When I started www.grannybuttons.com I wasn't really thinking of photos. I was working with words. But finally moving to digital cameras last year - and in particular starting my 'picture of the day' feature - has turned me much more towards images. Indeed, even video.
One of the big influences on me has been Robert Scoble, who last year garnered a full-page story in the Economist: "Does Robert Scoble, a celebrity blogger on Microsoft's payroll, herald the death of traditional public relations?" they asked, and I thought 'yes'. He'd win any blog-with-the-waggiest-tail competition, and he's just started a daily videoblog ('vlog') on www.podtech.net.
This week he came out with three four episodes called Photowalking where he simply walked along with photographer Thomas Hawk, and asked him questions as he took photos. And it's a superb conversation with a good photographer who tells a lot about his job and useful technical tips. Did you know what a camera's 'prime lens' is? Neither did I.*
I was thinking that it would be quite interesting to follow around some of the well-known canal photographers in the same way. What are they looking for? Are they looking for something more imaginative than just an image to please an editor and sell for a magazine front cover or a postcard or jigsaw? Is there a tale behind (or beyond) the picture?
One of the things that frustrate me about many pro photographers is that they simply want the arresting image, they don't want the story to go with it. To me, the really arresting thing is the 'conversation' or story that the image inspires.
For example, consider the photo I took recently in Stoke Bruerne Top Lock: The shadows on the wall seemed to me in sinister contrast to the affectionate image higher up of the daddy carrying his child. Who were the child/old man who generated the shadows? Where they related? What was I thinking when I saw the picture and reached for my camera? Wouldn't it have been interesting to video me photographing it and then turn around and see who the shadows actually were?
The intriguing thing about the blog format is the ability to combine words and pictures to create that conversation yourself, quickly and free from editorial constraint.
(And what frustrates me about the existing internet technology - aboard Granny Buttons, anyway - is the inability to get a proper signal to connect up to the series of pipes of the interweb.)
I'd love to walk round the canal towpath (or the neighbourhood when I tie up for the night) with someone and explaining what I see as I take photos, because that would be a fascinating adumbration to the photographs and the mental process behind it.
* [It's a standard high-quality non-zoom lens, and I was using one for 30 years without realising it]
You said, "To me, the really arresting thing is the 'conversation' or story that the image inspires."
In response to questions about her photostream, "maggie_le_chat's" posts a photo and describes the techniques she uses to capture the 'conversation' or story in her individual photographs. This photo is here http://www.flickr.com/photos/maggie_le_chat/261098484/ .
Although she speaks specifically about techniques and skills, that she has, to meet her specific objectives, her writing gives an analysis of technique with which I was not familiar.
Abstracting her ideas and trying to apply them to photographic areas in which I am interested, has helped me think about the technique of story capture. I hope you find her ideas and her photographs interesting and that some of her ideas are helpful in capturing the canal story (especially, perhaps, the title?).
I am still a Granny Buttons reader. However, a bigtime computer crash has me using a borrowed laptop and has me behind in my visits!
Cheers - Brian.
Posted by: Brian | Thursday, 05 October 2006 at 02:33 PM