“Do you do anything other than swan about, drinking coffee?”  These words, or a variation of them, have drifted across many a conversation towards me these past few years.  The first time I heard them, I was quite offended.  I’d just left a fast-paced business that had just collided, like almost every other at that time, with the COVID19 pandemic.  I’d had lots of things planned for my new life and, after some period of contemplation, was getting on with some of them.  As time has passed, I find myself a lot busier and giving far less of a shit what people might think.  The past few weeks in particular have seen personal projects, university coursework, photo shoots and getting back to my swim training after Ullswater.  There have been times when I’ve just needed to detune, and I was having one of these moments when I thought about this blog post.  In a session of what my wife calls “lying in bed, looking at cat videos on Instagram”, I saw a post in my feed that got me thinking about individuality and personal voice.   I mainly follow photographers, artists and people that I find amusing, so I wasn’t surprised when this particular reel appeared.  It was one of those Instagram vs. Reality comparisons where an aesthetically beautiful scene is shown as it would be seen on Instagram, followed by the harsh reality of trying to capture the scene.  The latter is usually blighted by bad weather, something that obscures the vista, something that reveals that it’s a fake shot, and lots of people trying to take the same picture.  The subject?  Manhattanhenge.  For those who are not familiar with this portmanteau, it’s a phenomenon where the setting sun is perfectly aligned with a number of streets in Manhattan, appearing as if framed by the towering buildings; a Stonehenge in Manhattan, if you will.  It’s a rare occurrence, happening only a couple of times a year, and that in itself is enough to cause lots of excitement with tourists in the city. Quite naturally, many people who see it wish to photograph it for posterity or their socials.  The reel contrasted the perfect view of the ‘henge’ with the jostling crowd of people holding their phones up to photograph it.  

I’ve talked about the genre of landscape, the ideas of picturesque, beautiful and the sublime that are codes within it, in a previous post.  These shots clearly tend to the picturesque, with  their meanings closely associated with memory of travel and the need to inform the viewer about something they should consider seeing for themselves.  Picturesque images tend to be very similar and, indeed if you do a quick Google Images search on Manhattanhenge, you get a sense of that.  

Manhattanhenge (source: Google Images search)

There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing this, of course, but I asked myself why everyone would want to take the same photograph, rather than look for another way to represent how they feel when they look at it.  I’m not going to dwell on that here, because I’m no psychologist, but I do acknowledge the dangers of settling into one way of seeing and working, so I do empathise to a point.  As with any learning experience, we gain some confidence in an aspect of the skill and practice until we feel as though we’ve ‘nailed it’.  While we are doing so, we might close ourselves off from other related ideas, perhaps committing to go back and look at it later.  In photography, this singlemindedness can be seen all around, from the Manhattanhenge images that require careful balancing of exposure and contrast, white balance etc, to the angle of elevation in the ubiquitous selfie that takes the pounds off.  We start to build rules into our workflow that kick in when we think about a landscape or portrait photograph.  When they are collected together, that sense of déjà vu about the images is very real.  I’m as guilty as the next photographer of doing this, I might add.  I like 85mm focal length for portraits, 35 or 50mm for street work, natural light over flash, prefer a 4x5 aspect ratio for pretty much everything because that’s what my large format cameras shoot etc..etc..  What I tell myself when I realise that I’m stuck in my lane, is based on some advice I was given when I first started out.  “Avoid assembling images that are either visually similar or contain symbolic or iconic context that say the signify the same thing”.  This means that if there is something in the first picture that describes something about the subject, setting or event, try to avoid something similar doing the same in the next frame.  I encountered an example of this a few weeks ago, when I was shooting a vintage car event near me.  The Prescott Hill Climb sees cars racing against the clock from the bottom of a hillside track to, well, the top.  My friends were racing their 1930s MGs (see previous post) and I was keen to make some pictures of them doing something that for me, is an unusual hobby.  There is a technique in sports photography that lends itself perfectly to capturing movement in a fast-moving subject, known as ‘panning’.  The photographer tracks the subject as it moves past, keeping the point of focus ‘locked’ on the interesting part of it, and shooting a relatively slow shutter speed.  If the rate of the camera panning and the subject are matched, the part that is in focus appears be stationary, so the shutter speed is fast enough to make it sharp.  However, the background is moving too quickly, so appears blurred.

