P7: a day at the zoo (or shopping)!

Since my last post of two weeks ago, I still struggle to get out of the rut that I found myself in.  Back home in Munich recovering from the jet lag and combating the recent intense heat has been the order of the day, not going out and taking photographs.  I am a lover of the cool air of Autumn and the freeze of winter, once the mercury climbs above 25 degrees I struggle to do anything more than lope around indoors in the cool.

I am also struggling a little with this course, finding the transition from photographing the landscape to the people more challenging than I thought.  The problem lies more in motivation than in subject matter.  With landscape and courses previous to that I was able to construct a straight forward plan of what I wanted my photography to portray and then go and find that in the area.  With Social Documentary it is less deterministic, far more subject to serendipity, do I find a good subject or not.  Perhaps one issue is that I am resolutely focused at present on the photography of people, I need to still consider the environment they inhabit and the impact they leave behind, even if the people are no longer present.  Finally my approach to the 4th assignment, essentially a year long study of the people of Munich proceeds slowly and lacks the sense of achievement that I have felt with other work.  I wonder if Stephen Shore or Robert Frank had similar crises of confidence as they crossed America.

On a more positive note, my copy of Walker Evans' "American Photographs" arrived a couple of days ago, long out of print, I was delighted when it appeared at an affordable price on Amazon.  I hope to comment here on this and other recent books in the next few weeks - another sign of my apathy is a lack of critical reading recently.

With Project 7 I am making a detour from the suggested material.  Whilst a zoo is a good place to observe people interacting with animals, I find them very depressing places, even the good ones leave me with a sense of disgust.  Munich Zoo is very good, but one or two exhibits are almost Victorian in their cruelty to the animals encased within.  As a result I have chosen not to include the zoo in my work, but to think about a couple of other environments in which people interact with enclosed spaces containing interesting objects, the Shops and Art Galleries.  Here I am specifically looking at the shopping experience, how people pause in front of shop windows, how they interact with one another and how they linger longingly near something way too expensive.  Having never spent much time looking at people looking at shops, it was very noticeable that the more expensive the items in the shop window the more people lingered.  Jewelry shops were the most popular, I suppose that if youcan afford the item then you are more likely to go in an take a closer look.  A 10,000 Euro watch is enticing, but what is the point of taking a closer look, you cannot afford it anyway, but oh boy wouldn't you like to have one.

Compared to recent sets this is not my best photography, but within the selected images are one or two gems, the final shot being the best.  The two ladies to the left are browsing some children's books whilst the girl to the right wanders by cigarette in hand, eyes turned down to the mobile phone she is carrying.  Turning back to my long term goal it is a photo like this that speaks to me of the modern Munich, if I only capture one or two photos as strong as this per week I will have enough for a book.