Anyway, this thing I’ve been thinking about – it’s that I believe people are immersed in experiencing photography in a completely new way.

Flow is the new way of viewing pictures. When we look back in retrospect, we will be able to see clearly that we’ve been swept up in a new wave. A new wave in our experience of photography. The new wave is the river. It is a river of photos online, uploaded to social networks like flickr or tumblr.

On flickr there is a stat on the ‘photos’ page, which I viewed one day in March this year. It said:

“there were 7,512 uploads in the last minute.”

That could be 450,720 per hour, which could add up to a cool 10 million in one, single day.

Nick Turpin writes with a kind of horror about this phenomenon, in his response to a review of Erik Kessels installation ’24hrs of photos’

He seems to feel suffocated and experiences the mass of images, not as a liquid form, but as:

“a huge democratic ubiquitous cloud of digital imagery available to all continually expanding outwards, blocking out the sun, bigger and more stifling with each new day, no longer individually observable images with their own qualities but an amorphous unedited mass no longer thrusting upwards with power and energy and direction but spreading out, copying, replicating and engulfing everything.”

Turpin sees the mass of images as the negative aftermath of a century’s explosion of creativity. It’s all over and we are suffering the fallout.

However, I can’t help feeling hopeful and joyful about this mass of production, because to me it’s a liquid form. I think it might be a new beginning. The sharing and exchange, not just of pictures but of knowledge; the flow and the easy access. A plasma from which new life emerges.

I don’t get bored or overwhelmed with the river of images, because the river is like life. It rushes past, containing trillions of essential moments. It’s mesmerising and like a stream, I can watch it for a long time.

So it’s a completely different way of experiencing images. It’s not a few select pieces hung on a gallery wall, or edited into a book. There’s as much space as people want to publish as many pictures as they like. In some cases, that does mean an endless stream of detritus floating and lightweight. But after a while you learn how to tap into the richest veins. You discover the most amazing personal diaries, edited but constantly fresh and striving for meaning on a day-to-day basis. You can see individual photographers learning and growing and expressing. You can see the world through their eyes. It’s like the most amazing undersea world of images. You can just dive in at any time and swim and swim and beauty and wonder, just flowes past for you to see and understand.

But I’m not sure that everyone either realises this is happening or accepts that it’s happening, or really appreciates it, even when they are immersed in it. The other day I read a post on flickr by photographer Mike Aviña entitled cleaning house, burning out the brush and it began:

“I just went through my stream and deleted a ton of crap. It felt good. I was amazed at how images I thought had some merit, after six months, looked like shite. I hope that in another year, two years I go back and delete even more. As I just begin to learn to see I am satisfied with less and I purge more.”

I can understand that he is striving to improve his photography. But I think it’s a mistake to treat a flickr photostream as an edited presentation. It’s an alive stream – your life’s blood in a way. So many of the serious committed photographers just don’t see that. To the extent that some have even deleted all their photographs from flickr and left it completely. Drained their pools dry. They’ve experienced a disillusion with social media. More on that in another post.

Photography is moments in time. We used to steal them and frame them and put them on a wall or in shoe boxes, where they would fade and collect dust.

But really, moments aren’t stolen any more, because they’re free and they’re shared. The shared moments are pumped into the tributaries and streams and feed inexorably into a dirty great river and then into a sea.

http://www.flickriver.com/groups/onthestreet/pool/interesting/

I’ve been using a couple of street photography crit groups on Flickr recently, called Grit & Grain and a recent breakaway group Street Crit.

To participate, you do a five minute crit on each photo in the pool and then you submit a photo. Additionally, you mark each photo ‘ditch’ or ‘keep’. Once 10 ditches or keeps have accrued, the photo gets removed from the pool and a keeper ends up in a show pool. There’s usually up to ten pictures in the pool at any one time. Here’s an example of the system at work on one of my photos.

Funnily enough, the very first street photography group I was ever involved with on Flickr was the same format, but I quickly left it because people were very slow to add pictures and do their crits, which were rather short and pointless.

