Mitch Alland
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 p.2 #14 · The opposite of "meaningless street photography"... | |
petersm59 wrote:
Indeed, meaning is totally subjective. And perhaps the word meaning is too loose to define. I really think what we are trying to define is whether or not either the photographer has any emotional connection to what they are doing, and are they able to convey that to the viewer...And frankly, this is one of the most interesting threads I've seen here. Talking about something difficult, something deeper than just making a pretty picture is almost nonexistent on any forum.
All we have to share is our point of view, and as is always the case, some people have more to offer than others. What I find meaningful might not apply to others. Show me what only YOU see, not just what matches what you've seen other people do.
Photography, or any art for that matter, is a titanic struggle between form, or how it looks, and content which is the subject matter and how the photographer engages it. Form usually wins in most cases, and especially in the hands of people who are less emotionally engaged with their subject matter.
Content is harder to parse and more difficult to engage with as both a producer and as a viewer. Engagement requires an emotional connection, and a willingness to attempt to express those feelings in one way or another, along with the viewer being open to receiving it. The best artists find a way to balance the two, and even for them, their audience may be limited.
What trips the switch for me is a consistent body of work that is a reflection of the time and place of the image combined with a sense of pathos and empathy from the photographer that reflects their own sense of who they are and how they fit in. People who do this for me: Robert Frank, Gene Smith, Diane Arbus, Bruce Gilden, Helen Levitt, August Sander, Avedon, Mary-Ellen Mark, Walker Evans, Greg Girard, Garry Winogrand, and others whose names escape my old and feeble mind.
For my own practice, it's all about seeing something about the people I photograph that I can connect with. I usually see something in them that is familiar to me from a memory or an experience, almost like how a smell will conjure up a feeling. I shoot with intention and my goal is to express how I feel about what I see. I have no interest in making pretty pictures, or pictures of subject matter that I feel no connection to.
I don't know if I'm successful with that. I don't pretend to be a know it all, it's just how my practice has evolved over the past half century. At a certain point, on a technical level, I could make any photograph, but I had to dig deeper to find more of a connection. As I get older, I seem to get more specific about what I want to photograph, and care less about what others think of what I do. I take the idea of making a statement seriously. My time is limited, and I have no use for making images that might look good over the sofa, or trying to make a better landscape than Ansel, or a better bird photo than anyone here on this forum. I stick to what matters to me and to what I care most about. People.
What is meaning? I have no idea.
Do your photos reflect your intention? Only you can answer that.
And, just to put my photos where my keyboard is, here is a link to my website.
https://www.mikepeters-photography.com/Personal-Projects
I like to think that everything I do is meaningful. I used to do commercial work for lots of companies, magazines and organizations whose ethos did not align with my point of view. The money was good, but that wasn't enough. Now, for the past 25 years I shoot professionally for a university where the work I do supports the mission of an institution that works towards the greater good in society. To me, doing work that I can believe in, for myself and for my clients, is very important to me.
Purpose and intention are everything. ...Show more →
Thanks for this eloquent post. Had a look at your website: it blows me away! Your engagement with the subjects is clear: I would say, intense. I'll be going back to your site. Wonderful work! I hope others will look at it as well: https://www.mikepeters-photography.com/Personal-Projects
Edited on Oct 01, 2025 at 02:52 PM · View previous versions
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