This might just be the most representative blog post of the inner workings of my brain that I have yet attempted. So this might either be horrifying or insightful. Maybe it’s interesting too, but let’s not get too hopeful about that. Perhaps it’ll just be me wittering on, boring people until the end with nothing new or revelatory throughout.

I have a tendency to overthink and over-reflect. I know, you wouldn’t think it from that first paragraph, would you? But, well, yes. A constant refrain amongst friends is that perhaps I am overthinking things. From relationships to my own words and deeds, nothing escapes my propensity to analyse over and over, spiralling away as I assess every permutation of every single thing I say or do.

It’s not for nothing, I guess, that I studied literature and history at university. What better for someone who over-analyses than to do a course that is rooted in analysis of words and actions. Perfect. Although perhaps it’s done nothing but heightened my desire to analyse everything, resulting in more reflecting and less doing or, even worse, living.

And so, to photography. From time to time, over-analysis seeps into my photography, and particularly at the moment. Certain questions have stuck in my head over the course of the past week or so, such that whether I’m out with my camera, editing in Lightroom or even just watching the tv or walking to work, they swim around my head, struggling for answers.

As always, after nearly twenty years of blogging, the solution seemed obvious: get it typed out, hit publish, and maybe that will help get it out of my system and, equally, see where others are and, hopefully, doing so will either reassure me this is something others do, or will encourage me to stop worrying and carry on (print that on a tote bag). So here we are. Let’s see…

why do i photograph?

This is a question I struggle with. Why do I do it? Not only why do I do it, but why do I share my photography on social media? The answer to both of these questions is: I don’t know. I know I’ve messed around with cameras for a long time. As a kid I remember picking up and old Kodak camera and being into playing around with it and trying to get decent shots out of it. But why did I pick it up? What was it about photography that captured my interest? I have absolutely no idea. I couldn’t even offer up a philosophical explanation that sounds good on the surface, but is ultimately meaningless. I simply do not know.

I certainly couldn’t explain why I do it now. I could say it’s an excuse to go out, to wander around and get some fresh air, or even to help with my mental health, but whilst they may be part of the reason I do it, they do not fully explain why I charge up batteries, pack a camera bag and head out to take photos. I suppose I must enjoy the process. If I didn’t then I would surely stop immediately and never go out again.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve never had the skills or patience when it comes to art. I’ve always wanted to be able to create, to draw and to communicate through art, I’ve just lacked the skills and the patience. I’d be loathe to say photography is easier, there is a still so much to learn after all. But I feel like I can get something now. Maybe my hit rate is a couple a year, but it’s a hit rate I have never come close to with drawing. Perhaps it fulfils that creative drive in a way that I have failed to find through other mediums. Perhaps it’s that?

Either way, all of this leads to another question…

what is the purpose of my photography?

This has also been bothering me for a while: what am I trying to communicate with my photography? Is there something I am trying to communicate? Should there be something I am trying to communicate?

I think I know what I like when it comes to street photography. I like something a bit abstract. Something that needs a bit of working out. Something that obscures the full human form, that hides the face, makes the human more mysterious. Whether that be playing with focus or condensation on windows, there’s something about reducing the human to an outline, to obscure. Light. I also like light. Interesting illuminations of scenes that create interesting shadows. Those are the kinds of scences I seem to be drawn to, increasingly gauging by my Instagram feed. This was perhaps one of my main takeaways from Berlin given the laws around photography there.

So that’s what I like, but what am I trying to communicate with these images? Is it anonymity in a world of surveillance and cameras on every street (fixed or mobile) that I am trying to convey? Is it just the character of the streets and the city with the people incidental to it - conveying the reality of twenty-first century living and its imperfections? Imperfection in a world of geometric glass and steel, all clean lines and considered planning rather than the organic, messy nature of the real world? Does it even matter if there is a message? Is it enough to just share images without concerning oneself with the message?

Back in the 90s, I remember Kurt Cobain (I was and remain a huge fan) being asked time and again about his lyrics and what they meant. Every time the questions were brushed away with a line about them just being scraps of poetry and things he’d written pulled together to make a song. There was no real meaning. Like all the best postmodernists, there was no wish to project a fixed and definitive meaning about the art, it was down to the interpretation of the person consuming it. Perhaps the meaning in my work should be left to others, not for me to puzzle over to the extent it impedes my own work.

In the late 90s and early 2000s I decided to start work on a novel. I had long harboured ambitions of writing one, and with my career going nowhere, and life hitting a dead end, it felt like I should fulfil that dream. In 2025, it should be clear to everyone that I am not the renowed author of postmodern fiction that I had imagined I would be. A devastating realisation for myself, of course, particularly as I rapidly approach 50. But the reason for my failings should perhaps serve as a stark reminder. Why did I fail? Because I wrote three to four pages of postmodern stream of conscious prose…and then got bogged down in over-analysing what I had written and getting no further with it. Sometimes, perhaps, the analysis is for others. For oneself, the focus should be on creation. Let others wrangle over what it means.

Why do we photograph? Is it for the clout? For the attention? For the money? For the prestige? For pleasure? Is it for the love of the subject? Is it because we want to shine a light on something that’s important to us? To send a message? Is it purely for memory? Do we even understand our own reasons for taking photos?

