Documentary photography
This weekend I ventured away from the safety of the coast and headed inland for a little taste of city life. Giving the fact that we are seeing record breaking temperatures here in the UK this week, perhaps a trip to Leeds in favour of the beach might have been an oversight on my behalf.
None the less, I went, I saw and I shot.
All just for fun. Enjoy.
Now the UK has started to ease on the latest lockdown, and we can start venturing out a little further, where do we go and what do we do?
I have had so many conversations with people, where they have said that they need to travel again, see new places and get some fresh air. For sure this is important, and something that I’m also very much looking forward to doing. Albeit within the UK for the foreseeable year but, it will be great to rediscover my own country. This got me thinking; what am I going to photograph when I get to these new locations?
The answer is, I really don’t know and that ok, it’s all part of the excitement for me. It’s the unknowing of what’s around the corner. I have a bag of tricks, and by that, I mean that I have been building my way of seeing locations. I have taken the time during lockdown to photograph one place constantly. That’s not without its challenges and like physical training, you become conditioned to the exercise. My exercise is to make new images from very little and try not to repeat myself. Indeed, this is hard and I’m far from perfect but that’s why we exercise. I keep working at it and finding new ways of approaching a problem. Sometimes when I’m lucky, I figure a new frame out.
My goal is to be able to take a photo anything and of anywhere but still in my own voice. What I must try and do, and this is the difficult part – finding the things that interest me. It sounds so simple but when we start traveling to new places everything becomes overwhelmingly interesting. The trick for me will be to start zeroing in on that thing that attracts me. That can be anything at all, but once I have found a little something, then I need to make a frame that speaks in my voice.
I really don’t know what is going to happen but ill take my camera and capture what makes sense to me. Hopefully, this will lead to something creative.
Welcome to the great British seaside town of Cleethorpes.
I know it is late and I have been meaning to put this blog post together for months now but i’m going to blame this on COVID, it is probably not COVID but you know, its been a strange time. Last year (2020) I organised a street meet up from a small group of photographers, we all met here at the seaside town of Cleethorpes. I’d imagine most of you reading this will recognise this place from all of my own photos - it is pretty much the place I exclusively shoot, because this is my home.
It was great to meet other like minded individuals from different backgrounds and all with a passion for photography. It is always great to be around individuals like this, I rarely get chance to spend any time with other creatives, let alone a whole day with a bunch of them! This opportunity was as much for my benefit as it was for the others to make connections with one and other.
It was such a great day and I certainly had a fantastic time shooting and witnessing how others worked my stretch of the beach. Something that I don’t often get to do as Cleethorpes is somewhat nestled away on the north east coast of the uk (for those of you that don’t venture to the north of England). It is always very interesting for me to see how others interact with the environment and what catches their eyes. I have become somewhat of a solitary photographer and as such find my own ways to photograph and make the most of situations. shooting with others and bouncing ideas was great and gives me a sense of what is going in my photographic peers.
A big thanks for those that came along and join in durrig the day, we did have a few others join us at various points through the day to take a few shots and to just say Hi. Below are the images form the guys that spend the full day shooting and sent me their favourite photographs.
Matt Feeney
Mark Sugden
Michael Murray
Nina Weatherburn
Just to end…
Heres a few portraits if the guys that I quickly took whilst we stopped from some lunch.
Recently I was interviewed by Anshul Raj Khurana of By Lanes Of Your City, on my photography.
Anshul- Street photography is going through a lot of definitional changes nowadays. How do you define street photography?
Dan- To be honest, when I'm out shooting, I tend not to think of the definition or any parameters for that matter, as I find that would inhibit my work. I believe photography is an art form, and trying to place it into neat little boxes often puts too much restraint on the creative process. I think I throw a very loose terminology around what street photography is for myself, images that are taken out in public that are of natural moments as they occur. I see so many artists and photographers today working in so many ways, and a lot of these are falling under the category of street photography but, at the same time, help redefine it into something new and dynamic.
I think sometimes it comes down to the honesty of the photograph that you are taking. I try to make images that are uninterrupted and as natural as possible. But not all of these images are what possibly a purist street photographer would classify as 'street photography.' I often venture into the realms of abstract and pull on many influences to produce the work that I do.
I always end up being back to projects that I’ve shot. Although New York wasn’t really a project it was more of me just reacting to the sights and sounds of the city. Nonetheless I always head back from time to time to revisit the photos that I captured. I think it’s such an important process to revisit those images as time passes on they take on new meanings with more impact. As much as I love shooting in colour I started my photography practice in black-and-white. I am very fond of looking at black-and-white images and I think New York lends itself beautifully to the monochromatic look.
for me it’s such a therapeutic process to revisit these photographs and rediscover those moments I had forgotten. Reworking them into black-and-white images adds a new dimension and timeless aesthetic to these forgotten moments. So I thought I would share my recent re-discoveries of some forgotten images with you and also my rekindling with monochrome work.
these are just a few of the images that I have cherry picked and processed to black-and-white, I hope you enjoy them.
I have just been to see an image from my latest series exhibited as part of the Photography on a postcard, being shown at The Print Space – London.
Obviously the rest of the time was either spent drinking or street shooting, or my favourite – combining both drinks and photography. This always leads to some interesting / creative images (I’m not saying that they are all in focus but still interesting for me to look at later)
After arriving in London we soon met up with a friend and fellow street photographer; Dave ( @david_lindsley_street ) and spent some time catching up and walking the south bank snapping as we walked.