The same happened with the HCSP crit thread – the crits became ridiculously short. The thread is swamped with total beginners and everyone has to make a huge effort to take a deep breathe and say something constructive (kudos to the admins though, who’ve been keeping it going).

Well G&G and Street Crit are currently very lively groups. So if you post a photo, it soon gets a batch of reasonably well-considered crits (for the most part). Sometimes too many… If nine people like the photo and nine people dislike it, you can end up with eighteen crits mostly saying the same thing which is a bit overkill.

So they are good groups, but they have their problems. One is that the real expert photographers don’t take part (with one or two exceptions such as Justinsdisgustin). The really good photographers who take part in general Street Photography discussions on Flickr rarely ask for feedback on their work or give feedback on others work in public. It’s more the wannabes who want that feedback. The experts already have their own peers to get feedback from. On top of all this, some of the better photographers and the pros especially, are very frustrated with social networks right now. Because their photos get ‘stolen’ or misappropriated on other sites and just generally get consumed in an almost bulimic kind of way, with no structure in place for the photographer to be rewarded monetarily for their work.

This situation of disillusionment with social media and the way expert photographers have been leaving Flickr altogether – or withdrawing by deleting lots of their pictures – has been on my mind a lot lately. Not least because I miss listening to those guys points of view and I miss seeing their photos in my favourites. I’ve been trying to write an article about my experience of viewing pictures on Flickr for the past year – a positive experience – and how it contrasts with that disillusion which I’ve seen expressed in articles and discussions. It’s proving to be rather a large topic to grapple with. First installment coming soon though.

So I had seen two needs and I saw an opportunity to meet them both and bring them together. I’ve started my own group: Street Smart Marks Out of Ten. It hinges on peer-to-peer crits, but it has one key difference – periodically we’ll commission expert photographers to come and do crits for us (probably using a crowdfunding platform).

As well as that key aspect, I’ve tweaked the format a bit by having marks out of ten rather than ‘ditch’ and ‘keep’. This means that you never have more than ten crits on one picture; people don’t have to be confused or feel bad when their vote is borderline and the photographer can get a really accurate idea of how the picture is valued by someone. The group is invite only so we can avoid taking on people who’ve don’t really have any clue what street photography is yet.

In just a few days, the group has got going with 30 members and about six photos posted to the pool. On top of that, I have two expert photographers who have expressed interest and think it’s a good idea (though they’re a bit skeptical that people actually would pay for crits). I’m feeling really excited about it. I believe it’s really important for experienced photographers to be valued and for them to remain an active part of the Flickr community.

I took about 400 photos over six sessions and the final session was the best (yesterday – Valentines Day!) I have about six more to upload to flickr, but this is one of my favourites.

I really wanted to catch a clashing colours red coat* right in the centre of the heart display, and I just caught her coming in from the left. I’d been mostly following people coming from the right because I wanted to include more of the shop. In fact, some of the shots I took yesterday (Valentine’s day… well who needs candlelit dinners when you can lurk outside underwear shops with a camera?!) I prefer because they have more context. The poster right in the background pulls you in a bit.

*It would have been rather good if one of the Chelsea Pensioners had passed by.

The threads holding up the heart work quite well, just catching the light.

There’s a socket in the wall which connects up her ear plugs and makes her look as though she’s plugged in.

Apart from last week when it felt like -10˚ in the shade, it was much easier on the Kings Road at 6pm than Oxford Street. One person every few seconds compared to hundreds every few seconds meant less clutter, less overlaps and less stress. In fact it was quite relaxing which was a relief.

I wonder if I shouldn’t have uploaded all my favourite shots onto flickr out of that 400 as it ruins the mystique a bit. But on the other hand, it shows more of what I’m trying to do with this which is more than just make eye candy.