These questions have been rolling around in my mind a lot recently. Why do I take photos? I guess the easy (if somewhat circular) answer to that question is: “I take photographs because I enjoy taking photographs”. But what does that really mean? If I didn’t enjoy it, I wouldn’t do it. There’s got to be a deeper reason behind that drive to charge up some batteries, load up some empty SD cards, pack a small bag, and head out to the coast, the city centre, the woods, come what may with the weather. There’s lots of things I enjoy, but I rarely do. I enjoy playing football. I enjoy watching films. I enjoy writing (although that may not always be apparent!). And yet, I either rarely have the time, the energy or the inclination for any of those things. And yet, no matter what, every weekend, I pack my camera gear and go out.

One of the things that has got me thinking a lot about this recently is stumbling across some photographers and their…non-photographic interests. Now, I don’t expect every photographer to wear their politics on their sleeves, and I certainly don’t expect everyone to share my political views (in many respects, I’d be very disappointed if they did…after all, our society is nothing like the society I want to live in). Whilst I was disappointed in the views that I stumbled upon (completely at odds with everything I subscribe to), it was the contrast between their views and their art that I was most puzzled by (I’m long past the stage where I am puzzled by unpalatable views - I live in Kent after all).

For me, I find landscape photography and a scepticism about climate change, or climate activisim, a jarring juxtopostion. Equally, I find subscribing to cynical views about “identity politics” and street photography, a tricky concept to wrap my head around. If we are taking pictures of landscapes aren’t we, in the nature of the act, seeking to highlight the beauty of the natural world? Are we not, in our own small way, contributing to the discourse around nature and the environment? Do we not, when out photographing these scenes, seek to help preserve the landscapes before us for future generations? When taking pictures of people in the street, aren’t we attempting to show the humanity of the people we live alongside? Aren’t we attempting to capture what it is to be human and help to break down the boundaries between us? And if not, what are we trying to achieve?

For the past couple of years, I’ve been taking photos in my local woodland during bluebell season. It’s a spectacular sight at that time of year. A carpet of bluebells as far as the eye can see. Delicate flowers sprouting up from the woodland floor, adding a splash of colour after the long, colourless winter. But every year I am distressed. Distressed because I see photographers trampling (literally) through the bluebells to get that “banger” shot. To get the photo that no-one else will get (largely because most people are respectful of the delicate, wild flowers). But here’s the thing, trampled bluebells are a depressing sight. Why? As the Woodland Trust puts it:

“Bluebells can take years to recover from the damage caused by trampling, and if their leaves are crushed they can be weakened (as they can no longer photosynthesise).”

It destroys them not just for that season, for the people to enjoy that springtime, but potentially for years to come. If you love nature, if your love of nature is at the heart of your photography, why would you inflict such vandalism?

You might be pondering why I’ve sat on that particular complaint for several months before venting about it, but it’s illustrative of my wider confusion about the rationale behind the photography of others. We know capitalism can have a corrupting influence on human behaviour (you don’t have to be a Marxist to see this…though it helps of course), so is it about the financial aspect? Do people see the landscape, or even people, as a way to leverage income? Do the pound signs light up as the sun illuminates the landscape? Is it that, rather than celebrating the environment, in whatever form that takes, that motivates some photographers? Or is it clout? In many respects, clout can be linked to income generation, but also plays into ego and self-esteem. We’ve heard plenty over the years about the dopamine hit from social media clout. Is that, superifical as it is, the motivation? Getting that banger? Pushing up those likes in order to be seen as a “popular” photographer, rather than a respected one?

It’s for this reason, I struggle to rationalise people who reject the well-documented, indisputable (unless you’re in receipt of funds from oil companies of course…) impact that humans have on the climate, who dismiss climate change campaigners and any efforts to green our economy, and yet make landscape photography their “thing”. Equally, I cannot rationalise people who are racist, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic or ableist also being street photographers, particularly street photography where the human is the subject. What is the message they want to convey when photographing the landscape or people on the streets? Is it one they even understand or truly subscribe to?

As for me, I don’t know what my motivations are really. I don’t know what makes me want to pick up a camera. I consider myself an environmentalist, and I believe in respecting nature when out taking photographs. I like to share the drama and the beauty of nature. I respect it, its power and its beauty. And I want to share this beauty, I think, to show how amazing the world is and, as a result, try to play a small role in helping to preserve it.

When it comes to the streets, I (half-)jokingly refer to myself as a misanthrope. In truth, it’s not people I hate. It’s what people can be that I hate. Hateful, prejudicial, disrespectful, ignorant…Human beings can be this way, but we don’t need to be. We can (we must) seek to be empathetic to the lived experience of others. We must not only show empathy, but stand in solidarity, to protect or to enhance the lives of those around us whose lived experience differs from our own. How can we engage in the act of photography, whatever the subject, if we do not respect that subject?

If we are to engage in the act of photography in a pure and uncynical way, if we are creating art rather than just “content”, then photography surely must convey respect for the environment and for humanity¹. And if it is a celebration, then it is surely a subject that we love, we respect, and that we wish to protect. And, if not, why photograph?

¹ I use "humanity" here rather than "human" to acknowledge that some photography portrays inhumane acts, not because of the inhumanity of the photographer, or to celebrate those inhumane acts, but conversely because of the humanity of the photographer and their repudiation of inhumane acts (in which case the human in the subject may be captured in disgust, or with a lack of respect for the perpetrators). Of course, this also depends on how the photograph is shot, but I would argue that a photo that portrays inhumane acts cannot be considered art - but that's a whole other discussion.

Following the drafting of this post, I watched the recent video by Adam Karnacz. Towards the end of the video, Adam talks very movingly about what photography means to him as a creative outlet. I’ve embedded the video below from the point at which he talks about his experiences and his photography. It felt a good fit for some of the things I was thinking about in the post above.