Everybody always goes on and on about golden hour light, where the sun gives everything a glow that is supposedly the best light. So much so that some photographers don’t even take pictures except during the two hours around sunrise and sunset. Bullshit I say. Of course, I’m saying this with a camera that holds detail for something like 11 or 12 stops in a decent ISO. It’s as good as negative film ever was, and that’s saying something. It’s exposed differently, but there’s incredible tonal range available. One of the reasons earlier street photographers shot in black and white is that it offered the ability to handle these super contrasty situations. The signs project, which I don’t think any of these go with (save the middle one), is sort of becoming about playing with ambiguity of evidence. So, a sharp clear photo that could be any number of events, interpreted any number of ways. I’m trying to wrap my head around the idea. Signs may tell you something, but how can you believe it? Why do you think the person who put it there isn’t just as lost as you? How do you know someone in the equation (the signmaker, the photographer, the people in the photo) aren’t actively working to deceive you? It’s still at the stage that there are more questions than answers, which is really fun for me. The not-fun part is not having a camera, not knowing when I will again, etc. Oh well. At least it gives me time to work on the backlog.