So I’m currently concentrating on about four projects and one of them is looking at fluorescent displays. It actually started in February last year at the Harvey Nichols store in Knightsbridge. I’d just started using flash and I saw some examples of work with a slow shutter speed that I liked. Especially Charalampos Kydonakis AKA Dirty Harry and Charlie Kirk AKA Two Cute Dogs . So I thought I’d try it and mix it up with shop windows.

This is the first picture that got me really interested. I liked the environment appearing to slice into reality.

Loved the vivid colours and fine detail revealed by the flash.

There were some fluorescent sculptures on show at the Saatchi Gallery, so I decided to hang around there for a while and see if I could get anything decent. It was a bit more difficult to catch people in front of the work because they assume you’re taking a picture of the sculpture and hang back. Or they realise they’re likely to be in the picture and duck out. But I did manage a couple of interesting ones.

I like the pale colours in this. In post processing it seemed to work best with a slightly green tint left in it – perhaps because of her red hair. And I like the floating necklace and trailing wiring on the floor.

I was hoping that fluorescents would feature in some shop window display somewhere in London this Christmas and I struck lucky: Selfridges. I consider their displays to be the best in London and it was good to be back where I started with this whole photography fever, a year before.

I went out for about nine sessions each lasting between two and four hours. I have to say I found it hard because of the sheer volumes. It’s the most crowded place in London and the crowds were sweeping around me, running over my feet. And very noisy. Almost to the point of culture shock. Rickshaw bells ringing, sirens, shouting, megaphones, Hare Krishna songs. You name it.

There was also this second level of street life going on that I quickly started to notice. Beggars (one woman with a baby in wooden swaddling clothes) and the classic street gamblers with little silver cups and a ball hidden underneath – they really drew a crowd.

The results of these sessions were quite exciting but also frustrating. This is one of my favourites. If only the guy had an expression as interesting as the girl.

And the shop window clawing in a new victim. Or crowning him. It’s a bit unbalanced. I faded out the object on his nose, but it still intrudes too much…

Here is a link to the whole fluorescents set as it stand so far. Hopefully there will be more to come.

Last week on Tuesday night I shared a viewing of these at the Shoreditch satellite of the London Independent Photography group and people were quite excited by them. So that was encouraging. And also a big thanks to Gerard Nicolas who expressed his enthusiasm on flickr (especially appreciated as I really admire his work) and the Grit and Grain group for their thoughtful comments at the start.

Note: I’m going to try and write more frequent posts – perhaps shorter. I often have conversations in my head for the blog but they seem to be really long and complicated. So I will try to jot down thoughts in a more fluid way.

Here is a lovely film about Gilden:

The parts where he bosses the public around are very funny. He seems to have this uncanny knack of making people feel like he’s doing them the favour.

Zdenek Lesovsky (who works using a similar method to Gilden) was there last week and posted a set of photos afterwards that he made showing Gilden at work. My favourite is this one (sharing switched off so I can’t post it here) http://www.flickr.com/photos/zdenek_lesovsky/6527392851/in/set-72157628465312945 It’s not a portrait of Gilden, but I like the portrayal of his way of shooting. It seems to show the buzz of the moment and to a certain extent it’s a bit of a thrill for people to be photographed as though they were famous for a moment. They are just as important as celebrities to a street photographer. It also conveys (perhaps a bit more successfully than the film) how you can blend into the street when you’re taking pictures. Even when dodging around like Gilden with a flash. However, his style is undeniably confrontational.

All in all, it was a serendipitous week for me. I ‘met’ Bruce Gilden, won a tenner on the lottery and then I was looking through Nils Jorgensen’s photostream and I saw my own brother in one of his pictures! In a whole year of looking at thousands and thousands of street photos, it’s the first time I’ve recognised someone I know. Anyway it was extra good as Nils kindly offered to send my brother a complimentary print.

By the way, what should the collective noun for street photographers be?

Nick Turpin with one of the workshop participants

Is there any point in doing them? Are they worth the money?

