At least I’m not in China

I was offered €10,000 cash for my passport by somebody I know and trust in Kosovo last weekend. Why did I say no?

Oh well, at least I’m not in China. Towards the end of Regarding the Pain of Others Susan Sontag writes a few illuminating lines on the country, or rather the difficulties of taking photographs of people there. This is a land whose culture dictates that photographs of people should be set-piece affairs. This wasn’t exactly news to me, as I can still remember clearly failing to film ordinary street scenes in Beijing in 1997. Every time I set the camera up and started recording, the people would stop what they were doing and form a line and grin at the camera. As annoying as it is, I must say I admire the Chinese for failing to cooperate.

This all brings me albeit rather clumsily to what I’ve been up to today, namely out and about in Volos getting the first street assignment under my belt and in the can. Greece in the winter is a wonderful place for street photography. The sun shines almost every day, and because it’s fairly low in the sky from the time it rises until it goes back under the horizon again, it throws some spectacular shadows, even in the middle of the day. Time being of the essence I chose for my first assignment to photograph one of the city’s main food markets, which takes place every day in a different location. On Saturdays it spreads out along a road running from north to south, which means the shadows the sun cast run lengthways along the street, adding a wonderful visual spectacle to the scenes. The fabulous choice of backgrounds, the bizarre mix of shoppers, the colours of the things for sale and the aforementioned light all add up to make a perfect piece of theatre.

Looking at the pictures I took I’m pretty happy. Choosing to use my mophone, I suffered some headaches such as having to anticipate not only for the shots themselves but also for the inherent (and random) delay between pressing the shutter to the camera actually recording the image. Benefits included the usual sense of blending in, plus the advantage of having a nice big screen to look at. This latter point can be awkward when the sun is shining on it at certain angles, but also allows me to keep an eye on what and who is coming up and down the street and into the picture.

Failure to do a proper third Relationships assignment means I still need to do one. I’m off now to see a friend who’s repairing a yacht to work out how to shoot him and his assistant next week.