On Documentary Travel Photography

First off, I would like to direct you to the original site for which I wrote this entry. It's The Paradigm Shift Project's Blog - the documentary team I am shooting with in Lima. I am re-posting it here to expose you all to the project's great blog, but also to fill in everyone else.

“In documentary travel photography, I’m often faced with presenting what are uneventful everyday occurrences to some, as new and exciting images in which the subject captivates the viewer of the image. I have been “seriously” photographing for about 5 years, and despite where and what I may be shooting, there is nothing I love more than people: young, old, rich poor, happy, or curmudgeonly.

Let’s at least acknowledge this: when we travel, and especially to destinations deemed “exotic,” we can’t help but photograph life’s everyday events, which are often very uneventful. I am speaking about those photographs we all take, such as old people sitting down on a park bench, cats walking down alleys, pictures of cars driving on a street - perhaps just an empty street – or even that lone statue or sculpture in the middle of town, that we really down know much about, but we still photograph. Why?

It all comes down to us trying to compress what we are experiencing around us through all of our senses, into only one: the visual image. The image won’t tell us that the air smelled of car exhaust and smog, the sound of the car horns peeling as the cars and buses screech by us, coupled with a foreign tongue surrounding us, or the unbearable heat and humidity that forces rivers of sweat down our backs. Hence, we try to take as many photos as we can in the hopes of “remembering.”

Left: Charming people dance to salsa and cumbia music in downtown Lima's Parque Kennedy, as crowds of onlookers also pass the lazy afternoon.

I believe there is a way to avoid this “spray and pray” approach to photography that often under-delivers results. Providing a context and reason for the subject in the photo is a start, but engaging the subject to reveal its own reason for existence is crucial – it lets us see it as an essential part of a much greater whole. Photographically speaking, this is often difficult to achieve successfully, and just happens to my personal goal with the Paradigm Shift Project. To be truly great, we have to understand the motivation of our subjects, and PSP’s Peru project is off to a great start in this respect, through all our combined efforts.

The photo at the top is from our first full day in Lima. In parque Larcomar overlooking the ocean, there is an art installation of bottle caps collected from many different neighbourhood streets in Lima. Not only does it show the waste produced by bottled drinks, the carelessness of discarding a bottle cap, consumption patterns throughout sectors of the city, but most importantly the fact that the whole is much greater then all its little parts. All these bottle caps displayed separately could never convey the message they do when they are together. I like to think that with this project, we’re trying to combine all the voices in Lima about the necessity for urban agriculture, and I’m sure that the final total will be greater than its parts.”


Left: Andrea Maldonado gushes her affinity for Parque del Amor while overlooking the ocean at Larcomar, Lima.

That's it for now. Slideshows to follow as soon as I get a second to breathe. In the meantime, check out the project blog here.

Ciao!
-Kamil