I found this video featuring some thoughts by Gus Powell via Nick Turpin‘s site I linked to yesterday.

I really like where he talks about street photography being an additive process. When it’s really clicking, that’s exactly how it should work, imo.

Find a basic scene that attracts you for some reason. Observe patterns. Click when at the moment where there’s a story that can be frozen in front of your lens.

When I came upon these two waiting by a car park in DC, the gentleman on the right was singing a real stirring bluesy vocal. Unfortunately, when I happened upon them he was just finishing, so I didn’t have time to flip my camera to video and capture a bit, but as soon as he saw me raise the camera to snap this shot they both burst out laughing at my interest in their little encounter.

I love their expressions.

Strangers can be awesome.

Also, if you like great street photos take a look at Nick Turpin‘s work. (Which I discovered because it was featured on the always awesome Flakphoto).

It’s election day here in my home town of Saint John–municipal elections for mayor and council.

It’s funny–I’m fairly politically aware, and I even have volunteered for various political campaigns over the last 10 years. But when it comes to the actual act of voting, it feels immoral. I can’t quite explain it, but I do not have the exuberance for the collective wisdom of individuals that others seem to muster every voting day.

I’m not saying I don’t believe democracy is a good political system, or anything like that, only that I know I am personally uncomfortable with the actual act of voting. At the core of the feeling is an appreciation that those most likely to offer as candidates are almost necessarily also those least likely to rule in any way I’d actually want.

Sometimes I wonder if random selection, like the way we choose juries, would result in any better or worse political leadership.

At least if we chose leaders randomly, there would be a good chance that most of them would just want political processes over as quickly as possible so they could get back to their families and television shows.

“A photograph is both a pseudo-presence and a token of absence. Like a wood fire in a room, photographs–especially those of people, of distant landscapes and faraway cities, of the vanished past–are incitements to reverie” – Susan Sontag from On Photography.

I can’t resist the constant urge to use strangers as elements of a landscape when I photograph in larger cities. More on that later, maybe.

Also, check out Edward Sanderson’s photos of Detached Spaces.

Over the next few days, you can expect some photos from my trip to Washington, DC. I didn’t have a lot of time to shoot the city, and I pretty much stuck to a few streets near my hotel and some other spots I was shooting for work.

I’ve found the city a place where you can capture some oddly photogenic moments–the kind of photos where spending a little time can reveal some unexpected details.

It’s the kind of photography I enjoy a lot.

“I began to wonder – I knew I was an artist or wanted to be one – but I was wondering whether I really was an artist. I was doing such ordinary things that I could feel the difference. Most people would look at those things and say, “Well, that’s nothing. What did you do that for? That’s just a wreck of a car or a wreck of a man. That’s nothing. That isn’t art.” They don’t say that anymore.” – Walker Evans

“In the end it all comes down to this: you have a choice (or more accurately a rolling tangle of choices) between giving your work your best shot and risking that it will not make you happy, or not giving it your best shot — and thereby guaranteeing that it will not make you happy. It becomes a choice between certainty and uncertainty. And curiously, uncertainty is the comforting choice.” – Ted Orland – Art & Fear

“Being a photographer is making people look at what I want them to look at.” - Ruth Orkin

That might’ve been true for Ruth Orkin, but I’m not so sure it applies to all photography. It’s more than just making people look at what you want them to look at — it’s making them see what they’ve been looking at all along in a different way, maybe.

Random links.

I don’t like every photo Dan Winters makes, but when I like them I like them a lot.

Springsteen’s SXSW keynote is worth a listen.

Joerg Colberg wrote a really popular blog post about how to make a photobook. I don’t agree at all, but go read it anyway.

Ed Panar’s tumblr continues to be wonderful.

This is a cool created photo.

I probably enjoyed this video more than I should have.

Same with this one.

Still loving Shannon Richardson’s color photography.

This guy may just be the best street photographer in NYC.

When the day started today, I didn’t think we were going to get any good light at all. Now, I know photographers like this kind of light–especially a particular brand of portrait photographer, but not me. I want light like in the Saint John Series photos.

Turns out we did get some good light, and I made a bunch of uptown photos I’ll share over the next few days. But this morning I went to tackle some photos I’ve been meaning to take for a long time–a couple of the old hotels along Manawagonish.

I love these structures and, of course, the signage.