People
The People of People, Places and Things
The muddle of an inflexible hierarchy, or at least my unwillingness to have more than three top levels.
So, under People we have also got Pets and Events. Pets and events are not people. However, events are nothing without people.
Pets and other animals? Obviously not people, but beings that I do have a close relationship to. And I can't fit them in anywhere else.
Portraits and more are just that. Pictures of people I know, or with whom I at least have a connection with.
There are people in lots of photos in the gallery under the Places category too but they tend to be people I have no relationship with. They are just there, in the photograph. Particularly on the street.
Places
Peripatetic. Flâneur. With camera
I spent a lot of time just wandering around my neighbourhood with whatever camera I'd just got second-hand. There were many good reactions when people saw a Rolleiflex or a 1930's folding camera, or anything that wasn't the usual big fuck-off DSLRs that tourists and photographers usually pointed at things. I'd shoot the film and go home to develop it there and then in my makeshift bathroom darkroom. Or try a new development technique. I couldn't wait to see the results.
If nothing else, it taught me a lot about composition and valuing the shot. A roll of film is finite, especially 6x9.
The early 2000s and onwards was also memorably the beginning of the denormalisation of street photography. If you were pointing a camera at something you were at best a terrorist, worst a paedophile.
I was stopped and searched several times under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA). I had a collection of Section 44 notices pinned to my noticeboard. Just for photographing in public places. It is public space after all.
We are photographers not terrorists is still relevant.
It only seemed to apply if you had a proper camera... I (or anybody else) could scope out anywhere with a mobile phone camera and Google Maps/Street View. Using a mobile is the new normal, pointing a camera is somehow aberrant. How did that happen?
I have nothing but contempt for such security theatre.
Things
What doesn't fit anywhere else
Or is a one-off shot that doesn't belong in a narrative.