Panning example from the Hill Climb, R Fletcher (2023)

Here’s the thing, it’s quite tricky to get right.  The latest digital cameras utilise state-of-the-art focus tracking which naturally helps, but an older camera like any of my collection requires manual timing, judgement on focus and depth of field, and lots of luck.  I found myself wanting some panning shots of my friends driving and, before I knew what had happened, that was the only thing I was shooting either as a practice to get the settings right, or capturing the fleeting moment where they flew past me.  I’d momentarily shut out any other thoughts about context, perspectives or mixing genres that might help support the narrative of the series, and if I hadn’t realised, I would have had a collection of really boring images, even if the panning had been perfect.  What does this mean?  Well, for me photography is a medium with a wealth of creative possibilities and a vast range of ways of representing a subject however we want it to.  There’s no doubt some truth to the adage about there being ‘no new ideas left’, but there is still the concept of individuality, which is an entirely different thing.  To be individual is to take all that we’ve learned and make our own decisions on how to proceed, being inspired but not directed by others of part of some herd mentality.  If we ask ourselves why we are making an image, what it means to us, what it might convey to the audience or how it might make them feel etc, we are forming an individual ‘voice’ that visually expresses an opinion, rather than simply going with the flow.  In the case of the ‘henge’, there may only be a few minutes before the effect is gone, so why not go crazy and try as many different ideas as possible in the time?  There may not be the next lauded artwork in that collection, but there may be something that grabs the attention of the viewer more than the traditional picturesque.  If creative ideas are the eggs, better to have multiple baskets rather than just the one. 

A few years ago, I received an official-looking letter in the post that accused me of committing a truly heinous crime, for which I should be very ashamed.  In amongst the formal language, that looked like it came straight from a policeman’s notebook, was the invitation to view a video of said crime.  After the usual mental security checks to make sure I wasn’t being had, I went to the website to have a look.  The video was of a busy road junction in what looked like a city centre, with traffic lights, lots of pedestrians, dogs etc.  In the top corner was a clock that documented when my crime took place.  This tedious piece of footage progressed for several seconds before the camera dramatically panned to the left and slowly zoomed in on something.  Wait, is that my car?  The zooming continued until all I could see was a front wheel and a number plate, which was indeed mine.  Then the crime itself.  More predictable than a Marvel film, and probably about as interesting, the plot of this film was pretty clear, and what had happened was that my car had crept about 6 inches over the edge of a box junction.  The letter informed me that the local authority was fining me for this transgression.  After much questioning of the authority’s parentage, I paid the fine and forgot about it.  Until this past weekend, that is. 

I was on assignment, shooting Malvern Pride, which was the second time I’d been part of this wonderful and important event.  This year would be a different experience for me, however, as a direct result of the unit that I’m currently studying for my degree.  I’ve mentioned ethics, representation, and consent in previous blog posts, and how a photographer’s approach to them is a personal decision, based on their own values.  In the case of this shoot, ethical considerations had been on my mind for several weeks.  I had questioned whether I, as a heterosexual man, should be documenting the event in the first place, even if it was for the organisers. They were primarily interested in capturing the party spirit and the celebration of the LGBTQ+ community embodied in Pride, which is a big part of but not the whole story.  If I wanted the images to be as much about the continuing struggles that the community has to be accepted and respected as people in what seems to be an ever-uncaring political landscape, could an external observer ever do justice to that representation?  I had an idea to use the shots from the day to form part of a wider social documentary project, so this question was an important one to answer.  I eventually squared it away in my mind by considering Cornell Capa’s concept of the Concerned Photographer, formulated in the 1950s.  Capa was a respected photographer with Life Magazine for over a decade, who was also part of the renowned Magnum Photos agency.  He chose social and political issues that were important to him and created powerful photo-essays that didn’t merely document a situation, but instead advocated attention to them by educating his audience.  I wasn’t thinking of Pride specifically in these terms, as I am no Capa, but I eventually determined that I would be as good as any other photographer that I know at telling the stories of the people attending.  That left the consideration of consent, which is itself the purpose of this post.  I’m still learning about this subject, do don’t profess to be an expert.  These are my thoughts on what I experienced regarding consent on the day, and the behaviours I believed were needed in addressing it. 

