsaw's Hydrozagadka venue.
As 2022 comes to a close, I looked back at the last 12 months I've had in photography and chose my 5 favourite photographs I have taken this year.
And finally for December’s digest, I stepped away from photography for a brief moment and looked back at my history of writing Christmas songs.
Some Photos
Recommendations
Music
Tonight (21st December), I am photographing Idlewild at Glasgow's O2 Academy. A formative band for me, and 1 of my first Scottish music obsessions, I've seen the band 50-odd times including following them around on their Scottish Highlands tour in 2000. This is a short 12-minute documentary made by Channel 4, back then, when the band played in Portree on the Isle of Skye. If you look closely, you might see a very young me in a terribly oversized jumper.
Photographer
As I'm home in Scotland when this second issue of the newsletter goes out, I've been thinking a lot about street photography in Glasgow, not necessarily by Glaswegians. In 1980, Raymond Depardon was commissioned by the Sunday Times Magazine to photograph the city. He concentrated on the poverty and deprivation of the time, and the “resilient nature” of the city's inhabitants.
Book
Having just completed volume 10 of Brian K. Vaughan's incredible comic book series on Image Comics, Saga, I was looking for something else to read while waiting for my flight on Sunday past. Despite being a huge fan of the author, I'd never read Pride of Baghdad. So I did. I later described it to my partner as "one of those short, beautiful, and utterly devastating reads that you sometimes come across". The author himself described it as "simple fable told from the perspective of a real-world pride of lions, [asking] complex questions about America's [...] war in Iraq".
Video Game
I'm not much of a gamer, really. I'm more someone who dips in and out when it comes to consoles and gaming, however, during the pandemic I bought a PS4 then 5, and fell in love with Hideo Kojima's beautiful game, Death Stranding. I've finished the game several times and with the exception of music, I've never bought quite so much merch for a thing, ever. This year, I somehow missed that there was a sequel in development and, well, lost my mind earlier in the month when this trailer was released. I think a new play-through of the original is on the cards.
And Finally…
I didn’t quite hit my target of 100 subscribers before the December issue but you could help me get there before - or just after - the new year. If you’ve enjoyed this second issue, I’d be very grateful of you could recommend it to any music or photography-loving friends.
This newsletter is free to read, however, I've recently left corporate life and returned to school, so if you like what I do, please consider buying me a roll of film. You can do so by clicking here, or by aiming your camera at the QR code below.
I'm partial to some of that Tri-X 400 if you're asking. Thank you!
Several years ago I went to a W. Eugene Smith exhibition, I remember seeing the contact sheets and maybe 1 or two were "iconic" shots but the rest were alternatives or even just what looked like shots to use up the roll. Seeing that, & (like Steve) the Magnum book, made me go a lot easier on myself with how critical I was about how many great shots I was getting per roll. I think we can get over critical on ourselves these days because of the pressure to share what we shoot and if we shoot several rolls but only want to share one immediately, we can feel like we failed… which definitely isn't the case.
New subscriber. I recently bought the MAGNUM Contact Sheets book and what impressed me most was how few images from a roll were picked by each "iconic" photographer as being "good enough". I have been shooting film since the early 70s, bought my first digital camera in 2005, and came back to film in 2020 at the height of all the COVID restrictions and lockdowns when looking for something meaningful to do in photography. At my age I no longer care about selling my work but continue for the joy of doing it. Looking forward to your articles.