Yesterday's experience in Chinatown consisted of many hostile glares and, paradoxically, several incidents of warmly amicable behavior in spite of language barriers. It is a thoroughly interesting location to shoot in, albeit a difficult one because of the suspicious attitude of many of its inhabitants towards a person with a camera.
Alas, I am in a state of turmoil; for quite a while, I have been noticing that my photography has become stuck in a rut of unchallenging optimism. It is ironic that my photographs end up so sweet, because that is not at all how I see the world! Certainly, I see a great deal of beauty, particularly in the vibrant world of New York City, but that does not mean that I neglect the complex, unpleasant aspects of life - in fact, I am rather familiar with them. I have no idea why I have not been able to portray this in my work, and it frustrates the hell out of me. Of course, it is never pleasant to hear that your photographs resemble glorified senior pictures (as Kevin said when I consulted him), but I simply can't disagree, and have been thinking the same exact thing for months.
I suppose that I (and anyone who ends up reading this) will have to deal with the messy results of the experimentation that I will hopefully be doing from now on. After all, I don't want to create bland photographs - my inspirations are Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, and August Sander, not some random photographer who does crowd-pleasing wedding and baby photography.
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