The rest of the time was spent mooching around the city and exploring the different little boroughs. I hadn’t really gone with anything in mind to shoot so just reacted to what I saw while I was there, like I normally do.. here’s the photos:
It’s no secret that I have been putting a fair amount of my time and creative energy into photographing the seaside. To be more precise, the Cleethorpes seaside that I now call my home, in my latest project; By the Sea. Recently have spent a little time away and travelled down to the East of England while I have been walking the streets (and seaside locations) photographing what I find.
I never really have much of a plan of what I’m going to capture. I believe working in a reactive way to the situations you find yourself in is less inhibiting but this is just a process that I loosely use. It’s great at time to head out without no real plan and shoot what you find but sometimes this can be a bit of a pain, especially when you’re not finding situations to photograph. Going through times of little or no inspirations always happens and having shot for several hours and coming away with nothing can get a little frustrating. Then again the beauty of street photography is no never know what you might unearth around the next corner. There’s always that day when you review you photos and find that hidden gem of an image that didn’t seem to be much at the time but after reviewing away from the situation often completely changes how I feel about the images.
For many of the images that I have shot on this trip, I think that I have allowed my ‘By the sea’ project to influence my shooting on new places. Perhaps that could be down to my own growth and maybe I’m becoming more sensitive to images around the coast. I’m not saying this is something negative, it’s just an observation that I have made on my own work.
Street photography and travel complement each other, it gives me the chance to experience a whole new place and react to it in my own way. I’m not saying that to produce ‘street photography’ you need to travel, in fact producing images around your own environment I believe speaks more about your experience than traveling to a new place to speak from your own voice. On the other hand it’s always nice to get away and experience new things plus immerse yourself into a new situation and react to it with a creative process. And let’s not forget that if I travel to somewhere as beautiful as Croatia I’m defiantly going to react to it photographically.
I didn’t know what to expect from Dubrovnik other than a few people that had previously visited the region had expressed just how beautiful that they had found the city. I don’t tend to do too much research on a place like this before visiting as I don’t want to taint my view (photographically speaking) or take influence from what other photographers have produced, as then I start looking at a place from their perspective instead of my own. So having arrived on the shores of Dubrovnik I was first struck by the intensity of the light and then by the beauty of the historic walled old town that decorated the cliffs above the blue shimmering Mediterranean waters.
As we started exploring Dubrovnik I was drawn towards the historic charm of the place and much of the region had retained its roots without subsiding into today’s commercialism. I very much started to see the art of the city and allowed myself to become absorbed by the light has it ornamented the people and stone.
It's rare that I share many personal images (outside of the confines of my personal street photography) but I'm obviously still shooting the everyday things that go on around me. It's a compulsion as many photographers reading this post will understand and you simply don't just shoot one subject matter, it seems to saturate your life and before you know it, the people around you become a rich part of that documentary tapestry.
So heres a behind the scene look into the everyday family fun that goes on around me.
All images shot on Leica M10 + 50mm f1.4 Summilux-M ASPH
As the English summer has started to dawn (and by that I mean a few nice days in a row before it clouds back over) I have made the most of it and headed to the coast with my girlfriend. Yes the coast is on our doorstep but we decided to travel a couple of hours further north to Scarborough for the change of scene.
As always I carry my Leica and take any opportunity to shoot whatever interests me and the English coast always provides a plethora of visual feasts to be had. So I have continued to shoot and I am starting to build a small collection of seaside images of surrounding coastal towns, like I have said in a previous blog post I am drawn towards the coast so it’s obvious that I am going to collect scenes from these places. Now at the same time I am shooting a project called by the sea ( www.danbaker.me/by-the-sea ) and was intending on producing images of the Cleethorpes seaside but after sharing these images with a friend and fellow street photography, he had suggested that they should be a part of my current project. I hadn’t really considered expanding the project to surround coastal towns but after thought it made sense.
This is what I love about street photography and the creative process; having the opportunity to share and talk about images with others. I’m not only talking about my work but having the opportunity to see and discuss others work too. It’s always great to reach out and see what other photographers are doing and have going on in their lives. so thanks to those who have already got in touch!
I feel at this point I need to say that if anyone would like to talk about any work or ideas, or even just say hi, then feel free to reach out and get in touch, I would love to hear from you and I find the creative process really comes alive when you start exploring these new avenues with others.
I have been working on my new project looking at my surrounding area; the seaside (www.danbaker.me/by-the-sea ). I have always been drawn towards the coast as I’m sure many people are, it has a certain gravitation and as such proves to be a rich environment to photograph.
Not all the images that I shoot make it into my project but that doesn’t mean that I want to discard them, I simply have an idea of what I would like to include within my body of work. I still want to share some of the scenes that I find and obviously my blog is the perfect place to showcase them.
Shooting around a city always throws up some interesting situations to photograph, sometimes things stand out but other times the scenes take a little teasing out. I would like to say that the cities give different results but the truth of the matter is that it’s my perception that changes. Sometimes I hit the streets in a particular mind set and depending on this will dictate how receptive I am to the scenes around me. Leeds is a city that can throw me in a couple of directions; sometimes I can shoot and get a few results where as other times I can come away with nothing. Today I have come away with a few images which is always better than nothing but on reflection I always want to be more articulated with some of the images that I take. The trick is to keep shooting and keep practicing, so I continue to shoot and I’m always looking for that great image.