Marja one of the curators of the HCSP pool, wrote:

Nick Turpin was hosting a street photography workshop at the School of Life, so I booked up. It was actually a lot cheaper (less than half the price per day) than the 6 day Guardian Masterclass that kicked off the discussion on HCSP.

Nick manages to be pretty focussed but easy going at the same time, which is a good mixture for getting along with a group of 20 different people. He’s also very articulate so he’s able to convey clearly his ideas and thoughts. I felt he was very generous with his time over the weekend workshop, as both evenings we finished late, what with the dinner on Saturday and heading for the pub on Sunday evening. The School of Life make a big effort to make their events sociable so they serve a tasty dinner at their headquarters (a shop on Marchmont Street near Russell Square).

In fact, they pepper the weekend with tasty treats like vodka cocktails and fresh coffee and muffins on Columbia Road market. Which you can’t complain about!

A picture I took at the British Museum location

The basic structure of the workshop was slides and talks plus six ‘shoot on the street’ assignments. We went to some photo friendly (I guess touristy) locations where it’s common for people to be carrying cameras and you don’t stand out. I think really, the workshop was aimed at people who want to give street photography a go for the first time. At least, it assumes newbies will be there. It may well have said that in the course description, but for some reason I jumped to the conclusion that everyone would be the same as me… In other words I assumed that it would be a workshop for street photographers rather than a ‘try street photography’ workshop.

I wonder if he got up in the morning and thought 'I'll dress like a fountain today'.

I can safely say it was well worth the money but I think perhaps a workshop that focussed on editing and on existing work might have been more useful for me. I’ve done 38 of the Street Photography Now Project assignments, so another six that were much the same thing, and effectively involved just going out there and tackling it on your own (sort of but Nick was on hand) weren’t just what I needed. However, I did shoot at a different focal length the whole weekend and I started using continuous shooting and those two things alone were a departure and have led to some pictures I was pleased with. But yes, editing and getting feedback on existing pictures would have been really useful for me.

On the second day, Nick invited a colleague, Sean McDonnell to show us his work. I loved it: very beautiful and dramatic. Even though I generally prefer colour. It was very colourful black and white!

So I would recommend that particular workshop if you want to try street photography. And I’d conclude that workshops are worth doing, as connecting with people face-to-face is somehow very important. It’s hard to explain but I suppose it’s the way you can pick up on the feeling of inspiration from people who really care about what they do.

On the way to the Covent Garden location I stopped at Neals Yard.

It’s in my nature to just do it by myself and find my own way most of the time. And I think with creative work that’s deeply important. But sometimes input from someone experienced just makes a difference.

Here’s one or two more pictures. They’re all from the first day. I think I was just too knackered on the second day.

Not sure if there are places left, but Nick’s next workshop in association with the World Photography Organisation is (glamourously) in New York

And, Nick continues in his mission to promote street photography with the release of in-sight, a new 38 minute short film this week via Distrify ‘a pioneering way to allow independent film makers to charge a small fee per viewing of their film’.

It’s good (especially the Gus Powell interview) and it only costs a couple of quid to watch.

[Edit Tuesday 27 September]
If you’re interested in photography workshops AND travel, check out the trips offered by Maciej Dakowicz. I expect most people reading this will know Maciej’s work, but if you don’t it’s fantastic. Very fresh, ‘spontaneous’ and above all, compassionate. It so often it appears that he’s greatest friends with the people he photographs.

Police advised shops and businesses to shut down after 2pm today. About 4pm I was on a conference call and loads of people from upstairs went whizzing past me on their way out. The business had decided to close down but they hadn’t told my team! There’d been rumours of a couple of gangs moving in our direction. Anyway, I’m not sure if  the rumoured gang materialised because I headed home. No reports of any trouble in London so far and I can’t hear any sirens. It seemed to work asking the shops to shut early and everyone going home.

Pissed off though. I felt why should I be under curfew?! Missed going to my first London Independent Photography meeting on Hoxton Street. Back home I went out for a drink with my neighbours. By a twist of fate about 20 years ago, I live in the middle of one of the most affluent areas of London. Saw about eight shops with smashed windows outside my place.

