I was reading a thread on a photography site recently where someone was requesting advice on how to best approach a new city or environment, capturing the essence of that place and those people's lives. I responded, "I would say that it's necessary to have a general theme. Typically I have an idea, whether it's focusing on the juxtaposition of wealth/ inequality, looking at the architectural development of the place, interactions between socio-economic classes/ races, etc. While this keeps you focused, allow yourself to stray if something impressionable takes place, but having a theme keeps me turning the next street corner with curiosity rather than stranded in a three block radius."
That being said, I realize that I have been relatively established in Asheville six months now and haven't really dedicated much time - if any - to explore Asheville beyond my radius, which usually takes me outside Asheville daily. I often shoot as an excursion, more interested in stories from afar rather than the stories of where I'm living. Even as I write this, I don't believe it's true, that I'm less interested in where I am, but more, that I'm intimidated in the places I'm comfortable.
When Shosha and I were living in Buenos Aires, I felt curious and excited to be somewhere in the city with intentionality, exploring something so foreign to me even as the city had begun to feel common with my daily routines. And still, I felt constantly intimidated by something else, by being seen as trespassing on a different culture. I was concerned with seeming patronizing behind my lens. And honestly, I was especially concerned with having my camera stolen (we were mugged soon before we left).
In March 2007, I went to a protest where Hugo Chavez was speaking at the same time Bush held a meeting in Plata del Mar over some trade agreements with Argentina. As we were entering the converted futbol stadium, I turned around and took a picture of two boys behind us. One was facing down but looking at the camera; he seemed angry. Over his shoulder, another boy was looking up, and it's his face that I can't really gather. There's surprise, but there's also something else on his face that I've never really been able to put my finger on.
Something about that photograph always intimidated - and intimidates - me about shooting people. On the one hand, there's seemingly overt aggression, which I'd like to believe has nothing to do with me and my camera. And on the other hand, there's an expression that's more subtle but confusing, and in that, is similarly disconcerting. Both stories are honest, and that's what I love to see conveyed in an image, and that's what I'm similarly intimidated by, because in every point on the spectrum between the two, I can never decide where I fit in. As a photographer, I'm conveying something about my space and time, but not something intrinsic about me or the subject. Radiohead's Thom Yorke sums it up well:
There's a gap in between
There's a gap where we meet
Where I end and you begin
