Street Photography: What My Feet Saw

Sorting photographs into specific genres seems a rather Linnean approach, that implies an image only has meaning if it’s slotted into the “correct” category. I’m not sure this is necessarily the most sensible approach. My work, then, is about challenging perceptions, and assumptions, both in terms of the photographic genre, but also the subject matter itself. If we look at a traditional “street” photograph, we see both the static and the moving, the wider, changing scene as well as the essentially unchanging detail. Given that this image contains both small and large-scale elements, removing one to focus on the other does not change the genre itself, but rather broadens it by altering our point of view. My images of those static details invite viewers to think differently about the world around them, and how they navigate it. So here, the street itself, rather than what happens upon it, becomes the subject of the composition. We encounter bizarre, glyph-like subjects that invite conjecture as to their possible meaning(s). We see markings that may be emerging from a layer of dirt, or being slowly smothered by it. Some are visual power chords of bright colors, some hint at a mishap in the past, while others exude a meditative calm that invites contemplation. Taken together, these photographs demonstrate how broad the genre of street photography really is—and perhaps too broad to have any particular meaning. I never did care much for Linnaeus’s ideas...