One way of approaching consent in the commercial photography world is to use a consent form, that photographer and model agree to and sign.  These forms lay out the photographer’s intentions for using the work, where it will be published, the rights the model has over the images etc.  In simple terms, the parties agree and that forms the basis for a legal position that covers the work.  In the case of an event like Pride, a form isn’t at all practical, because of the number of people present and the potential style of the photography. It wouldn’t be limited to traditional portraiture, where the form works well, but include ‘street-style’ shots where the subjects were unaware of being photographed.  Event photography consent is usually done in the inverse, where instead of seeking individual consent, everyone is made aware that photographs are being made, and that they must seek exemption to avoid being photographed.  That works well in most cases, but Pride added another ethical consideration when thinking about consent.  The event was being held in public place, rather than a private venue.  In fact, the idea of a truly public space is a little bogus as most of the land in the UK is owned by someone.  In the case of Priory Park, there weren’t any overarching photography restrictions in place, so it could be treated as public.  The law in the UK (and in the US) currently states that a photographer can make images of other people in a public place without needing their consent.  There are campaigns to add restrictions, to cover children, or other subjects that could be treated as in the national interest, and therefore vulnerable to acts of terror etc, but thusfar they aren’t in place.  If someone asked me not to photograph them, I wouldn’t have to agree because I’m covered by law.  If you think about it, that’s a pretty extreme defence as surely intention comes into play at some point.  However, there are cases, such as the US lawsuit brought against Philip-lorca diCorcia following the publication of his Heads (2001) series that highlight the conflict between law and ethics when it comes to a person’s privacy.  In that particular case, the law actually sided with artistic expression over violation of religious beliefs, but it still revolved around the plaintiff’s case that he did not give consent because of his beliefs.  We think that we should have privacy rights, particularly when a camera is involved, whether we are in a private or public space, but that isn’t the case.  When I was filmed entering the box junction, I hadn’t given the local authority my permission to point their camera at me.  In fact, who among us has consented to being filmed by CCTV walking down the street?  The belief in the right to privacy is a powerful one, and I am certainly not offering an opinion on it here.  However, a belief isn’t the same as a legal responsibility.  I encountered this recently when someone started aggressively lectured me on photographic consent in a similar situation to the upcoming Pride shoot.  Her passion was admirable, but that was about it.  This is, of course, where a photographers personal ethics comes in to play and in that case, I just kept quiet and let her rant.  How I view privacy is driven by my both my personal ethical standards and my respect for the idea of it.  I know how I would react to the intrusion of being photographed, so tend to treat people in the same way when it’s the other way around.  That approach works with most of my work, and when it doesn’t, say in a street scene where there is no dialogue between me and my subject, I consider the ideas of representation and ‘doing no harm’.   If I photograph someone, am I treating them respectfully in the context of the picture or the series? Will my publishing the image do them harm?

Early in in the Pride shoot, a lady approached me with her child and asked me not to shoot them.  My instant response was to completely agree, try to put her at ease by assuring her that I would avoid where I could, but if they appeared in the background of a published image and I’d missed that in the edit, she should contact me (I gave her my card) and I would quickly remove it.  This chat took less than a minute and she opened up about her reasons, which I totally understood.  She went away trusting me to ‘do the right thing’. Another example resulted in the photograph below.  I was drawn to this gentlemen’s shirt and went over to chat to him.  We talked about how he felt how the event was going, the continued importance of Pride in the current climate, and the feeling of freedom that he felt as a gay man attending an event with others he could relate to.  “People like me”, is how he put it. At the end of our conversation, I asked him for a portrait, something I was doing with anyone I got talking to.  He did that ‘polite grimace face’ that instantly told me he wasn’t comfortable, which was followed by a respectful decline.  I said that it was no problem and was about to reassure him that I wouldn’t include him in any other pictures etc, when he said “you said you loved my shirt, how about photographing just that?”  I duly did so, showed him the image on the back of the camera, shook his hand and that was that.  

