I read this labelling recently on The Online Photographer and I can’t help the feeling that it sounds a tad patronizing – but maybe I am only overly sensitive and don’t want to see such a readymade denomination fitting my own selection of images.
Yet those streets, facades and doors are a substantial part of a city meeting a visitor (or vice versa), and they for sure do this in a defining manner. For me this was the second visit to Budapest, and the first where I had even some hours to stroll without other liabilities, just following my open eyes. It definitely made a difference to walk in a town where I didn’t understand a single word that was talked in the street – it really let me fall back on my visual perception, and this sense was in a certain oscillating motion between the recognition of the many similarities with my home surroundings and the blunt differences in many details. I certainly got into a mood of higher sensitivity for shapes, colors and details – especially those of the urban-detail-and-doorway genre, as they offered themselves so willingly to the stranger.
Being a fellow “urban-detail-and-doorway” kind of photographer, I have to say I felt the same way. I live in an urban environment and these are the things I see every day. Why wouldn’t I photograph them?
Yes ready carefully!
And yes, I also like to take photographs of doors, although generally I don’t feel home in urban environments.
You read carefully!
And yes, I also like to take photographs of doors, although generally I don’t feel home in urban environments.
(Sorry, I should write carefully…)
Appreciate your comments, fellows, but remember that Mike’s blog (The Online Photographer) is for photo enthusiasts—those whose interest in photography is the equipment and process, not the visual, expressive side.
Credit Mike with taking the trouble to make a post about the Reykjavik blog, even though it was outside the ‘comfort zone’ for most of his audience. I was amazed at how many stopped by, even briefly.
Juha, Stephen, Tyler – thanks for chiming in. It seems that my feelings about this choice of denomination are not that unintelligible. Of course it’s Mike’s blog – which btw. I do read often and see as a valuable ressource in many aspects – so I am not in the position to criticize his choice of words.
That photography blogs and websites are very often concentrating on the technical aspects for sure is true, but even if many of the T.O.P. reader search and appreciate this, Mike very often features photographers or photographs in a content oriented approach. And in this respect I have learnt a lot over there.