Robert Capa's Most Famous Quote Ruined Street Photography

For a long time, I actually wanted to be a photojournalist. I was like, "Hey, this is this is pretty cool." And there's a piece of advice that I heard from Robert Kapper. This quote says, "If your photographs aren't good enough, then you are not close enough." And and I thought, okay, that that means that I need to ditch the long lens, put on like a 28 mil or 35 and embrace this this this idea that is so prevalent in street photography today as well that you need to get close. Oh, I'm so in there. It's like I'm in the moment. Uh, and that is it's probably the wrong way of thinking about it because that quote for me is not about distance but it's about closeness. You may not be familiar with the story of Robert Kappa and the D-Day beaches, right? So, it's first wave of D-Day landing craft go down or having and Kappa is out there boom boom. You can imagine like, you know, bullets flying everywhere and all explosions and then just all that kind of stuff going on. It' be crazy. Oh my god. I mean, you know, and Kapp is there in the the I was about to say the malange in the mayhem and he's taking photographs. Some of these photographs, fact, all of them are so they're visceral. We feel like we're in the moment. They are shaky and crazy. We get an in a sense of what it's like there in that carnage and he gets back to London very quickly because obviously this is news photos gives the role of Phil to his developer and the story is kind of diverted a bit a bit. The long and the short of it is 11 of these frames survive right the rest is destroyed. That's why they're all so blurry and and wonky. And people hold this up as like as as almost like a poster chart for for for his, you know, his his quote, especially in street photography, you know, it's like, hey, street photograph, you need to be super close or like your work doesn't mean anything. Close close close close. And and of course that's kind of a bit of a nonsense because if all you needed to do to have great photographs was get really close to something. I could take a picture of this table from like a couple of inches away. They're all macro photographers would be the best macro. They would be the best. But it's it's not like that. Is it? Of course. What I find with this piece of advice is that it is absolutely true. Yes. Sometimes you need to full frame something. But the biggest thing is that we need to be emotionally close. We need to be invested in the thing we're taking photograph. In short, we need to care. We need to actually give a tiny poop about the thing that we're taking a picture of. Now, as I said earlier, I I wanted to be a documentary photographer when I was a student. I was like, "Hey, that's what I that's what I started doing at photo school." and and I didn't expect to actually come out of photo school as a as a portrait photographer mostly because at the time I didn't I didn't really care much for people. It sounds like a weird thing to say. Uh and I thought what I wanted to do is just be a a dispassionate observer of the world the the the uh you know the cold eye as it were. And that's why despite the fact that I lived in Ptoria, South Africa in the 1990s that I was at photo school when the marches for the leadup to the 1994 elections were happening on the street outside those photographs they don't feel particularly it's kind of weird use the word visceral. They don't feel like I'm like I'm I just feel like I'm whatever. I'm take pictures. And that's because and this is going to ruffle some figures. I was 19 year olds. I I really I didn't care. I didn't have an emotional connection to the work to the subject to to what I was photographing. I just felt this is what we're supposed to do. This is we were like every problem with a lot of street photography today. It's extremely popular and and I can understand why but I I feel a lot of people they take photographs in in certain ways because they feel like they are supposed to that they've been told to this this is this is the street photography is the thing you need to get close and and the photographs just don't work because they ultimately and please don't take this as as a personal attack on anybody cuz this is not but they don't really care about the subject matter. It doesn't make them full on full on excited to get the pictures. There are certain subjects that that will. So for me I was like okay I want to be a photojournalist. I want to do this. I want to but the work was no good cuz I didn't care. Then I realized I actually like taking pictures of people, but not out on the street, but people together. Because once I got over the little, you know, the hump, the the the the the timid, the timidity, the timidness of approaching people, taking photographs of them in a studio setting, has to be said, not not on the street. I found that I was interested. I was interested in talking to them about themselves. I was interested about finding out about them. And that was completely unexpected. One of the things that that TPE, the tribe, you know, the tribe and and all this stuff has been very helpful with I found is that is is helping people to find their their excitement. the thing that that that drives them that they do get, you know, really into passionate and it's not necessarily uh, you know, like heavy hardcore photographs, you know, wow, like crazy sort of things. It's just about an approach or a vision that helps connect them to the thing that they're seeing. It's that closeness. It's that understanding. that that that emotional proximity to the pictures that's that's something I think you know is so lacking in in in today's photography that people don't really pay attention to the fact that if if you can have all the technical skills in the world but if you are not listening to who you are, then those pictures are they they they don't work. You know, Kappa is not telling us where to stand. He's telling us who to be to be ourselves to get close. Now, how do how do you find this? How how did I you know is I I was fortunate you know I I went to photo school and I was exposed to things right but but for yourself what is it that that might be helpful I I feel firstly is is asking yourself what is it that that draws me to taking these photographs and the the key word there is taking not looking taking I I I I I love looking at a lot of great street photographers both present and historical. I looking