Surprises

So when I sent the whole lot of images to Cardinal Avenue, I always expected them to pick the standard straight-ahead-at-the-camera shot. They surprised me by choosing this one in the end:

(The quality’s kinda shitty, but that’s fine.) Which actually kinda fits them better; we do get it wrong sometimes.

I’ve also realised that I can’t shoot some situations — I just saw a bunch of photos that were of old people in Chinatown, shot to focus on their so-called sad situation. I couldn’t deal, and it wasn’t just about the unfairness of it all. Who are we to pretend that we know and understand what they are going through unless we actually spend a significant amount of time with them and find out what makes them who they are in the first place? (Sorry, long sentence.) The photos are just superficial bullshit otherwise. Hey. Look at this. An old man carrying a trash bag around. Sleeping on a bench. Pity me.

Eugene Richards spent years in the environment he shot, and it shows; same with Jim Marshall — you can’t step out of your life for a few hours and expect to turn out anything of substance that will last longer than the initial viewing. On many levels, it’s not fair to us and to them — you’re not respecting yourself as a photographer, and you’re not respecting your subject as a person.

I’m sorry, I can’t deal.

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Anyway.

Across the Universe is a great movie; the doppelgängers to Janis Joplin (come on, they got it down to the whiskey!) and Jimi Hendrix are unmistakable. Watch it. The older you are, the better, because you’ll click with more of the references than most people.