“Doesn’t anyone notice? Doesn’t anyone complain?” I’m often asked these questions when people see my photos of passengers. I understand them, to some extent. Even though the spaces where we photograph are public, the moments are intimate. In the madness of urban overcrowding, we seek intimacy in the anonymity of the crowd. Observing that space seems unsettling to those who consider it private. It is assumed that other passengers are not interested in their companions either, that everyone shares the unspoken rule of non-existence within the same space… Perhaps it is more of a shared non-perception, a self-imposed blindness. If we didn’t carry cameras but looked with the same presence that this book has when looking through our eyes, we would likely face the same issue—a transgression. Someone might smile, yes… but they would be the exception.
Participative Processes on the Web: Making of Passengers 2012
We thought it would be interesting to explain how this book was developed. Barcelona Photobloggers have been producing
participative web projects since 2006, some of them in collaboration with important cultural entities of Barcelona city.
We’ve often noticed interest in our approach to work and organization.
In writings, two types of participative processes are distinguished. Some call them participatory art and some –
participatory projects. We make the same distinction, but we call them participatory and collaborative processes.
Although iPhoneography might seem to be about a group of addicted fans and technobuffs who cannot stop using their
mobile phone, it is in reality the continuation of a trend that began with the advent of the Kodak Brownie in February
1900 and has been developing since then.
The Kodak Brownie is recognised as the beginning of photography for the masses and with it was born the term “snapshot”:
a photograph taken quickly without thinking, without any artistic or documentary intent, usually blurry, badly framed
and in which the subject is usually a scene from everyday life, such as birthdays, sunsets, pets or travel.
In the workshop
Living from Photography in the 21st Century the need to expand talks related to online marketing and social networks was felt. We thought we could continue the topic with an informal talk bringing together professional photographers on one side and marketing and social network experts on the other.
I prepared a very basic
script so that all speakers would know where to go. Unlike a course there would be no examples, nor recipes for how to create a profile on social network “a” or “b”. The intention was to convey a series of basic marketing ideas.
On my way to the
talk I was thinking “the Cartier‑Bresson drag again, is there no one else to talk about?” but since the speaker was Pepe Baeza I decided to go and it was worth it, the presentation was engaging and the topic made me review everything I think about photography. The fascination that everyone seems to have for Henri Cartier‑Bresson has made me tired. Is photography just an instant?
William Klein said a photographer’s life is a few seconds, the sum of hundreds of moments at 1/125 s. How many photographs do you get to know from a photographer? I wondered how much you know about their life in 1 second, 2…?
December 7, 2019