Back on the Horse: Night Street Photography
I hate posting on Instagram. There are few bigger anti-climaxes in life. A bold statement, perhaps, but a lot of people don’t remember — or never experienced — how it was in the “good old days”. I’m talking 2018 and earlier, for the Instagram OGs. It’s been many years now since Instagram settled into its final, fully capitalistic form: once the users were captured and the competition obliterated, that’s when the real squeeze began.
All those servers need to be paid for. Reach doesn’t come for free these days — obscurity very much does. I can remember the days of 1,000 likes per post; the days when, if I hadn’t hit 100 likes within the first half hour or so, I’d archive the post, accepting that this time the “algorithm had fucked me”. I’d repost later that day, or the next, when things would be back to normal.
The good old days of Instagram
The New Normal
These days I’ll post something and, in the worst cases, might get two likes in an hour. I don’t even bother archiving the post to save for another day. The algorithm is never getting “back to normal”. I just shut the app with a sense of resignation and go back to something more constructive — vacuuming the house, cleaning the tile grout in the bathroom, maybe even taking photos!
A Glutton for Punishment?
So why post at all? These days I think of it more as a marker — proof that I have photos of a certain quality. I curate whatever I’ve shot recently: delete the out-of-focus ones (with the Sony I no longer have many of those), bin the experiments that didn’t work, until I’m left with a few that might be good enough with a bit of post-processing magic.
Once they’re posted, that’s the end of it. The activity is over. For me, it’s simply a way of holding myself accountable — measuring progress by whether I’ve made something that feels good enough for public consumption.
Granted, it’s easy to convince yourself you have something worth posting when you’re looking at ten mediocre photos and one or two that are only slightly less mediocre — even though you know, deep down, that if you were on a hot streak those photos wouldn’t have been entertained at all. That’s when you have to be honest with yourself, accept that you’ve posted shit photos, and try to do better next time.
It’s fine to post garbage, as long as you know it is. And when you eventually have some better work, you can always archive those terrible posts and pretend they never happened.
The Lightroom catalog started to look a little bare after July
Creative Purgatory
A strange thing has happened recently. Occasionally I’ve felt the urge to post something, only to open Lightroom and find tumbleweed. I had photos I could post — as long as I didn’t mind that they were either old or garbage. These days I pretty much refuse to post old work. For one, I get bored of looking at my old stuff, and I don’t want to turn into a tribute account, recycling past hits just to scrape a few likes.
There are plenty of accounts that do this, which is fine, but for me, if I only post new work then I have nothing to post until I actually go out and make new photos. It’s just another way of holding myself accountable.
Anyway, off track again. My friend John would message me asking if I wanted to go out and shoot, and I just didn’t feel like it. That September/October stretch is the worst time for street photography — after work the light is garbage, the sun can’t get over the buildings, so everything feels shrouded in darkness, yet it’s still not dark enough for proper night photography.
Near Dark
Once November rolls around, though, things change a little. The clocks have changed (a pet hate of mine) and, for better or worse, we’re plunged into darkness overnight. But this is when a beast awakens in me. It craves neon. It’s a vampire for emotion, a seeker of the strange. And all of these things can be found at night, in plentiful supply.
Without a doubt, the best time is pre-Christmas. The markets are up, which means high foot traffic and — purely by dint of numbers — more opportunities for people-focused photography.
This night-photography season I’ve done more shooting with others rather than going out solo: photographers including Lee Cooper, James Cochrane, Jon Aspinall, and John Hughes, fellow worshipper of the Eggnog Latte. I enjoy this aspect of photography more than I used to, when I was always obsessed with focusing on keeper numbers or in competition, worried about shot stealing and things like that.
Shooting with another people is a chance to learn, sometimes to teach but most of all to just hang out and have fun. God knows there’ll be plenty of times in life to shoot on ones own.
Back in the Saddle?
So what does this all mean? Am I out of a slump, or just a fair-weather photographer? I suspect the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Street photography shouldn’t be reserved only for sunny days, holidays, or Christmas markets, but it’s a demanding genre. Even with the strongest work ethic — or the deepest love for it — it can be draining after a while.
As you mature as a street photographer, you start to recognise the street’s tendency to chew people up and spit them out. Sometimes it’s worth waiting for the right conditions, and when they arrive, riding the wave until it breaks.
The Gambler
A little anecdote for all you ghouls out there: when you’re in the zone — in photography, or anything creative — they call it a hot streak. A friend of a friend* of mine was a hardcore gambler, a fiend for blackjack. One time he hit a hot streak, winning hundreds of pounds at the table. True to form, he wanted to ride the wave until it broke. And it did. He stayed at the table until he’d shat his pants and lost all his money. I have a certain amount of respect for that level of commitment, in some ways.
Conclusion
Anyway, let’s move past that gruesome story so I can wrap up this blog and get back to my lazy Sunday. We were talking about fair-weather photographers — am I one? Lately, probably. And that’s fine. I’m okay with that. You should be too. Just remember: when you ride out into the surf to catch the perfect wave, do it with the commitment of our gambler friend, and make sure that when it’s all said and done, you’ve got a portfolio to show for it.
*you can fuck right off all those who think the “friend” is me, I NEVER gamble. I hate losing money!
