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| Alex Webb |
“I only know how to approach a place by walking. For what does a street photographer do but
watch and wait and talk, and then watch and wait some more, trying to remain
confident that unexpected, the unknown, or the secret heart of the known awaits
just around the corner.”
Alex Webb
I am drawn to street photography. It is strange things in that you don’t have
control, you can’t set up lights and your subjects tend not to pose for
you. As Alex Webb says, it is about
waiting, talking, hoping, waiting and believing that the shoot is around the
next corner. You can go out all day and
get nothing. Nothing happens, that
secret heart that you hoped would appear just around the corner is not there.
As a street photographer you have to get up, go out and shoot. It is like being
a hunter according to Bruce Davidson.
The challenge of street photographer excites me. The
uncertainty, the chase, the hunt, the framing of subjects who aren’t posed, the
hours, the walking, the waiting, the hoping and the shoot is what calls me to
the streets. That shoot you get that you
have been seeing and hoping for happens.
It doesn’t happen often but it happens.
If I have learned anything from being at the Savannah College of Art and
Design it is that that shoot, that good picture isn’t a dime a dozen. The good picture, the secret of the heart
maybe that one out the one hundred I shoot in any given week or month, good
work takes a long time and some luck.
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| Alex Webb. Port-au-Prince, Haiti 1987 "Memorial for victims of army violence" |
I have also learned how important it is to train your eye.
If you hope to make powerful images that move people to feel what you see then
you have to study those images that do what you hope your images will do. I make it a practice to study the masters of
my field. I study everything about
them. It is not enough to study the
images they have created. To simply
study the images they have created is to study their work in isolation. To study them means just that. You must study their biography. You must study their methodology, praxis,
practice and habits. I love reading the
stories about their work. I love reading
about the process that informed their work.
I love lingering over their contact sheets. When I study their contact sheets I can see
them shooting, I can hear them thinking, I can see them framing the shoot, I
can see them scouring their contact sheets making the decision! This is the SHOOT!
To train the eye the photographer must both shoot and
study. To study and not shoot will not
improve our work. The challenge for me
is to go out and shoot and have some sense of satisfaction with my work. I always feel like…I could do better. I am always pushing myself, never satisfied
with what I shoot or what I write. When
I study the masters I see the definition of good and it inspires me to go out and create! I don’t strive to be them but rather by studying them I am finding out who I am as an artist. I want to be me and in being me I want to be
the best me and to achieve that goal I have to study, train my eye, shoot,
linger over my contact sheets and pick that shoot(s). I encourage you to study the masters of your
filed. Study them and they will mentor
you and make you the artist you were created to be. Let’s create!
What will you create today? What
are you working on?
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| Alex Webb. Tenosique, Mexico 2007 "Murder outside a bar" |
http://www.webbnorriswebb.co
I like your writing.with shooting we can see world better than it is:) Good Luck!
ReplyDeleteThanks Nahid
DeleteThis gave me a lot to think about. As always, thank you.
ReplyDeleteWell this made me think about my process to create work.
ReplyDeletePractice makes better, there is always room for improvement. Good stuff.
ReplyDeleteThere's something about street photography that has an unavoidable element of anxiety attached to it. But with practice and adaptive instinct I'm sure some of the skills the reading highlights will being to show themselves in my creative process. Thanks Ralph!
ReplyDelete