Our Pictures are Our Footprints

In many of my conversations with fellow photographers about photography, there’s a sub-theme that somehow seems to try to intrude. It’s a subtext that somehow all those snapshots that “normal folks” make are barely worthy of the term photograph. This is something I resist strongly. If you’ve listened to the Tack Sharp podcasts that I make with my friend Dan Benjamin, you’ve heard me say this a few times. The most pedestrian of snapshots can be as valuable to the right person as the most impressive piece of photographic art. After all, if it’s your kid or loved one in the picture, it has meaning beyond the simple image.

Now and then, I’ll hear the occasional photographer actually say the opposite. That snapshots do matter. Quite often, it comes from those that I respect for many other reasons and it just confirms to me that they are people worth listening to.

And then, there’s Joe McNally. Joe has a conversational style that’s totally his. He’ll tell you a story that seems to bounce randomly between points. Then, just when you’re happy cruising along, he’ll hit you with something that’s freaking brilliant. In his post a few days ago about being in Hawai’i, Joe finishes up his thoughts with a story about an elderly camera snapping a shot with a mobile phone out by the blowhole. He ends the story (and the post) with a single sentence:

“Our pictures are our footprints. It’s the best way to tell people we were here.”

Joe, that one is gonna stick with me for a while. I’m going to have to quote you on that.