I think there’s a certain intimacy that comes with taking a photo. Something I don’t quiet know how to approach or handle.
That’s why this week it was a huge challenge to take my phone to the streets and ask people to capture something that felt so forced. I tried to crack jokes, to smile, to make them feel comfortable but I was just taking these photos to fill a quota something I couldn’t seem to shake off as I ticked off another portraits completed. While I see the beauty in the canid, in everyday life…I just don’t think it’s a style I’d ever be comfortable with myself. I am to soft, unable to put the means of art, above someone else’s comfort and it felt I was asked to do in Fridays exercise.

People will say that when you enter a public space you’re already on camera. It’s the law  – you’re allowed to take photos in public spaces. But we leave things up to context, we scowl at boys who take photos of girls in their school dresses. Make a distinction that as long as it’s art we’re not exploiting anyone. That this persons entire life isn’t reduced to a blurry photograph I took in a panic to get out of their hair, or a framed piece of “art” on the walls of a gallery opening we paid money to enter.

In preparation for this next assignment I will take the effect to get to know my subject, maybe treat them to lunch and really make sure they want their life and body obscured by my shaky hands. Above all else this is whats important to me as a media practitioner.