Everyone Sees a Different Photograph

When I started taking street photographs, I thought the hardest part was spotting interesting moments.

It isn't.

The difficult part is deciding which moment you're actually photographing.

This image was made in London on a busy afternoon. At first glance it looks like a mother comforting her child. Then you notice the little boy looking straight at the camera. Behind them, another photographer is concentrating on something completely different, completely unaware he's become part of someone else's photograph. Then, just as you think you've seen everything, the painted faces on the wall quietly join in.

Everyone in the frame is looking somewhere different.

It made me wonder how often that happens away from photography. We all walk through the same places convinced we're sharing the same experience, when in reality we're editing the world as we go. We notice what matters to us and quietly ignore the rest.

Street photography has a habit of exposing that. Two people can stand shoulder to shoulder and come away with completely different memories of the same afternoon. Neither is wrong. They've simply been paying attention to different things.

It's one of the reasons I enjoy documentary photography so much. The camera records everything, but the photograph only reveals what we chose to notice. Looking back later, you often discover details you completely missed at the time. Sometimes those details become the photograph.

That's one of the pleasures of black and white street photography. Stripping away colour often slows people down. Instead of asking, "What's happening?" they start asking, "What am I missing?"

This photograph still makes me smile because I can't decide who the main subject is.

Perhaps that's the point.