pinar istek

These are probably the most brilliant lines I have read about photography in a long time. How pure the act pf making pictures should be and how all the egos should be pushed aside is pretty much summarized. Approaching your subject with a motherly curiosity and love but maybe excluding the protective attitude seems essential to make honest and intimate images. This sounds like the maturity level that each one of should eventually reach. Reading these lines reminded me works of Eugene Richards and Craig Walker. I have been fascinated with the amazing level of intimacy in their photography. It looks like Richards is up on the faces of his subjects yet somehow invisible. On the other hand Walker's work feels a bit more distant, not in a negative way, but still really honest. After reading these two paragraphs, what I feel about the photography of these guys started make more sense. They both put the subjects first, before themselves, which eventually leads to more honest images.

Also this part made me worry about my own MA project. Even though I still would like to shoot documentary images of my subjects, my reasoning behind shooting it started to seem too personal. Would rest of the world care about this? Why would they do? Yes, it might possibly help me or my subjects but what is the point that I am trying to make with it?

The two chapters from Bird by Bird are quite inspiring like always. According to Lamott, we can write about pretty much anything and everything, same in photography. We can photograph whatever we wants and we shouldn't suffer from lack of subject matter to focus on photographically. She also advices to get edited along the way, though. Have first drafts and edit them, go back and reshoot, find the missing points, try to figure out ways to fill in the gaps. It amazes me how pretty much everything she says about writing is applicable to photography. A great read!