Steps in Documentary Photography

2020 is the year for documentary photography to begin for me. This feels like a good next step.

Why?

Street photography has taught me a lot: it’s sharpened composition skills; it’s taught me to see and react quickly to what’s happening around me. But it will never be my first love. As one of my favourite Instagrammers, @fluffystreetcloud recently said, I like to treat people on the street with the same level of respect that I would like to be paid when going about my daily life. I have never quite reconciled myself with the business of “stealing” candid shots, however much I intellectualise it.

Travel photography has long been “my thing”, borne of a desire to see the world and capture those wonderful moments you experience along the way. They are often beautiful, evocative images - but on a fleeting visit to a place, you can only scratch the surface. It’s a superficial view on a much more permanent world.

Documentary photography makes sense, then, as an opportunity to dig deeper and explore subjects and themes. And for someone who has always been heavily influenced by social history this is even more appealing.

So What Am I Doing About It?

Getting into documentary feels quite hard. What subjects should I cover? What makes a good story? How do I make contact with the right people? How do I sequence the images to make them compelling? What do I actually want the finished product to be and who do I want to see it?

To teach me and to kick-start me into action I’ve done a couple of things.

1) Joined Photo Fusion in Brixton. Recommended by a friend, Photo Fusion do a monthly Saturday photo club where members present some of the projects they’ve been working on and others give feedback. As well as this they run a lot of other photo-related services such as processing, courses on alternative film processes such as salt printing and have a lovely members’ gallery. For £60 a year membership, this is one of the best bargains around.

2) Signed up to a documentary photography course at City Lit. So far this is really interesting, and we need to create a project that we will develop over the course of the coming weeks.

Ideas

There are so many ideas and not enough time. I really like the idea of exploring identity, and how it is shaped. I like the idea of circus and performance (though access may be tricky). In this day and age of immigration rhetoric I like the idea of exploring that we are all migrants in some way, shape or form.

But the idea I want to develop is around the elderly. How they live here in the UK, the services that are available and the isolation that our First World lives bring. Shooting overseas when I travel is also a great way of adding to this work, and documenting how the elderly live elsewhere - the work shot in Romania in November is a good pre-cursor to this.

Assignment

For this week’s documentary homework we have been asked to shoot in a location that we usually wouldn’t, and to produce a more symbolic image as part of this.

It felt like the right thing to do to shoot on film and, to add to the nostalgia (and avoid delays in film processing), it was time to whip out the newly acquired Polaroid. Bought on eBay, the camera was only slightly more expensive than the film itself. (But that film is magic - it’s even got its own battery charge in it!) I didn’t read the instructions on the packet before using the film however, and waved the exposures in the air as was the fashion in our childhoods instead of letting them develop in the dark, so the results - as you can see below - are somewhat patchy and blown.

In terms of symbolism, I think the answer has to lie in the elderly themselves but as I don’t have access to a compelling subject right now I decided to make a trip to the local cemetery. It was while photographing the grave of a Vietnamese immigrant, below, that it suddenly occurred it would be interesting to document how elderly immigrants cope with not just ageing but also ageing in a community with sometimes very different norms and values to the ones they grew up in. So, this is the direction that I am going to take.

And finally, for now, I’m quite happy with my over-exposed Polaroids. They’re nostalgic, they’re a thing of the past and they are misty - like stepping back in time through eyes with cataracts. It will be good to see where this one goes, and I am excited about longer term pieces of work with a running narrative.

Along the Enchanted Way in Romania

A few years’ ago I came across a delightful book called Along the Enchanted Way. The author William Blacker spent some years living in the very rural Maramures region of Romania, almost untouched by Western society by dint of Communism and sheer remote location. This inspired a bout of Romania fever, which a few weeks’ ago I followed up with my second visit to the country.

I had found a photographic tour leader on Instagram (@vlad_brasov) and decided that this would be the best way to explore rural Romania. While I love taking photos and also exploring the photojournalism side of life, my Romanian isn’t so hot (though since my visit I can now say “chicken” and “cow” with some aplomb). It made sense to explore with a local photographer.

The Format
Vlad picked me up at 7.30am on the Saturday, just after the amazing sunrise over the hills. I had been a little bit nervous about meeting men off the Internet but, as soon as we met, I knew there was no call for worry. He immediately put me at ease with his kind and empathetic personality.

The idea was to drive to a village, walk a bit up some hills and meet various villagers along the way. I had no idea what to expect, really - would it feel normal or right to just knock on people’s doors and take their photos? Would we be expected to take tea? Should I take gifts?

We started with a visit to Ion, a lovely man who had been widowed a few weeks’ prior. With him and with all of the other villagers we met, it never felt forced or uncomfortable. Vlad visits many of these people regularly and has built up something of a relationship. And actually much of the visit has got nothing to do with photography at all. It’s about listening to what people have to say, building a rapport and asking questions. The actual photography comes at the end.

The Gear
I took the Fuji XT-3 and a variety of Canon portrait lenses with adaptors. Primarily I used the 85mm portrait lens. While this is a fantastic and favourite lens, it is harder to use on the Fuji body as there’s less control over aperture. I’m also getting to grips with the Fuji manual focusing system. Despite the low lighting conditions and wide apertures, I didn’t bother with tripods as they don’t lend themselves to natural shots and making villagers feel at home in their own houses!

Thoughts
In a rural area where much of the younger population has left to seek opportunity in the cities or overseas (Romania has the fifth largest emigrant population in the world), it’s clear that many elderly people can benefit from such ideas as this photography trip. While it’s the nature of farming life to keep active until the very late years, it’s still isolated as a way of life. Vlad’s visits provide a connection, a way of getting different items from towns and of boosting the local economy. We ate a meal at one couple’s farm, and Vlad bought honey at another. And, tellingly, nearly everyone opened up their stories. What better than to tell someone what’s on your mind when they’re not part of the village? It feels like such a valuable social service, in an area where I doubt there’s much access to mental health services and probably not much appetite for the stigma surrounding them.

This trip has reinforced an interest in photojournalism, and I’d love to explore that more over the coming months. It also reinforced the idea that more unites us as human beings than divides - and I returned home vowing to call my mother.

Getting There
I booked a Saturday and Sunday with Vlad, flying out to Bucharest late on Thursday night. While I had the intention of pacing the Bucharest streets with camera in hand, instead I opted to get the train from Bucharest Nord station - surprisingly easy and around 25 LEI from Bucharest to Brasov. From station to hotel it’s also possible to get Ubers, useful as the “normal” taxi drivers charged me more from Otopeni airport than it cost for my return Ryanair flight. On the way back, I booked an online taxi chaffeur from Brasov to Bucharest airport which was amazing value at around £15.

Brasov is a pleasant city with a relatively small historic centre. If its your first time here then it’s definitely worth checking out nearby Bran Castle (of Dracula infamy) and Sinaia Castle. Been there, done that though and that was not the purpose of the trip. This time it was to explore that wonderful countryside, below

More Info?
Check out Vlad’s website.