Street Photographer Inner Soul
Here I am, back on the street...
“You’ve got another thing comin” from Judas Priest spreads through the air as it comes out of a burger shop.
It's the Mexico City you don't expect if you don't live here. And I live here. I work here. That it means i photograph here. Most of the time. A photo contributor aka Chris Weeks states: The deluded wear a camera; a photographer uses his camera. I have always made my gear choice based on what I need to obtain certain results, which is my photography. And I have to respond only to this need. Today I am using Canon Rebel cameras. I find it ironic because I am rebel. In coming out of a certain logic that wanted me to be an ambassador, I found myself faced with a choice and the choice was to operate exclusively in terms of performance with respect to my objectives as a photographer. Don't get me wrong: when I was ambassador I believed in everything I supported and shared, as always. But my fault was not looking out the window.
Street photography continues to represent my path. And therefore it fills my creative days. Wherever I am.
The flow is a state of mind in which a person becomes fully immersed in an activity. The positive psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi describes flow as a state of complete immersion in an activity. Being immersed can be defined as a state of focus in which a person is completely absorbed in doing his work. Achieving this state let me feel greater enjoyment, energy, and involvement in what I do.
The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost. - Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, interview for Wired magazine
Street Photography becomes salvific because through this attainment of the flow I can see the benefits of an activity that becomes therapeutic. The effect generated is that of a state of concentration that leads to calm. All personal problems or those of the world, increasingly ugly and nasty, suddenly disappear. It doesn't even matter how much dystopia is visible in front of you.
Everybody takes a picture, but taking a picture is very different from making a photograph. A photograph is something that has an idea, that you give shape to, whereas a picture has no consciousness. - Joel Meyerowitz
Too many people are convinced that the method of doing street photography is due to technical solutions. And that's what you encounter most often in manuals and workshops as well. These are formulas protracted by time, poured out on the public so as not to make life too complicated, but then there is the street and the street doesn’t allow you to think too much. Thestreet is here, in front of me. And that's the only real thing that I have to learn to manage. In its unpredictability, in the impossibility of calculating and predicting. So what I am doing?
While I turn my camera in front of people it is all a mixture of emotions, doubt and adrenaline, the desire to make my own a certain image that I see first in my thoughts. I know that a non-consenting photo can lead to issues. I am open to any reaction from smiles to confrontations.
Since I've been a street photographer, I've been a different person. This thing is difficult to explain and probably only a street photographer can really understand it. The contemplative gaze of a street photographer on people and things is somewhat different from that of others. I explore myself through the way I engage with people. The way I phtograph people can be a great way of learning about myself.
Curiosity is essential in this constant process, because is in constant evolution. In the change both of society and mine, I always discover new things which I then end up telling visually. Year after year, place after place, experience after experience and frame after frame, I can see how my photography changed. But at the same time remaining in a certain line of content perspective. I think I am showing that Street Photography is not about a fancy camera like the message comes from many photographers. Street Photography is realist, sincere, honest. Street Photography is more of an attitude and a state of mind than a genre. It is the way that you experience photography. How you photograph and yes, also how you edit. Street Photography is anything.
