Josh
The Art of Observation
Steven Taylor
Part 1 Historical Context
It was 1974, I was an art student, my photography tutor handed me a rangefinder camera and a roll of HP4. After a brief instructional talk on exposure, focusing and depth of field he sent me out to “waste film”. It was my first roll of 35mm, black and white film and I wandered the streets searching for a subject to use up the 36 frames. I can’t remember much about the pictures I made but when I got back I was taught to develop the film, make contacts, select and then enlarge an image. I glazed my print and dry mounted it on blue card. I recall the image, it was of a back of a bus; I’d love to see it again.
That was when I first got hooked on photography. The photographers I remember looking at in those early days were photojournalists, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Elliot Erwitt, Ian Berry and W. Eugene Smith were a few but I remember also being excited by the work of Ralph Gibson and Ray Moore as well as Paul Hill, who, later, taught me on an MA course. Gibson and Hill both started their careers as photojournalists while Moore had been a painter, all three, by the time I discovered them, were making very personal work in an observational style.
Two years later I was working for Ray Vincent. Ray was, and still is, a great photographer. He was, what we called in those days, a GP, he did everything. He made most of his income from weddings and portraits though. He would send me on a wedding with a Hasselblad and 6 rolls of 120 film. We would supply the customer with 60 images so I had to make 5 out of every 6 images count. There was little space for blinks or awkward poses. Exposure had to be right every time and if there wasn’t enough light to expose the 160 ISO rated film at a speed fast enough to freeze the subject we had to resort to flash. That meant every image had to be posed. There was a shot list; Groom and Best man with rings, Bride’s maids at Church gate, Bride sat on edge of car seat with one hand on door pillar and the other holding bouquet etc. In those days I hated wedding photography every week was the same.
I moved into other disciplines of the business. I did a lot of industrial and architectural photography. I worked for Shell and the BET group. As well as working with large format cameras I was often required to shoot in a journalistic style for company reports and “In-house” magazines. This was the photography I really enjoyed, the methodology that inspired me in the early days. When I became freelance I sought out editorial, press and PR work. I enjoyed the process of finding rather than constructing images. My personal work has always been about the found image.
Although I can’t remember a period of longer than a year, in the last 34, that I haven’t shot a wedding, at the end of the eighties I wasn’t relying on the wedding business to put bread on the table. So, when I got asked to shoot a wedding I agreed as long as I could work on my own terms. I wanted to work as an observer, to record events without interference, quietly shooting away, recording the full range of emotions of the day. I was in my element and the results were proving popular. When I opened a studio in Kendal in 1996 it was this style of wedding photography I promoted. By this time other photographers in the US, Australia and, just a handful in the UK had started to record weddings in a similar observational style. Some were giving the style names, “reportage”, “candid”, “documentary” and “photojournalistic”. I’m not keen on labels but if I have to choose one I’ll plump for “observational”.
The Art of Observation
Steven Taylor