Untitled, from Malvern Pride 2023, by Richard Fletcher

None of this is rocket science, it’s just exploring consent with the subject in a polite and respectful manner.  That’s not to say that it ‘made me happy’, as I would have much preferred an actual portrait of him.  It’s not pandering to a subject either, as documentary photographers generally can’t afford to lean entirely towards their wishes.  If, for example, the subject belonged to an extreme political group or held controversial social beliefs, the photographer has a responsibility to represent the subject as honestly as possible, perhaps putting aside their own personal views.  What’s important is to establish an open dialogue about intent, consider any harm to the subject, that they might not be inviting themselves in some way, and then be prepared for further discussion about the outcome.  In this case, I could have sneakily grabbed a shot of the man without him knowing, but that image might have caused him difficulties elsewhere that I might not be aware of.  I read the situation through talking, and more importantly listening, and elected to talk to him instead in the same way as I dealt with the concerned parent.  

In conclusion, Pride was a huge success, and I believe my photographs represented the vibe on the day.  I shot other images that I want to use for the documentary study, which will include other material sourced from the media and through interviews with members of the LGBTQ+ community, but more of that another time.  The key learning from this experience though, was that ethical behaviour that drives dialogue between the photographer and subject, helps give the former a much broader understanding of the ‘story’ that they may have felt that they knew.  My understanding of Pride is largely built on what my gay friends have told me, but I cannot ever truly empathise for the obvious reason.  Working with my subjects helps me reconsider what I think I know, and incorporate new information from their personal experiences.  I also learned that if we are behaving ethically, consent is a continual process where a subject might later reconsider how they feel about their representation in a body of work.  Depending on the understanding or formal agreements in place, there may be a conversation long after publication, where they no longer consent. In the case of the street-style Pride images, someone might see themselves and decide that they no longer consent.  In a world where people film everything from their food to a road rage altercation and post it social media, perhaps a pause for thought about “Should I?” instead of “Can I?” would improve our society in many ways.   I’d like to think that it might.

You can see my Malvern Pride photographs at this address: https://www.richperspective.co.uk/p865073501

For more on Nussenzweig v. diCorcia, check out this article: https://museemagazine.com/features/2019/9/23/impact-philip-lorca-dicorcia-head-on

For more on ethics, take a look at the excellent Photography Ethics Centre here: https://www.photoethics.org

“I’ve completely forgotten”, came the reply in a panicky voice.  It’s 9am and my new soul mate and I are on a bus, heading through the winding roads of the Lake District on our way to the start line.  I’ve known this woman for about 10 minutes or so, during which time we’ve shared thoughts of how we’d trained, how we felt and “what the hell was all this rain doing here in July?”.  We had clearly prepared in different ways.  I had trained hard for 12 months, where she hadn’t been able to commit much time.  I had prepared my race fuelling based on what was provided by the race organisers, while she had secreted several energy gels in her wetsuit, something that I thought was a high-risk strategy, given the tightness of the fit.  What had prompted her panic was something really simple; she had forgotten to stick her number label on her tow float.  I, and my fellow swimmers, tried to reassure her that the number was just for there for identification when we finish, and that a kindly person at the start line could probably lend her a Sharpie to write it on if necessary.  I sympathised with her, because I had also recently had my own organisational brain fog a couple of days before getting on the bus.  I had just completed my last training swim the night before I was due to leave for the Lake District and, as it turned out, lost my goggles in the process of packing up my gear.  Now, I’ve generally found that people who do endurance events like this one are a cautious and superstitious bunch, for good reason.  For example, runners won’t replace their shoes just before a race for fear of the fit being slightly different, resulting in issues during the race.  Those issues could be real, or they could be a cause of worry that might psychologically affect their performance. Knowing this, I wouldn’t have replaced my goggles, even if they were completely knackered.  However, I found myself having to do just that.  I had a brief test in the pool just before we left, to check that they wouldn’t leak, but the whole experience was an unwelcome stress. 

