Thoughts are free, who can guess them?
They flee by like nocturnal shadows.
No man can know them, no hunter can shoot them,
with powder and lead: Thoughts are free!
Mönckebergstraße, Hamburg. Germany.
November 2011.
I genuinely enjoy living in Hamburg. The city has posh, swanky areas that appeal to my sophisticated side and on the other hand, it’s laid back enough so I can feel good enough about myself leaving the apartment with a shabby, laid back look. Some areas of Hamburg certainly have that urban grittiness associated with the world’s top cities such as Paris, London, New York and Tokyo, but looking closely, I guess “Hamburg is not New York” – at least not when considering the Christmas Parade taking place during the weekends on Hamburg’s premier shopping mile, Mönckebergstraße.
The other day, the day I was writing this, I had an epiphany. It was not just about solving a problem that sprang to my mind just then, it was actually a revelation. And like ever so often, it was initiated by what somebody else pointed out.
Before I go on and dive into "the new shit that has come to light", let's put a pin into the above and let me tell you what's been constantly nagging in the back of my mind ever since I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with my photography.
Photography as a hobby can be a blessing for anybody who is able to acquire and operate a camera. First achievements are easy enough to reach by sticking to easy motives and clichés. Really good photographs by hobbyists can often be the result of chance - misleading many to believe that one perfect image proves their talent. Most of these hobbyists have no focus as to what they photograph - every topic is their domain. There is no consistency in their "work", there is no style that can be associated to them and there is certainly no such thing as a portfolio. Ignorance is bliss as they say and as long as such hobbyists remain ignorant towards these shortcomings, they enjoy their hobby. When the ignorance vanishes, photography as a hobby is turning into a curse and the identity crisis looms.
What is my photographic work about? What should I focus on to improve my portfolio and develop a style of my own? Can my work be categorized in a genre, so that it's easier to attract people to my work and find like-minded photographers to learn from?
Coinciding with the release of Steve McCurry: The Iconic Photographs, a photo-book that includes 165 of Steve McCurry’s most famous and iconic images, Phaidon Press have made a number of interviews available on Youtube, with Steve McCurry talking about some of the images. Highly recommended.
Although I consider myself not only talented but also interested in photography, I wouldn’t be able to name more than two or three renowned masters of the art, at least when it comes to street photography. Since this week, I can safely put another name on that list – Vivian Maier. She is yet to achieve the status of a renowned master, but given that her work is up to 60 years old and has just recently been discovered, she is probably halfway there.
Vivian Maier, born in New York City in 1926, passed away on April 21, 2009, just a little more than a year after her work has been purchased in auctions by at least John Maloof and Jeffrey Goldstein. Both of these gentlemen have since picked up the job of promoting late Maier’s work and rightfully so. Maier was not a professional photographer at the time. On her days off work, she roamed the streets of New York City and later Chicago to take thousands of street photographs, most of them with a medium format dual-lens Rollei. However, the strengths and impact of her work is evident and has been praised by many. In my own personal view, her work is as significant as the street photography of master of the art Henri Cartier-Bresson, the father of modern photojournalism.
