Garry Winogrand was known for advocating that photographers make a separation between shooting and editing/developing.
Sometimes photographers mistake emotion for what makes a great street photograph.
By giving it a year or two, you could approach editing and selecting your shots with a detachment (and thereby make better choices) that wasn't possible in the immediate thereafter.
The man died with something on the order of 300,000 unedited photos, so you can't say he didn't practice what he preached, but it's a sentiment that seems more suited to an interview or photography workshop than the practical realities of shooting regularly.
That's not to suggest that Winogrand is wrong, pretty sure he's dead on the money, it's just that time is a luxury that few of us have an overabundance of. Still, if you keep at the photography thing long enough, you eventually put enough distance between you and some of your work that you're able to manage a fair imitation of detachment.
Six years out from the long, hot summer of 2020, it's almost possible to separate the emotions from the photos of the Breonna Taylor protests (Happy Birthday Breonna!). Most of the photos from then that I've posted were edited in the heat of the moment or shortly thereafter, but it's only recently that that has become apparent to me.
My tendency towards a literal approach to photography, basically 'see thing, shoot thing,' was on full display when I revisited those photos today. Without the emotional loading from being there, those sorts of photos rarely hit the same. Fortunately, I seem to have mimicked Winogrand's 'shoot everything and decide on the decisive moment later,' method and still have plenty to work with.
Had been flipping through photos more for old time's sake than anything today, was pretty sure everything worth editing had been done already. Photoshop creates a file in the folder whenever you open a RAW file, which is what I use to tell if a photo has been edited before. Was pleasantly surprised to discover that the photos catching my eye today were all lacking that, made me suspect I'd finally reached the point ol' Garry was talking about.
These photos are from three days in 2020, including the covid delayed, spectator free Kentucky Derby, and span the three different times the National Guard was deployed to Louisville. Now how the hell was that six years ago already?
As they say back home, Sooey!