In case you are wondering what on Earth I’m prattling on about, I’ll tell you.  Last weekend, I completed the Ullswater 7.5 mile swim, which runs from one end of the grand lake to the other.  In context, that’s 480 lengths of a standard 25 metre swimming pool, which is what makes it an ‘endurance’ swim that relatively few people would consider doing.  While the experience of that event doesn’t relate directly to photography, I’ve learned some things about how my mind works, which may be recognisable to a challenge being faced by readers of this blog.  Fear not, it’s isn’t some trite piece of ‘self-help’ bullshit aimed at changing your life, or an Instagram life hack that anyone over the age of 20 has known for several years.  It’s just my reflections on what happened to my mind while I undertook this challenge. Make of it what you will. 

The swim was organised such that we had to be taken to the start so that we would be swimming back to Race HQ, hence the bus, which I found to crank up the anticipation before even dipping a toe in the water.  The weather was shockingly bad, with the whole area being battered by heavy rain and high winds for 48 hours before the planned start.  The organisers had sent emails about their contingency plans which would kick in if the forecasted thunderstorms manifested on the day, which almost everyone I talked to on the bus thought was a really bad thing.  We’d all signed up to swim the length of the lake, so the idea of changing the route to smaller looks of a presumably sheltered area, didn’t really appeal to any of us as it would feel a lot like our training swims in smaller lakes.  Thankfully, when we arrived at the start, we were told that the route would remain point-to-point.  The first thing to note about the format was that once in the water, it was impossible for any supporters to ‘follow’ the swimmers.  Supporters could be at the start or the finish, but the long bit in the middle would be a very lonely experience.   I entered the water supremely confident because, unlike my friend on the bus, I had fully prepared for the distance over nearly a year in training.  The first mile was all smiles, although when I reached the first feed station, my fellow swimmers confirmed my suspicion that we’d swam closer to a mile and a half, according to our GPS watches.  Never mind, I thought. I knew I had the physical condition to cope and, being a silly sod, I asked the feed station volunteers for a ‘large Scotch, no ice’ when offered a cup of energy drink and some jelly babies.  The mood was certainly light at this point.  The next mile was straightforward enough too, but at this point my body decided to let me down.  Both calf muscles started to cramp, which is something I always have to manage on long swims and am not entirely certain of the cause.  Two miles in wasn’t great news, though, as I had a long way to go from here.  Again, I had prepared for ‘cramp management’, so I pressed on.  It was mile 4 when things started to affect me psychologically.  The weather was now so bad that the temperature had dropped considerably and was matched by waves tall enough to surf on.   Waves on a lake surrounded by mountains?  It was a reminder of how powerful nature is. They were in the same direction of travel as us, but anyone who believes that this helps push you along, is an idiot.  Timing your strokes to coincide with any push from the waves is a tricky thing to do and, it was frequently counter-productive.  I was now working twice as hard as I should have been to achieve a slower pace than in training.  My mind started to wander, and not in a good way.  I became angry at the organisers for proceeding with the event, when I know of some triathlon companies who would have cancelled it.  I started to question whether I’d done enough work in training, despite my experienced athlete friends telling me that I had.  My calf muscles had invited my hamstrings to the pain party, which now meant that I had more stretching and relaxation exercises to do, all while being thrown around by the waves.  On a couple of occasions, I was informed by the safety crew that I was drifting off course, which would need correcting.  In the end, I drifted nearly half a mile off course over the length of the swim.  It’s fair to say that the stretch from 4 to 5 miles was possibly the worst physical experience of my life.  My anger gave way to a total fear of failure.  Could I keep going? If I couldn’t, would I quit voluntarily or be forced to by the safety crew? What would I say to my family and friends who’d been so supportive? Would I end up reflecting on quitting and realise that I could have done more?  These questions whizzed around in my head with images of my loved ones, who I thought I was in danger of letting down.   I kept seeing my mother, who we lost 28 years ago, but they weren’t images of her as a I want to remember her.  Instead of the vibrant, strong woman who raised me, I only saw the memories of her being desperately ill, a shadow of her former self.  I’ve consciously tried to suppress every day since she died, so for them to reappear now was pretty distressing.  It was like I’d accessed an old hard disk from a long-lost computer and creating a random slideshow.  If my goggles hadn’t been so tightly (and uncomfortably) fixed to my face, I’d have probably cried.  But I didn’t.  Instead, all this conscious noise became just that…noise.  I really don’t remember the actual swimming during that mile, but my arms just kept turning over. When I reached the 5-mile marker, the feed station wasn’t there as we’d been told at the briefing.  It had moored at 5.5 miles, presumably because the water was so rough.  I swore (a lot) as I considered the irony of that, but pressed on.  The final feed station was supposed to be at 6 miles, and I figured that it had also moved, but I was wrong.  It was missing entirely.  Instead of the previous stream of consciousness and rage that I’d encountered way back at half-distance, I just kept turning the arms over.  At 6 miles, I could see the huge inflatable duck (yes, a duck!) that marked the finish line.  I still had to swim a mile and half to get to the big quacker, but again for some reason my mind was switched off and my body was just doing what I’d trained it to do.  At the finish, I was helped to my feet as my legs had decided that enough was enough.  I got my medal and was reunited with my wife and our friends who were supporting, which was wonderful but undramatic.  It wasn’t until much later that the elation at completing the swim, under those awful conditions, started to outweigh the horror of actually doing it.  I’ve been riding that euphoria ever since. 

