Street photography or candid photography as it is sometimes called, is a pursuit that tries to capture those moments when everything seems to be a tableau from a play, as in this photograph. [Technical note: I shot this with a Nikon D60 and Nikon 35mm AFS f1.8 lens, a camera and lens combination that I reviewed here.]
Nothing else but photography can do this. The perspective in a photograph can tell as story that may be a half-truth. The moment captured may be true or the photograph may be carefully framed to tell a lie.
Holiday brochures and advertising in the mass media sometimes lie just be what they choose to show and what they choose to omit. They present a picture that would be different is the photographer had turned his camera a little to the left or the right, or photographed another scene that was, in truth, just as representative of the reality.
It surprises me how people do different things on the street. To take one example of what I mean, I like the way the young man is resting on his father’s shoulder. Doesn’t he look like he could be at home in the family living room? I get the impression that the family is a tight-knit group who can talk to one another easily.
The thing I notice is that the relaxed style of their clothing is very different from that of the stylishly-dressed young woman photographing the scene. She is looking in the opposite direction and she seems very self-possessed. I wonder whether she comes from a wealthy background or whether it is just her cultural breeding that gives her that poise and self-possession?
Somehow I am sure she and the family would be able to communicate if she were to turn around. She does not seem stuck-up and it is interesting to imagine how they would react to one another – probably very politely and with lots of smiles.
Do you ever imagine what would happen if all the barriers to the niceties of life were to break down and people were to be as intimate with each other as the young man is within his family group?
