The Talk

I find the experience of coincidence too powerful to resist reacting to. For 40 years I have experimented with post production techniques, for example when working as a press photographer the Mini Metro was released and having covered a launch event I composited an image of a metro onto the hand of the local carnival queen, Michelle Wilde as a semiotic image to give a perception of a small car.

Inspired by a quote I had read attributed to the photographer, Duane Michals, which was “to photograph reality is to photograph nothing” and as Lockdown came in, I took to my computer and added images I had taken whilst strolling around my town to images I had taken in the past. Then, a few days later I was involved in a Royal Photographic Society talk by Will Cheung and he had a 1974 copy of ‘The Photographic Illusion’ featuring Michals. I managed to acquire a copy and continued with this Lockdown series creating images that captures the reality of my thoughts.

During this talk I will look at photographers who break free of the decisive moment and get creative, maybe in the way they use shutter speed and aperture, colour or post production. The key ingredient though, is the work originated on the street.

To finish, normally after a break for coffee and cake, in the second part of the talk I look at how to go about shooting in the street, which includes:

• how to feel safe, and be safe on the streets whilst getting creative.
• best equipment to use
• best technique
• how to retain the presence of the street whilst getting candid
• the law concerning street photography
• the genius loci of the masters of creative street photography
• how to find your ‘genius loci’