In pain, but happy at the finish

Beginning to sink in

The medal, which will remind me of how hard it was

What does all this mean? I’m not really sure.  What I do know is that I have a lot of internal voices that start chattering when I perceive that I am ‘in danger’, not of something that will cause me actual harm, but more about potential embarrassment or failure.  When I tried to ignore them on the swim, my mind seemed to react by reminding me of hard times in a way so vivid as to overwhelm the immediate fear.   For example, I was never likely to drown because there were so many people around me in safety boats and kayaks. Nevertheless, I still saw the recent news article about the fireman who was lost attempting the channel swim, as if a subconscious comparison was being drawn.  What surprised me was that after a while, the nagging internal dialogue stopped altogether and I was left with the simplicity of just swimming.  I’ve no idea how, but I became more rational when my brain shut up and let me get on with the job in hand.  Yes, there were some very dark moments, but talking to other endurance sports competitors, this is actually very common.  None of them can explain how they keep going, but they just do.  It’s only at the end that they reflect and somehow appreciate coming through them.  By the time the mind can start asking questions about the lunacy of taking on such a feat, it’s done and dusted.  I went from wanting to cut my wetsuit into tiny pieces in the immediate aftermath, to wanting to sign up for the longer Windermere swim next year, all in the space of about 24 hours.  Now that I’m home, I don’t feel like some superhuman (that would be silly), but I do recognise how healthy it is to push myself, not just physically, but mentally as a way of building a better understanding of what really motivates you.  I said this wasn’t ‘self help’ and I stick by that.  It isn’t going to make me some epic creative, but it has had the effect of shifting my perspective a little.  Perhaps that fear of failure and embarrassment does hold me back creative, so anything that confronts it head on could be helpful.  I wonder if there might be more of these little shifts, the more I push myself with the swimming.  Also, perhaps if we shut ourselves up from time to time, we can actually gain some peace from the chaotic world around us, where we continuously analyse and compare ourselves to others.  Who knows?  What I do know is that I want to find out, and for now, I believe the answer is at the bottom of this hard-earned glass of champagne.  Cheers!