People with eyes

When I was a young, timid photographer, I spent a lot of time shooting scenics and still lifes and just about anything that didn't involve interacting with people.

There's a young man on Facebook who has shot for at least one newspaper who set himself to the task of posting a new photo every day for a year. He posted number 330 today - a picture of a wall with a bunch of collectible plates hanging on it. An awful lot of his photos have been like that, with a heavy emphasis on weathered barns and crumbling structures.

I think this is very telling. I think it shows that he's insecure and afraid of engaging with possible subjects. And he's probably going to stay stuck in that box until he realizes that people are the most interesting subjects and make the most compelling photographs.

Maria had a young photographer working for her years ago at a small-town daily newspaper who seemed to have an aversion to photographing faces. Most of the people in his photos had their faces turned away from the camera. He was a photojournalism graduate from Ball State University and apparently thought he had learned all he ever needed to know about photojournalism in college. Maria tried to get through to him by requiring that all of his photos had to show the subject's eyes.

"Is this some new thing in photojournalism - this eye thing?" he asked her.

Robert Capa told photographers, "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough."

I would add to that, "If your photos aren't interesting, maybe you need people in them. People with eyes."