Human Influence

[Sam Hames]

Hi all,

I've been wrestling for a while with why I feel compelled to photograph - looking through my archives their is a distinct before and after point in my subject matter that reflects a change in what I want to make pictures about. It's taken a long time and a lot of thought to understand my gut responses to certain photographs and not to others - my earliest work is definitely not that important to me anymore.

So what am I trying to picture? To put it simply - the networks humans build in going about their lives. Even the most mundane of things, like litter, represents enormous complexity of our human lives - almost everyone seems to have a wilful blindness to the enormous systems we have built for ourselves. The point in my photos is not so much the actual elements but the networks (transport, social, economic, manufacturing) that brought these items to these locations.

A related topic is a study of how these networks change over time - this delightful laundry sink (one of two for our little apartment complex), that is now unused is a historical artifact that suggests important changes in the mechanisation of our lives - the washing machine out of view makes this whole thing obsolete and unused.

So, my question is, why do you photograph? What makes you want to make a photo, how do you choose what does and doesn't resonate with you? Has what matters to you changed over time?

Sam
My Blog

 

[Jerome Marot]

So, my question is,

It is four questions, actually.

why do you photograph?

I don't know. I have always taken pictures.

What makes you want to make a photo?

I don't know. Usually, something meets the eye and I feel like taking a picture.

how do you choose what does and doesn't resonate with you?

I don't. Things resonate or don't.

Has what matters to you changed over time?

Yes.

I am not sure that the questions are useful, but I am quite curious about the answers from others.

 

[Helene Anderson]

why do you photograph?

Primarily because I enjoy it, got given my first camera aged about ten (a Brownie Vecta) and on and off doneit ever since.

What makes you want to make a photo

Gosh, I don'treally know, if I were a politician I could ask for thequestion to be rephrased so I could answer perhaps?

how do you choose what does and doesn't resonate with you?

I don'tknow as I do choose, not consciously perhaps. There are things I take, things I don't.

Has what matters to you changed over time?

Yes, alot. But then again . . . . . no, I have refined my choices perhaps.
I think when I first took to photography (with my first SLR, a Fujica ST605) I was after wanting to do things that were a bit arty, street photography was very much there for me. Later when in a camera club (was a member of two clubs) in London people would come and give talks, photographers of nature, wildlife, portraits, landscapes etc but those that always held me spell bound were the press photographers because they had a story to tell, lots of anecdotes. Remember a couple of good stroies from a Daily Mirror photographer.

Sorry if I'm going on a bit here.

Now my photos have to have a story behind them, ideally about people, even if there are no people in the photos the images have to show places where there was human activity, hence the historical interest in places (lots of interest in the Nordhausen photos many years on even).

Sport, important to me, I like the thrill, the buzz of things that move that I have no control over. So I suppose thehuman element is important. I mentioned earlier I have an appointment with someone from a French er . . . . . . don't know if humanitarian organisation is the right word, er . . . charity is a big enough word neither. So, I'll stick with a French based humanitarian association. My greatest wish is that while I am to have local contact initially I can go abit further, the French organisation is part of an international world wide orgnisation.

 

[Tracy Lebenzon]

> So, my question is, why do you photograph?

To quote Mark Knopfler …“They say it’s only vanity, that writes the plays we act. They tell me that’s what everybody knows...”

Well……….that and entertainment value.

> What makes you want to make a photo

When is a photo a photo? At what point is it captured and at what point is it made? Hmmm. This is a question akin to “If a tree falls in the forest, does a raccoon feel hungry?”

Mostly I capture photos when I'm in the mood to capture photos. I publish them if they produce a significant enough response after being reviewed and worked up. I print them if they do the above and fit into a particular collection I want to exhibit. But there is probably several hundred to a thousand + captures for every print. At what point is a photo a photo?

> how do you choose what does and doesn't resonate with you?

This is not easy to define. A small part of the question of what resonates is the desire to use a camera at the particular time. There have been scenes I've gone past probably up to hundreds of times before I decide to capture them. Other times, when I'm looking for something, I will find it. Other times I’ll find something and may get it as I want on the first try or I’ll go back to capture it many times before I like the result, if ever.

Sometimes I’ll see someone else’s work and that gives me an idea. As example, I started producing panos largely because of the breath taking works of two people whose works I saw on another web site. They are Tim Wolcott and Bill Tondreau. I’ve come to love the genre.

And then, there is a vast difference between what I capture with the camera and what I decided to publish on the web, paper, or canvas. So the issue of what does and doesn’t resonate, or more appropriately what resonates in particular ways, is not so easy to define.

> Has what matters to you changed over time?

Yes. In some cases vastly.

 

[Sam Hames]

Thankyou for all your thoughtful responses. I didn't mean to shotgun you with questions, just got a bit too caught up in my own thinking to narrow it down any further.

First of all, I think I chose the wrong words when I said - "How do you choose what resonates with you?" I think I meant, if you had to boil it down, what resonates with you in the photographs you "like"? Is there a consistency in your choices, your underlying themes or what - it definitely seems like there are for some of you and I think that's interesting. I often find that what is strongest for me doesn't really jump the gap to others, I have a lot of trouble explaining why a photo matters to me.

But there is probably several hundred to a thousand + captures for every print. At what point is a photo a photo?

Leaving aside the metaphysical question, do you choose what to print based on what *you* like, or do you focus on what others may like - or some combination of the two?


Hélène , you're not going on at all - thankyou for taking the time to respond, it's always nice to get outside opinions.

I am not sure that the questions are useful, but I am quite curious about the answers from others.

I'm not sure either! But there's only so far you can go along lines like this on your own, eventually you need outside opinions, even to provide contrast or support or new directions to look in your own thinking.