Continuing the search

I've been away (see above) but I'm back now, and more confused about what makes the perfect picture than ever. Watch this space...

A perfect picture of a perfect city...

New York - huge, vibrant, and bustling - also has an underlying sense of calm to it that I've not yet experienced in London and other metropolitan cities. I suspect this is partly down to the vehicles - the powerful 'gas guzzlers' that cruise along like limousines (and are increasingly under threat thanks to rising oil prices). The one-way streets host armies of cabs - lining up at the traffic lights in a uniform colour (the famous yellow), design, and quiet air of authority. They add to the overall atmosphere, certainly, but somehow don't dominate it, which is a relief to (car-phobic) me, and I suspect many others.

As well as searching for original viewpoints and subjects, I hoped to capture in one exposure the overall impression New York had on me - one picture to remind me how it felt to walk down the street. This image had to include a cab. Transport is central to the identity of places and eras throughout history - the big red London buses and Hackney cabs spring to mind. As do the differences between emergency vehicles around the world. To a tourist in unfamiliar surroundings these everyday objects are more conspicuous than ever, so inevitably feature heavily in promotional information and well circulated images that become cliches of themselves. This is the type of photograph I was after - a picture postcard to evoke the unique atmosphere of this ridiculously famous place.

Here are a few of my attempts...

Photography and memory - is there room for both?

Re-reading WG Sebald's Austerlitz got me thinking about photography and memory...

Some photos become insignificant with age, whereas others make the moment more important than it felt at the time; arguably ageing into 'perfect pictures' reflecting 'perfect moments'. These photos come to influence our recollection of what happened - as the actual memories fade into the distance.

A tutor once asked us to visualise an early childhood memory, and consider how the image played out in our mind - did we re-experience it, or watch it happen from an outsider's perspective? For me it was the latter and when prompted i realised my parents have a photograph that captures the same moment. I've always longed for a better memory so it bothered me that I might not have many genuine childhood memories of my own! Only those associated with photographs. Does this mean that in 30 years time my twenties will be but a happy blur until my memory is jogged by a photo? I'll have to wait and see.

Supposing photographs weren't such a big part of my life: would I take more responsibility for my memory - take note and remember things better rather than posing for a picture, or taking a snapshot myself, so I can move on. Personal-history photos generally capture life-changing or enriching experiences, but if the act of taking a photograph means we bother less with the actual memories and they all fade into a blur, do they do more harm than good? Does photography make our memory lazy? Or am I just looking for excuses - reasons why the detail in some of my happiest memories is so sketchy?

Airbrushing - the only route to the perfect portrait?

I admit I was concerned by Alesha Dixon's recent channel 4 documentary in which she tried to find a publisher who was willing to put an un-airbrushed image of her on the front cover of a magazine. Needless to say most of the big names wouldn't return her calls and it was a fairly small (though apparently very brave) magazine that eventually published it. The thing is... it's not as if Alesha takes a bad photo - or as if she wasn't happy to have her hair, makeup and styling done by top notch pro's. Quite the opposite. So why was it such a struggle to find a cooperative publisher?

The problem lies in our association between magazines and the 'truth'. We group them with newspapers and other 'factual' publications; when really they tread a fine line between fact and fiction. Hence the airbrushing debate rages on. Popular media is not a million miles away from more traditional art forms, in which the subjectivity of 'beauty' is often happily and uncontroversially depicted. The scornful gallery favourite 'my kid could have done that' is almost exclusively negative; the general consensus is that art should be unique, subversive, and often impossible in one way or another. Likewise we'd prefer not to see ourselves, or images like ourselves, reflected all around us. We desire our magazine covers to be stunning, just like our wall hangings.

A friend of mine has just completed work experience with a London-based fashion photographer, during which a size eight model was branded too big from the waist down. The photographer, also a size 8, remarked that she didn't want to see images of herself when she bought fashion magazines. She wanted to see perfection, albeit a largely impossible perfection. It may be twisted that images of 'reality' are becoming increasingly unrealistic, but I don't see the trend reversing any time soon.

So - can we only take a perfect portrait if the subject represents human perfection? I don't think so. Like all successful images, a perfect portrait represents its subject accurately, subversively, controversially, or however the brief or personal aims dictate - either that or it's a shot in the dark that happens to work brilliantly - with or without supermodels and oodles of post production work. That said, a commercial shot may benefit from them: someone's obviously buying the magazines.

A Universal Hunt for the Perfect Picture?

