I don’t believe in the elaborate setting up of images of events. As a photojournalist I want to record and comment on what is happening, not to produce staged images.
Of course I’m not naive enough to think that me being there and taking pictures has no effect on the situation. Even were I to act like Cartier-Bresson, hiding his Leica and pouncing on his prey without warning – though in practice he didn’t always work like this either. Flies on the wall don’t take pictures, and even they get swatted at times. Like it or not, we are part of the action.
Actually I do rather like it most of the time. Like getting up close and rather personal, often deliberately using flash fill more to draw the subject’s attention than to alter the lighting, though it usually does that as well. And I do like to shoot several pictures, working through slight variations of my idea before I’m satisfied that if it works I’ve got it working. Of course many ideas still fail, but it’s seldom from want of trying.
So yes, I interact with people and they respond to me, but still in general they choose their responses, not me. Very occasionally I may ask someone to look at me, but usually I’m happy with their choice whether to look at me or away. Yesterday I did ask a couple of people to move placards so I could see things they were masking, occasionally I’ve tidied a branch or some grass out of a foreground, or removed some litter, but generally I don’t interfere with the subject.
At yesterdays Fossil Fuel’s Day demonstration in Parliament Square I watched with some annoyance as one photographer spent around 15 minutes rearranging the cooling towers, demonstrators and banner to produce a rather dull composition in front of Big Ben. Like the other photographers present I was annoyed because it stopped us getting on with taking pictures, and turned what was just getting interesting into a boringly formal situation.
It’s something that often happens with photographers at events, who want to organise things for their own particular view of what a picture of the event should look like. Local press photographers are usually the worst offenders.
Then there are some press photographers who always want other photographers to stand further away so they can take shots with a longer lens. I use a 200mm quite often, but seldom to take things I could take with a 28mm. You can get too close to things – and sometimes circumstances force us to. At times I’ve been pushed into actual physical contact with the people I’m photographing, which makes it hard even with an extreme wide lens. But in general, Capa’s dictum “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough” is a good one.
Later we were able to get back to taking pictures
Back to yesterday, none of us like being bossed around, whether when being posed and having pictures or if you are taking pictures. It was behaviour that showed a lack of respect for the subject and for the other photographers present, and also that undermines photography as a medium of record. It makes it PR photography rather than reporting.
This is one area where journalistic practice in the UK is poor compared to that in the USA. Photographers working for the press here do things as a matter of course that would be firing matters there, failing to observe the clear boundary that they insist on between news and features.
It did mean that I – and others, including the person who had spent ten minutes arranging things and getting in anyone else’s way – didn’t get as good pictures as we might otherwise have done of the centrepiece of the protest – which was a shame.
More about the event and more pictures of course on My London Diary.