at their stuff. I couldn't give a rat's bum about taking those photographs because that does not interest me. Okay, you following me so far? Right. There's a difference between what we're excited about taking photographs and about what we see. There's two two big difference things. We need to concentrate more about what we're interested about taking. So think, you know, are you taking these pictures because it's fashionable, because you know, street photography and landscape photography dominate YouTube, or is it because you genuinely want to take those things? And if they're not, if you're not genuinely taking them, then what is it? Recently, I was, in fact, this this weekend I was in Vienna. We're doing a workshop and it was about looking at what people have inside themselves. When they take photographs, we look at 200 photographs. We whittle them down to a smaller group and you find themes. You know, John Mvitz talked about this. He said he was looking at his photographs one day and all these negatives and the contact sheets and uh look there's he says there's some flowers and there's some more flowers and he goes but maybe subconsciously I include flowers in my work and impressto he goes and makes a whole book about so so that but it wasn't something that he went out consciously looking to shoot and I've seen this within a lot of people's work it's not that they are, you know, fooling themselves, but nobody looks at the work as as a body because they are inside a a street photography. So, I'm I'm being a bit hard on street photography today, but it suits purpose of thing. They're in a street photography group, and often those groups have a dogma. They have you can only do this, you can only do that, it must include this, it mustn't include that. and landscape is the same. When I was a student, it was like no landscape photographs should ever contain a pylon or man-made object because that is not landscape photography. Uh, thank you very much. And then Robert Adams enters the chat. [laughter] history anyway. Um, so we have these people and and and they so so they firstly they're not able to show all of their work because the gatekeepers shoot it down. You cannot show this because this is not what we do here. Take your flowers. Be gone. Be gone. Joel, you are not a street photographer. Banned. So they don't get a chance to show that work that that wide diversity and then so nobody can look at it from an outsider's perspective and say actually do you know what Joel you do you you I've noticed you take lots of these things have you ever considered that that seems to be a subject an approach a technique whatever that you seem to come back to and in Vienna we see this a lot or I've seen I've run these cohorts now a few times as part of um part of the wider things that we offer. If you're interested in like, you know, sharing this idea, getting people to see your work, getting eyeballs on it in an environment where you're not being forced to dance to a certain song, then yeah. Yeah. Check out the TP tribe. There's a link in the description box below. and and we were looking at, you know, their work and there there's and there's sort of people come, hey, I I like to photograph on the street. But then you sort of see within their work that there are aspects that they feel more excited about and more connected with, but they're just they're hiding underneath that layer of I'm supposed to do this sort of thing. these these these quotes you know the the quotes like you know kappa like a you a great ministry they're exceptionally handy but and again I feel like I'm going to get on a very tiny soap box here I think they get misconstrued often they get maybe twisted to a certain way and I I appreciate probably somebody could say Alex you're doing exactly the same thing you are interpreting a quote or a saying or what have you to suit your point of view. Uh, and I was Yeah, guilt. Guilt is charged me, Lord. Right. You can lock me up. Actually, don't lock me up because Yeah, [snorts] I don't want to go to prison. I'm too pretty. It needs to be, [clears throat] he says, clearing his throat. It needs to be, I think, tailored for how it works for you. Any of these sayings, any of these approaches, there are different ways of interpreting them. And there isn't a hard and fast rule. But what there is hopefully is just an opening of a viewpoint, a a a way of considering things from a different point of view. I get so upset. Again, I feel like I'm going to be on a soap box the whole time through this one. It's it's probably because uh I I've been away for a week as I've been talking with with other photographers who share similar things like they get very angry with with with close-minded clubs. is is that photography should be a a a hobby, a skill, an art with a a science that we are all allowed to enjoy in our own way. If we don't care about the thing that we are doing, it becomes a chore. Photojournalism, as much as I wanted it to be something for me, was a chore. I I lacked the connection with the events. And I I think that that is a hard thing for a lot of people to I think probably admit in their own photography that the thing that they they would really really really really love to photograph It just doesn't excite them at the end of the day. They can love pictures of that thing, but they can't connect to it because ultimately it's it's just it's not close enough. You know, Robert Kapper, he found something that was close to him emotionally. He also photographed closely, right, in in proximity. But that's what makes his photographs so powerful. And and then the same goes for everybody else who you see. And I'm going to use combat photographers as an example. There's a guy called Larry Burrows. Larry Burrows, British photographer, lots of stuff in Vietnam. And he would go and spend a week, you know, a Fortnite with a platoon with the people on the ground. So they first of all stop paying attention to him but also then he gets to know them. He gets to feel for them. And then he creates stories. He creates images that are physically close and emotionally close. And then when you look at them and you and you look at stories like a ride with yak yaka story like a ride with Yankee Papa 13. You you feel you feel the moment. And if you want to see that photo story, check this video over here. Thank you ever so much for watching. It's been an absolute pleasure and I'll see you again soon. Che.