Apparently not everyone is as photo-bonkers as me! I visited my parents the other day, and a family friend was there, having just returned from holiday. It transpired that he'd spent two weeks in Italy with no camera: "it's all up here" he clarified, pointing to his head. I'm ashamed to say that we, a camera obsessed family, laughed at him. The idea that anyone could leave the house at all, let alone for two weeks in a beautiful country like Italy is pretty foreign to the four of us. There were cameras on hand to document my entire childhood. Putting holiday photos in albums is an event, as is showing them to family, friends and strangers at the bus stop. The entire process, in fact, is celebrated. Don't get me wrong; we don't have darkrooms instead of loos; it's just that cameras are a part of our every day life. My mum's reminded me on several occasions that even when money was really tight she would rarely scrimp on photos. And that of course was in the days when digital cameras were non-existent, so each picture - however unsuccessful - was printed out by the kind folk at Jessops.

But maybe our friend has the right idea - maybe he will have nothing to cloud his memories of a wonderful holiday. A holiday he experienced sans interruption rather than partially through the lens. His whole trip is arguably more pure and open minded because his was a search only for experience, without the additional desire to capture it on film, and in a way that would do it justice for friends and family back home, and himself a few years down the line.

So, maybe we'd all be better off without a camera - so we experience everything for what it is: an experience (not a photo opportunity). Should we all throw our cameras out of the bedroom window?? I can't believe I'm even considering it.

The Rectangular Phenomenon

We are used to experiencing life in rectangular format - television, the cinema, books, computer screens, train/taxi/car/bus windows; half of everything we see is through a makeshift frame. For want of a better phrase; let's call this 'the rectangular phenomenon'.

We're used to this but it's not exactly natural. After all, to my knowledge cave men and women didn't peer out of a UPVC window frame as the world passed by, let alone lounge about in front of the television or scour the Internet for the latest animal skin accessories. For us though, the situation is pretty different - many of our everyday experiences are filtered through the rectangular format.

Other than the picture frame itself, and the window - which has been around in some shape or form for hundreds of years; anything frame-like tends to be modern. Only in the last couple of hundred years have television, cinema, cars, and eventually the computer all become popular: and we've had to adapt pretty quickly. During this time we also started to look through one of the biggest contributors to the rectangular phenomenon of all: the camera view finder.

I suppose what this means is that after regularly absorbing messages, communication, and entertainment in a pre-framed manner, we now take naturally to carrying out the framing process ourselves. Sort of like an evolutionary process. It's not unrelated that industries cashing in on the rectangular phenomenon are booming; and younger generations have been reared on their products, which capitalise on simultaneous advances in technology. Photography itself is more user friendly than ever before, which probably adds to the ease with which so many people take to the medium.

The question is... how on earth have we come this far in so little time. How is it so natural to communicate in this way - via the rectangle. How is it that we are preoccupied with framing the goings on around us - so as to document, savour, and reproduce our experiences. And how have we come to deem documentation of the event to be as crucial as actually experiencing it?

Everyone's having a go...

Boy has photography come a long way since that first shot out of Nicéphore Niépce's window circa 1826. The art form is so widespread now, that, rather than simply admiring the view, we look at it critically, and consider how best to capture it through a lens.

Photography is embedded in our everyday culture now, so much so that it's unusual not to own a camera. Digital equipment was only briefly too expensive for the masses, before becoming the norm and ultimately more economical than film photography. Contemporary technology is increasingly hybrid - things like camera-phones are common place so we go nowhere without a camera of some description. It's not just special occasions that are captured on 'film' - anything counts as a Kodak moment now, since the preoccupation is increasingly with framing the experience to achieve the 'perfect' record, rather than experiencing the 'perfect' moment itself.

People have been known to say that they had a disappointing time on holiday but it was worth going just for the photographs; just to show they'd been there. What on earth does that mean?!! Seriously, really think about it... what the bloody hell are they talking about?!!! Is it really more important to have a wonderful set of photographs than memories of a fantastic holiday? Surely no one would agree with that... would they? (Other than, perhaps, a travel photographer who needs the pictures to earn some dollar).

I'd bet that everyone has lamented like me that 'it was incredible, I just wish I'd had my camera with me'. In other words, there's no point in having a jolly good time unless you're documenting it in glorious technicolour (or the delicate tones of black, white and grey). In fact - you can have a decidedly crap time, but as long as you pose for some 'hilarious' pictures to post on Facebook the day after, you'll get away with it scot free. I've been on some nights out when the photographic 'evidence' portrays a much better evening than we actually had.

Maybe then, try hard enough and if the moment itself isn't perfect, you can still achieve the 'perfect' picture, although there's a lot of competition out there: everyone's having a go.