Card #17
Trust
Any relationship not based on trust
is doomed to decay.
- Exercise -
Trusting your instinct is imperative in
photography. Sometimes you have just
a split second to decide how to frame a
photograph. You think about it too long
and it's gone. Find a busy place...a shopping
mall, amusement park, or a downtown street.
The photographs you make must be as spontaneous
as possible. Try to turn off your brain and
turn on your heart.
There is a long tradition of "street photography" and many excellent practitioners of the art. The subway images of Walker Evans come to mind. Personally, I've always felt a wee bit self-conscious about photographing people "unawares". It's that old dichotomy of photographs "taken" and photographs "received". I feel as if I need to ask their permission first and make them co-creators of my photographs. But sometimes I just hang my camera around my neck and release the shutter spontaneously and trust that something will turn up as it did with this image in Galway, Ireland in 2007. Trusting plays into your intuitive sensibilities and that is an imortant place for the contemplative photographer. I rarely worry now about whether I will be able to make any worthwhile images when I go out to photograph. I know that I will make the images I am meant to make if I trust the process.
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