Anyway, all is quiet tonight. But I think if this carries on every person fit enough should go out in the street and just stand together in long rows down the streets. It’s like it has to be everyone out or everyone in to keep things calm.

If needed I’ll go on Friday to help with the #riotcleanup movement.

p.s I can’t actually believe it’s been two months since my last post. In the meantime I’ve been to the Spanish Pyrenees, organised (with others) and exhibited in a group show in a tattoo parlour in Brixton, taken lots of pictures and dropped my camera. I have a strange perverse or maybe inverse relationship with time…

Best approach is to re-edit at a later date and relegate certain pictures to my Rejects set. It seems to be filling up rather fast.

I had a brief discussion with David Solomons about possible ways to approach an event like this. I took particular notice of what he had to say as he is very experienced and respected. He was talking about the ‘typological’ approach. Which (I just discovered) means taking multiple pictures with the same ‘settings’. Both in camera and in composition and so on.

“Frankie: The typology approach is by far the simplest and often the most effective approach to shooting any project. I for one wouldn’t want to spend another 10 years trying to figure out how to shoot another ‘Up West’ series. ”

Here’s an example he gave ‘A Royal Picnic’ by Tiffany Jones. I did find these a bit boring but I think that’s just because the people’s faces aren’t included and I was skipping through to get the overall idea. I like this Vegetable Sellers in Paharganj better. The extreme opposite of just randomly shooting. So I think David went to the event with the aim of catching the expressions and attitudes of bored people amongst the crowd and including the crowd (my guess from checking out his pics). But he said he was frustrated when he got kettled outside Clarence House.

The Mall by David Solomons

I’ve started a Flickr Gallery of other people’s Royal Wedding photos that I’ve selected from Flickr.

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Since I’ve enjoyed being included in some of the galleries that a few people have created each week relating to the Street Photography Now Project, I thought I’d create one myself from the submissions in the 32nd week.

All the photographs in this selection were created within one week, in response to the following quote by respected street photographer David Gibson “Follow lines of movement for a graphic journey”

by Marian Grozos

This reminds me of fashion and style in iD magazine when it first came out in the 80s and a designer called Fiorucci. The subject is very stylish and the kind of person who’d be stolen for a Benetton ad. It makes me think of globalisation and that phrase ‘cultural melting pot’. It makes you wonder how much people have a cultural identity anymore in major cities. I feel they do, and I feel she does. But this graphic journey takes you around the world and back.

by Justin Vogel

It’s great the way her arm and shoulders create a perfect horizontal. A lot of people try to do spots and stripes on zebra crossings but a zebra on a zebra really cracks it. Her open bag is curious as you can’t see what’s inside but you like to imagine briefly what’s in there. Her drink held aloft, it’s one of those cultural things that’s so contemporary – you just think of how dated the word ‘frappacino’ is going to be a few years down the line. New York is very exotic for me and this stripey Statue of Liberty street perpetuates that in my mind.

by Tom Percy

Had to include this one, as I feel it breaks through the spiral staircase cliche. Mainly because the cliche rarely includes people and is neater and more shell like. This one is a fusion with a spaghetti junction and perfectly it says ‘shopping journey’ on the side. I’m curious to see this in colour.

by Daniel G. Marchand

How to take cold grey water and make it warm and show the intrinsic aliveness of inanimate concrete. And at the same time, an elegant graphic design. The water took me by surprise when my brain first registered it, perhaps because of the flattened graphic effect where you see stripes of grey. I think I would have corrected the tilt on this one though!

by Clarence Loi

This takes me back to childhood in an instant journey of nostalgia. I guess it’s not as strong on the graphic element, but the most graphic part – the chairs – is essential for the story and it IS a train! I love the way the Dad figure looks a bit bored but indulges the children who are delighted. Really touching and joyful.

