Going Back to Move Forward
Who says you can't go home again?
On one of our recent morning walk and talks, a group of photographers and I were talking about how much worse Instagram has gotten over the past few years in terms of exposure and engagement. We all agreed that it seems like most photographers we’ve spoken to about it have very similar feedback. Subscribers, reach, and engagement are all a fraction of what they used to be. And the platform that was once all about sharing images no longer seems to care about images at all — instead they prioritize short-form video in a desperate attempt to compete with TikTok and YouTube. But in the process, I think the platform has lost its way and has just become a vapid mechanism to spoon-feed ads to users. To be clear, there are still a bunch of terrific artists and photographers on Instagram — which is the main reason I haven’t left — but that’s not what gets served up to me by the algorithm. Even the people I follow are in my feed less and less, which makes very little sense to me. I’ve told you “this is the work I’m interested in” and yet that’s not what you give me. So the whole experience just keeps getting more and more disappointing — and we haven’t even talked about the “Tech Bro” leadership, which is a whole other thing.
One of the photographers in the conversation asked whether I’d tried Flickr as an alternative. I told him that I used to be pretty active on Flickr — especially when I was still teaching Photoshop — but honestly, I don’t think I’ve logged in since 2017 or 2018 when SmugMug bought the platform. I said that I’d really been enjoying the upswing in artists and photographers on Substack so I hadn’t really considered other alternatives, especially one that in my mind had been all but dead for years. Still, he encouraged me to give it a look and later that afternoon, I was kind of amazed to see that my old login credentials still worked. The homepage feed looks different than I remember it, which is probably a good thing. What surprised me the most is that when I clicked on “Photostream” in the “You” dropdown, I still had more than 300 photos that I was sure I had deleted, but I’m so glad that I didn’t. It was amazing to see some of the things that I was focusing on from 2007-2011. Most of the photos are of architectural details, which I still love to photograph, but many of my photos from that time are street portraits and I remember the stories around every one of them.
Three photos + their stories
The Ticket Taker — This photo was shot on Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photo Walk in 2010 in Downtown Los Angeles. I was telling the man in the photo about my grandfather who also briefly worked as a ticket taker on the Angels Flight Railway before they moved it from the original location. I still love this photo. The composition, the tones, the expression on his face all work together to create a photo that I think is really special — and every time I see it, I think about my grandfather, which is nice.
Lunchtime Touch Up — This photo was taken inside Grand Central Market in Downtown LA. The market is on Broadway with Angels Flight on one side and the iconic Bradbury Building on the other. I used to go to this particular stall fairly regularly because they had some of the best tacos in LA. I think it was on this visit that I met up with Ibarionex Perello for lunch before spending some time wandering around LA talking and taking photos. This is another photo where I think the composition just works. It looks much more compelling in black and white than it did in color, and I love that I managed to catch the woman fixing her lipstick in the mirror.
Old Man in a Suit, Little Tokyo — I lived in Rancho Cucamonga, California for about 15 years and one of the things I used to love doing was taking the train into Los Angeles Union Station and walking down Alameda to Little Tokyo for lunch, followed by a stop at one of my favorite sweets shops for a couple pieces of daifuku. On one visit, I was sitting at the fountain after lunch and saw this man as he was leaving the Nijiya Market and was just struck by his appearance — the way the sun caught his beautiful suit, his long gray beard, and the deep lines of character in his face. I followed him for about two blocks and when we were both waiting for a light to change, he looked over at me and I held up my camera and gestured “is this okay?” The light changed, but he nodded and paused just long enough for me to get off two frames before he stepped into the crosswalk. The composition here is pretty basic — I think what makes this picture is the expression on his face. I still love this picture.
So what do street portraits from 15 years ago have anything to do with anything now? Well, as you may or may not know, we recently released the second edition of my book Photography by the Letter, which I wrote about in the last Iteration. As I was putting the second edition together, I started to realize just how much I missed photography. There are several new terms that got me out in the world with my camera after a very long hiatus and I had an absolute blast making them. I rediscovered the joy of seeing the world through a viewfinder. I think with all that’s going on in the world, the restriction of a viewfinder is somehow comforting — it only lets in what I choose to see.
When my mom died in 2009, in many ways, photography is one of the things that got me back out into the world. I was teaching Photoshop at the time and was starting to go out on photo walks around LA with some of my students and the other instructors. I was armed with a deep desire for connection and my camera, which led to having brief conversations with people I met and in some cases getting a photo of them. My grandfather used to say, “you can always make a friend with a camera in your hand.” I think that taking pictures — especially then — allowed me to connect with people, which helped to fill the enormous hole left by the loss of my mom.
The world we live in is maybe the most divisive it’s ever been — certainly in my lifetime — and I think photography and the potential for connection that it offers beyond just documentation is as important as it’s ever been. I think in rediscovering these photographs from 15 years ago, I’ve been reminded of what it was that energized me and helped get me out of a very dark place. As I’ve been thinking about what my photography practice might look like now, I think these photos may offer a pretty clear perspective of what that was and still is: connection. I want to connect with people now just as much as I did then — albeit for different reasons — and I think the photography could still be the key. And even if it’s not, getting out in the world with a camera again doesn’t sound like a bad thing.
QUESTIONS
If you’re a photographer, how does photography affect your life, creative or otherwise?
