All humans have a biological need to express themselves. It’s not a want, it’s an absolute need. There’s no way to get out of the fact we’re all expressing who we are through being on the street. I should note that this expression isn’t made for anyone elses entertainment. It’s a purely individual pursuit, and any comment on it will be superfluous. These are just some thoughts I had on what it’s like interacting with other people and you can take what you want from them.
How we communicate in public
Humans have created public spaces since the beginning of cities. It’s interesting to think about how people interact in public because we don’t communicate to each other through words. Do you ever stop to think about how we communicate? It’s kind of through our clothing, our gestures, and our… Essence? Our… Selves? We make the decision of what colors to wear, our glasses, our socks, and our hair. We choose what to look at while walking down the street and we choose the amount of verbal communication that we express to other people.
I think what’s really interesting is the undefined action that people do in order to communicate to each other without talking. This is kind of an amalgamation of gesture (speed of transportation and choosing what to look at), fashion (the clothes we wear or tools we use to transport ourselves), physical appearance (how our body biologically is), and psychological state (how our thoughts alter through our facial expressions).
We can describe each of these things in a sentence if we had a perfect knowledge of what was going on. A good fiction writer will imagine all of these things and explain them in a well put together sentence. A painter can combine various different moments once they’ve had the inspiration to make a painting. But only photography can show everything during a precise fraction of a second.
We need to be individuals
All humans have a need to be different, to express individuality and make an identity for oneself. Our identities aren’t dependent upon others’ approval. Our expression of our selves is complex and multifaceted. Photographs are two dimensional fractions of time that couldn’t be farther from the truth. And yet they can appear to explain so much.
Some thoughts on realizing how we communicate to others
Sometimes we forget that we’re communicating ourselves to the world around us. The great street photography writer Colin Westerbeck once said something along the lines of “what a good street photo shows us is ourselves reflected in a mirror before we realize what we’re looking at is ourselves.” Sometimes when we don’t expect to see our reflection in a window there’ll be a fraction of a second where we see ourselves looking at our face. But a kind of face that we didn’t expect because we weren’t planning on making the kind of face that we usually make for ourselves.
Perhaps this slight shock, this experience of realization is similar to coming across someone that seems to think the same way that you do. Of course it’s complete narcissism to think that you can know anything about someone from seeing them on the street. But that realization that someone is around you and alive and maybe even thinks like you is I think the secret story of all great street photography. Maybe it’s pure fiction, but it certainly looks real enough to make me want to go out and see what the human experience is like in my part of the world.
Anyway, I hope these ideas and photos have made you think about what it’s like to be alive today.
Have a great day.
-Jeremy