1- Are you a professional photographer? No.
2- Why street photography? There is something about humans that I find fascinating. Be it capturing their joy to shooting their struggle, I like to photograph people on the street to present their idiosyncrasies, their mannerisms, and to show the different and diverse ways in which we all interact with each other in this World. I particulally love photographing different faces in different places. I also find street photography a real challenge, and that in itself is something I love.
3- How would you describe your photography style? I am very spontaneous when shooting street. I hardly ever sit in a position waiting for someone to walk into shot, preferring to walk around and allow a scene and a face to spark my interest. Then I try and capture it as quick as I can before they move on or I become noticed.
4- What makes a good picture from your point of view? What do you look for in an image? I love a picture where each small segment of it, each intricate part, leads on to the next, creating in essence a larger complete jigsaw. Nothing is better than to see a photograph which could literally be divided into three different photographs from a single one, and each stand tall in their own right. But I also love balance, whereby the different segments each counteract yet complement one another in some sort of multidimensional hyper volume niche sort-of-way!
5- How do you educate yourself to take better photos? I am slowly building a collection of books by photographers whose work I admire. This helps me to try and see the world through their eyes, not to imitate, but to gain ideas from which to build on. Of course, I also look at a lot of photos on the internet, and I think to myself: How on Earth could I create such marvellous images as those?
6- Where in the world would you most like to photograph? Probably somewhere like a small slow fishing community on a south Pacific atoll, or a hustling and bustling city in the middle of Central/South America, i.e. two completely different places in different spaces operating at completely different time scales! To be honest I have never given this much thought – until now. Perhaps the question could be, what cultures would you like to photograph?
7- Who would you most like to photograph and what kind of pictures do you avoid to shoot? Tools. People who use hand tools. People who have an assortment of differing hand tools and an amazing ability and experience to use them perfectly. Like a row of wooden handled chisels all immaculately sharpened and aligned hanging from a specific shelf on a wall in a workshop in absolute order of chisel width and sharpness. Curved blades and all. A carpenter, cobbler, sculptor, silversmith. People who know how to use such specific implements and instruments, intricately, in pursuit of their crafts and who are purveyors of such. That and the saxophone/trombone/trumpet players in a jazz band. I would like to photograph their hands and faces. I don’t think I avoid shooting anything, but I do wonder if I take too many collared dove pictures, and pictures of birds at my bird table!
8- Have you been confronted by someone whose photo you took on the street? What would be your advice as to how to avoid confrontation when doing Street Photography? Yes! The first time was when I went on a school exchange in 1985, and lived for a week with a French family in Paris. Our teacher took us to the Pompidou Centre for the day. I was taking shots as we walked around with a little 35mm automatic camera which had been lent to me for the day by the family I was staying with, when we turned a corner and there were several interesting looking ladies huddled together in a door way. I raised my camera to grab a quick shot when all of a sudden they leapt at me! One lady grabbed my camera, the other ladies my head! And all of a sudden I was surrounded by glamorous scanty-clad women screaming at me! I was scared witless, for I didn’t know what I had done wrong, and I hadn’t a clue as to what they were saying, bar determining that they obviously didn’t want their portraits taken! Seconds later my teacher was by my side and telling me that I had to give them the camera, which they were trying to rip from around my neck, but I told my teacher there was no way that I could do that as it wasn’t mine to give, and I held on to it for my dear life! Next a man with a retractable car aerial came up behind me and was hitting my head with it, and also shouting at me! At some point amongst the pandemonium my grip must have faltered on the camera and they were able to open the back of it, whereupon they ripped the film clean out before walking off. I remember that all suddenly went quiet. It was a very scary and surreal experience. Thinking about it, I probably won’t be taking photos of glamorous scanty-clad ladies huddled together in a door-way ever again! There have been two other times when I have been confronted, but never anything quite as dramatic or as scary as that. What would be my advice on how to avoid confrontation when doing Street Photography? Well, firstly don’t get caught, and secondly run if you do! But seriously, the best way is to be amicable. Smile, say how great they look and that’s why wanted a photo in the first place, and offer to show/send them a picture. Or, having been noticed taking your shot of them, put your camera down, look past them as if you are looking at the view in the distance, look at your camera again, then the distant view again, and simply walk off. You’ll leave your subject in so much doubt as to whether or not you really did take a picture that they probably won’t even say a word! Trust me, it works a treat!
9- Your favourite street image of your own to date and why? I have a photo of a young child, a girl, that I took the day before the eve of Christmas, 2007, through the arches of Richmond Bridge on the River Thames. It was late in the afternoon - almost dark - and she was silhouetted by a low orange glowing light from behind. She had her arms out by her side and the slow shutter speed makes it look almost as if she is dancing, like an Angel. It’s quite a personal photograph to me, because it reminds me of my very own Angels.
10- Your favourite piece of equipment? A Nikon Coolpix 800 – my first digital camera. I just love the colours and tones that this little rudimentary box produces, and even though I haven’t used it for ages, I could never part with it. That and my mum’s Pentax SP1000, which I really should use again one day.
11- What are your favourite settings (Aperture. Shutter Speed, ISO, White Balance, Focus, Manual/Auto, Image Format – RAW/JPEG) for Street Photography and why? I don’t really have any favourite settings, as I switch between them often. That said, I almost always shoot RAW, but I try not to edit my pictures too much.
12- Is photography art? Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. But it very much depends on what you want to make of it. As an artist, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that one could make art out of every single photograph one ever took… even if was crap. But that doesn’t make it right.
13- Black And White or Colour? Both.
14-What are your thoughts on editing? I don’t like overcooked shots. But like darkroom dodging and burning, editing helps, and is simply a tool to be used carefully or abused. That said, there are many amazing photographs which have been edited well beyond the norm, that are really rather wonderful.
15- Why do you share to Progressive Street and who would you like to see showcased from Progressive Street? When I first started posting shots to the internet I posted them on Trek Earth, which had a really nice community feel to it, with people from all around the world posting and contributing, something I liked a lot. Sadly TE disbanded a while back. More recently I have posted on a few Facebook photography forums, and while I have most certainly enjoyed my interactions there, for some reason I have slowly seemed to stop posting in places other than Progressive Street. I guess I feel quite comfortable and at home here, making friends and expressing myself through my photography along the way.
Who would I like to see showcased? That’s a very hard question to answer. I would need to give that a lot more thought!