Pictures of the ordinary
Filed in Art - August 6, 2007I’m interested in pictures of the ordinary.
This creates an immediate tension. If you are interested in pictures of the extra-ordinary then the drama of the subject (war, location, sexuality, event) can pull a picture above the mass and make it interesting. However, without that edge, pictures of the ordinary can be, well, pretty bloody ordinary.
I’m not saying that it is more difficult to take good pictures of the ordinary than of the extra-ordinary, but I am saying that it is more obvious when you haven’t.
This follows on from something that matt said in a comment to the last post. Pictures of the ‘desperately marginalised’ swamp the photography of humans in the same way that pictures of freak weather dominate landscape photography.
We are, it seems, attracted to the extremes and the exceptions. More interested in Eagles than Sparrows. Keener to view tramps (at a safe distance, of course) than office workers.
Of all the main photographic genres, street photography seems to be the one where photographing the ordinary in interesting ways seems to have the most credibility. I wonder if that is why it holds such a fascination for many photographers.
I agree with the last paragraph but fear that you are over-egging the previous ones. It is not a matter of either/or because, if it were, the opposite would be everyone photographing the ordinary and no-one tackling the “marginalised”. I think what we are talking about is different photographic genres and there is room for both the campaigning documentary and the seeking out and highlighting of the ordinary. If everyone could live an ordinary life then we could all hang up our boots and rest in peace!
August 7, 2007 @ 11:05 am