Not what I meant

I'm dissatisfied with every picture I make, lately. At the suggestion of a Flickr friend, I'm reading Street Photography Now, by Sophie Howarth and Stephen McLaren, a collection of edgy, arresting, unpredictable pictures snatched in the streets. Some are laugh-out-loud funny. Some are heartbreaking. All stir an awareness of the range of human foolishness and heart. I think, "That's what I want to do!"

The first chapter is "Stare, Pry, Listen, Eavesdrop." I wrestle with it. That's alien to my own quietly Buddhist, non-interfering spirit. Nothing interests me so much as the range of human behavior. But I can't make myself poke a lens into other people's lives. Andrew Glickman, one of the photographers featured in the book, writes, "Photographing people, particularly people you don't know, is inherently an aggressive act." Yeah. So either you interrupt someone's flow and ask their permission; or you grab and run. My favorite photographers leave something in exchange for their images; their subjects feel seen and appreciated; but I'm too reserved to pull that off. So I fume and fuss and look for what I can do. Most of the time I bore myself.

Today I went looking for light, sheen, geometry, and angles. Architecture. Not what I wanted, but what I could do. After seven months of rain, we've had some sunshine the last two days. Joy to my eyes. This church rising up out of wintry twigs shone in the morning sun like a flower. I made that my catch of the day. But I'm not satisfied.