Thought Piece #5

This section of the reading related to the first thought piece. It is mentioned how important it is to photograph life transitions. For me like I talked about in thought piece one, I am not able to photograph the sad transitions in life. It is not something that is for everybody as it is emotional and can be hard to photograph people in their worst moments. It also talks about photographing those who have a hard life. It helps viewers realize what they have and be more grateful for the life they have. Showing hard lives is a great way to show emotion and invoke emotion. I have always wanted to do a photo story following someone who is homeless to show their lifestyle and their story but it honestly terrifies me. Not all homeless people are approachable and I fear it would be just my luck. 

Even though they are all important stories to tell and deserve to be told at some point by someone, every photographer has a different mode and style of photographing and that is okay. Other than the sad idea of photographing hard lives and life transitions LaBelle also talks about photographing character features. This is where people watching comes into play. You can capture any moment anywhere by people watching and it can tell a story. A lot of the time individual character features are done but at the same time it is important to feature groups of people. When looking at stories CM Life has done, there have been a lot of stories about people in the community or small businesses but there are no insightful stories on the tribe or any of the first responders in the area. Short character features like that can share stories that may have not been told before. 

Towards the end of this reading LaBelle talks about sequencing. This is such a beautiful thing to photograph as it can tell the progression of a subject over time. To me this means photographing a couple in the early stages of their relationships to the middle of the relationship when they are old and greying. Even though sequences like these would be deemed as “cool” I feel like they could also be hard. Having to keep track of stories as time progresses and contacts. What if someone loses their phone and has to replace it or gets a new phone number or even moves out of the country. Little factors like those are important to keep in mind as they can make or break a photo story.

I really enjoy that LaBelle provides examples of sequences, like couples over time and motion in picture form. It helps give me some ideas for if I were to do a long term photo story that I could focus on or around. I feel like as time goes on I run out of ideas on what to photograph that neither I or someone else I know has done before. I always want to show something different but I feel like there is only so much that can be done in the world. Even though this reading is done I thoroughly enjoyed everything LaBelle had to say and I feel like I learned more about how to find stories when I am out in public.