Thoughtfactory: Leica poetics

Leica, film, snaps, chronicles, cliches

snapshots on the A32

The A32 is the highway from Adelaide to Sydney via Broken Hill.  Travelling on it is stepping back into history and  away from tourist photographic activity.  

We were tourists in our own country.  We had a few days holiday  in Mildura and had gone onto  explore Broken Hill for a few more days.  We then returned  to Adelaide on  the A32,  or the Barrier Highway. Taking everyday pictures for tourists is associated with holidays and travel and then linked to memory.   

This picture was made near Olary 

By now I'd bought a digital camera--a Sony DSC R1,  Adobe Lightroom, and an Epson V700 scanner.  The Sony  became my main everyday  point and shoot camera,  and I started using the film Leica less.  The main film work was being done with medium format cameras. Going digital did not alter  the stereotypical character of snapshot photography---they continue an already existing practice but allow for a vastly greater quantity.  

The convenience of digital was what attracted me. You could experiment and play around without worrying about the cost of film or snapshot cliches as containers of old experiences,  or as mnemonic devices, or as commonplaces.  The digital work flow was also much simpler and easier as  I found that scanning  film negatives was a real issue. 

The consequence was that  I slowed down when taking photos with  the Leica film camera and starting thinking about the pictorial conventions of snapshot photography as a style or genre.   It was the antithesis of Romantic originality,  creativity and individuality as most snapshots are about conformity, not innovation or subversion and they are seen as conventional and thoughtless.  Snapshots as cliches  are boring pictures.