Empty Street Photography

... the very safest form of street photography (especially when it isn't a street at all).

First and foremost, you lot are simply fabulous. Thanks so much for all the wonderful comments, feedback and discussion left on yesterday's blip. You've left me in no doubt that I should get over my reservations and persevere with the kind of street photography that I've been doing.

I'm not going to be able to respond as I would like to everyone, but every last word has been read and enjoyed and very much appreciated. There are a few highlights. I like RtCph's alternative title of Confused, Cross and Cool. Perhaps I should have held a caption competition. And there is a spot prize for MerlinJ for being the first person to spot the snowman! Kendall pointed me to the work of Vivian Maier. It's worth following the link and having a browse. This is a remarkable story and her photographs are extraordinary. Lassoothemoon and Mr.John also pointed me to the work of William Klein. Fascinating stuff. Thanks guys.

Your thoughts have certainly helped to clarify my own. I think it's important to me now not to be too furtive. I want to be seen taking the photograph in order that people can object if they feel they need to. If someone had a problem I think I could handle that and would certainly delete any pictures I'd taken of them.

I think a lot of the appeal of these images is to do with the story that is hinted at. It's great fun to use our imagination to project personalities on to the people pictured and invent a narrative. There is also the documentary aspect, capturing an ordinary moment of the everyday world, preserving a very narrow slice of life at a particular point in space and time. I think the mundane is generally overlooked, and certainly goes largely unrecorded. We filter most of it out. We only tend to see the extraordinary, the things that stand out from the background noise. By freezing the moment, this kind of street photography draws our attention to the extraordinary which is always to be found in the ordinary and promotes the utter uniqueness of every single moment on every single one street in this one world of ours.

I might have got a bit carried away there, writing that on the train while travelling home and now picking this back up in my studio. The short answer is simply that people, their dress, their expressions, their body language, are endlessly fascinating. It's probably as simple as that.

After a good start to the working day things fell apart in the afternoon with too many difficulties on too many fronts. I need to have a break from the computer now but intend to return later to respond to some of your comments. Thanks once again. As I've said before, I feel this is as much your journal as mine.