Peter Cripps Photography

“The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur finds the world ‘picturesque.”

Susan Sontag – On Photograpy

As this year’s Photography Show draws ever closer, for some inexplicable reason I have begun to reflect on my photography more and more with a feeling of “what’s the point?”. It’s probably the thought of being surrounded by all of those shiny photographic objects calling out “buy me, you know you want me”. “Want” of course being completely different from “need”.

The truth is, I have all the equipment I need and probably more than I really need. I’ve even been thinking of taking one of my under-used lenses (my Fuji 50 -140mm) to the show to see if I can get a decent trade-in on it. Unfortunately this year the show has re-located to London’s Excel from Birminghams NEC, meaning a longish train journey and overnight stay so I’m not sure I can be bothered to carry that extra weight with me.

I have not changed any of my gear for at least four years now which is still a relatively short amount of time compared to how long I used to keep my film cameras. As digital technology has advanced and sensors and processing power has improved there is the perception that what you have is never good enough. All complete bollocks of course. The images I took on my early digital cameras with only 12 megapixel sensors are still perfectly good for the printing of 10 x 8 (or larger) images and certainly for displaying on web sites.

I think my real angst is more around what is photography for, or more to the point what is my photography for.

I now have a couple of online places where I display my images for all to see. One is 500px which has been going for some time and which I only use (very) intermittently. The other is the relatively new social media platform called Bluesky which is the platform of choice for those people who don’t want their images on platforms owned by fascists or technofeudalists (I’m looking at you Mr Musk and Mr Zuckerberg).

On Bluesky I mainly post my street photography, which is pretty much all I do these days. Street photography (next to landscape and nude photography I suspect) is probably one of the most popular genres on Bluesky and there is a good (and friendly) community of street photographers on there.

And I think therein, lies my concern. I am struggling I have to confess with what exactly is a street photograph and what makes it ‘good’. Is street photography one of those undefinable thing like pornography (i.e. you know it when you see it)?

Is a picture of someone walking down the street a good enough reason to call it a street photograph? I guess it depends on context. I think this image is probably valid as a goodish street image:

This one however, I’m not so sure:

But then, why care?

There is, after all, the other angle on photography and that is the sheer enjoyment of the process of photographing, no matter what the end result is. Who cares if your images are good or bad, or even if anyone looks at them or if they ever get processed? After all, Vivian Maier never bothered getting many of her images processed. She presumably just enjoyed the act of photographing.

I suspect that when all is said and done what really makes a good, or even great street photograph, comes down to luck (being in the right place at the right time) and intuition on the part of the photographer that this might make a decent image.

Photographically we are in a time of unlimited plenty. I’ve no idea how many millions of images are uploaded onto the likes of Instagram everyday for people to give the briefest of glimpses before scrolling to the next, and the next, and…

Surely we have finally reach the nirvana that Susan Sontag envisaged when she said:

“Cameras define reality in the two ways essential to the workings of an advanced industrial society: as a spectacle (for masses) and as an object of surveillance (for rulers). The production of images also furnishes a ruling ideology. Social change is replaced by a change in images. The freedom to consume a plurality of images and goods is equated with freedom itself. The narrowing of free political choice to free economic consumption requires the unlimited production and consumption of images.”

Susan Sontag – On Photography

In the end it really does not matter how good your images are. Maybe a good image gets a few milliseconds more view time than one less so. What really matters is, did you enjoy making that image?