Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
this photo has also been added to the collection “dead in the mincers”. click here to view
this week’s motley crue is a collection of distinct looking gentlemen to balance out the ladies from the week before. I said at end of last week (in case anyone is paying attention) there was no real point to the pictures but I have been thinking about why myself and a lot of other street photographers gravitate towards the characterful. Admittedly they do stand out in a crowd and our eyes are naturally drawn towards the anomaly, the individual, the unique…but I feel there is maybe more to it than that.
Photographs of people with very characterful faces often seem to have a greater emotional resonance than shots featuring those considered traditionally better looking. So my theory is this…and please forgive forthcoming projections and sweeping generalisations, we’re just talking here..ok, well, I’m talking, you’re just listening, well, reading, well, skimming, ok, well, maybe not even that…so anyway, this is what I reckon…
It is the beautiful that are predominantly favoured in our society and the less visually fortunate will often have a tougher time. Not to say that the pretty folk can’t have shit lives but scientific studies always reveal we are more likely to trust and want to engage with more conventionally attractive people and this has ramifications in the workplace, in relationships and life in general. So maybe when we are staring at pictures of characterful people, their faces reveal the uphill road they have struggled along and that is felt by the viewer. We sense their pain, lingering within yet visible on the surface when you have time to study them in a photograph.
I sometimes feel like I am being exploitative by taking pictures of these people but I am drawn to them as I do genuinely love their faces. They are just visually more interesting to me. I am not trying to expose them, I am trying to celebrate their uniqueness by capturing their one of a kind configuration. The glory of the DNA soup is that it never comes out the same way twice. Occasionally two people’s ingredients conspire to make something magnificent. Beautiful is boring to a degree. Its too symmetrical. Too repetitive. Give me the weird and the wonderful, the freak and the unique any day.
Do these photographs somehow reveal more about the human condition than photos of pretty people? Hmmm. Maybe. Life is a struggle and sometimes to be reminded of that brings a level of understanding, solace and acceptance. Also, who wants to look at a load of shots of people who are more attractive? That’s just annoying…