by Duncan Scoble

I rather like the way this is a little over exposed. If it hadn’t been, it might have seemed too photo library, too perfect. And it matches the hot lemon colours – you could be in Southern Spain or I imagine Italy. And absolutely perfect use of these Selfridges bags which are like a fluorescent rash in Oxford and Regent Street shots in London.

by Canonac

What a lucky encounter! I love the contrast between the wet super saturated yellow and the grainy concrete and dirty clothes of the painter. Nice touches with the tape measure and the stripes framed by the rail in the corner. Corners can often be boring! Perhaps it would have been even better with tape forming a perfect curve on the right. Appropriate shop title as a quest is often integral to a journey.

by chocolate girl

I like the way the force of nature is driving right to left like the diagonal lines in the foreground. This is a picture I could really live with, perhaps because the horizon is so calming. The chimney on the horizon reminds me of a power station so for me the picture is about energy, power and forces and the graphic elements and movement help illustrate that.

by Yanick

What a beautiful picture. The layering is literal with the mesh and stripes on the glass and the two main slices of inside and outside. The interior is appealing for the way the kids are so absorbed in their reading and it gives the feeling of the way their minds are moving through the information. Then when you look out you have the bold graphics of the plane and you think of the airport, the centre body of those spidery plane route maps. It’s one of those pictures that works well aesthetically but leaves you plenty of room for your own imagination.

by Magnus Fröderberg

It’s like a giant Gulliver looked at an ordinary scene and leaned forward and just bent things a little out of shape. As others have pointed out, the double green man is unusual. The sphinx parked next to the street cleaner is a lovely surprise. The elegant background. The flagpole and broom echoes. The man’s costume with the big black patches. So much in there and a great use of vertical, especially with the pavement lining up perfectly on the left edge.

by Kevlin Henney

A lego landscape. Everything is ordered and neat. Then the guy in his splayed and ridiculous pose. And I like the way he’s literally hooked into a connection with his surroundings. Balance of detail, action and space (water) is good and the colours are a harmonious range of steely blues, terracotta and mossy greens.

by Susan Barwood

OK, technically a bit off with the blur and I would have cropped out the bike wheel lower left. But very nice lines. The guy’s hand is perfectly horizontal and you can feel his balance, you’re really with him looking at this. The sheer slope behind contrasts with his stillness. As with Daniel’s above, I feel this brings life to the hard inanimate elements, especially how the metal matches the human skin tone.

by Adam

The graphic lines tell this great story of the keystone cops moment that occurred just before the shot. The composition is simple but not boring and the path and flower bed look just like a race track. It would have been lovely if the figure was a little clearer to see – white trousers or something.

by Mathieu Jaïs

This was Mathieu’s B-side rather than the actual shot selected for the assignment. However I really love it for the extraordinary saturated emerald colour, turned up to the max with the bright grass and yellow dandelions. The gesture of the man makes me feel like he can hear the volume of that green. Joyful zest.

by Rense Haveman

Some problems here with the composition – very tight top and bottom, and ‘telecom’ on his head, but a very clear (graphic?) portrayal of the nightmare and dream that being a parent seems to be. All the closeness, affection, responsibility and stress in one picture. She’s a cute little monkey clinging on with a very indulged sulky look. I like that her toy looks like a banana and the father figure has this bag full of bananas that looks about to burst.

by Maxine Moss

The deep velvety blue of her jacket with the synthetic velvet on the seats attracted me. And the total exposure of the woman in sleep. The whole train is organised graphically so it makes great sense for the instruction.

To view all 351 submissions for that week, check out the Instruction #32 Group

He seemed so alive, even though you could see his age. I love the way he laughed about things and didn’t seem to care for fame or money. You can see a recent interview at the end of the video (about half way down the page) here www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13582880 It seems weird when the interviewer asks him if the time in prison affected his ‘career’. I don’t think it was only a career, it was his life. BBC interviewers are such pompous pricks sometimes.

Video for his recent album. It reminds me of the first time I ever saw New York. I landed on Halloween night.

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