Photography: Why I’d Rather Not.

Photography: what is the point?

Whenever something bad happens anywhere in the world, why is there always some guy with the emotional depth of cling film ready and willing to turn trauma into a photo opportunity? And why, besides war, are the most photographed things celebrities with the physique of a toothpick and IQ’s to match?

And why is photography considered an art form? Writing is an art. Painting, theatre, filmmaking, pottery, even performance is an art. They involve a bit of effort, considerable discipline, and a heck of a lot of imagination, transforming the raw material of reality into something never seen before. Photography, on the other hand;  well, you just point a metal box in the vague direction of something interesting and click a button. And if you don’t get it right, just move a smidgeon to the left, duck, and click the button again. Any idiot can do that. Even me, and I’m blind. Blindness is no disqualification. In fact, blindness could be an angle.

Photography brings me out in a Fahrenheit 451 fury. Except it’s not books I want to see piled on the pyre, it’s cameras.

Imagine; it’s Saturday morning. You’re crossing Victoria Bridge and you pass a gaggle of Japanese tourists all pointing Nikons at Bridgewater Place, smiling as they clickety-click away. Anybody even looking at that building without thinking of dynamite and wrecking balls is suspect in my opinion, but these guys are positively beaming as they memorialise one of the worst crimes against architectural good taste anywhere in the Western world.

You feel aggrieved. Then incensed. Then you have to intervene.

“Hey guys,” you say, in your most friendly Yorkshire twang, “want me to take a pic of all of you, against that?” You point at the atrocity of a building, trying to compose yourself into an epitome of calm. The tourists nod. They are happy to have found a friendly local. “Why don’t you take off those cameras,” you say, “it’ll look much more natural. Tell you what, let me look after them for you . . . ” The tourists oblige, laying down the Nikons and Canons and Ricohs and Panasonics.

You arrange the troupe a good fifteen yards in front of you. “Say Fuji Film”, you say, and wait for them to relax and put their arms around each other.

As soon as they are all grinning and gripping each others shoulders you scoop up the small pile of SLR’s, turn, and dispatch them with extreme distaste over the bridge and into the River Aire.

Didn’t that feel good? Liberating? Exultant?

The tourists surround you, bemused, politely remonstrating, assuming this is a performance by another street magician that they have not yet become acquainted with. They assume it’s a stunt. They assume they are being photographed.

One of them digs in his jacket pocket and retrieves his eight megapixel mobile and starts to adjust the focus to get the perfect shot. Quick as the flash on his Samsung Galaxy S3, you whip it from his hands and lob it accurately into the nearest canal lock with all the practiced aplomb of the semi-professional darts player you once aspired to be.

The tourists are becoming restive. A crowd of locals has gathered, probably on their way to Elland Road. “Life is not a spectator sport!” you cry as you unclasp a cheap Kodak from the fingers of a Leeds fan and send it soaring in a high, deep arc across Neville Street and into the churning brew beside the Asda headquarters. The assembled horde gasp in delighted horror, as if you just performed the sawing-a-woman-in-half trick whilst simultaneously suspended from a burning rope in a straight jacket. Their eyes follow the Kodak as it makes its way to a watery end. Plop.

“Down with photography!” you cry, “and all power to just looking at stuff and remembering how it was.” Admittedly, not the greatest slogan in the world, but you hadn’t really thought this protest through properly.

“You don’t need a camera to convince yourself that you were here, or that you had a good time,” you shout, “don’t let the lens get between you and the life you were meant to live!”

There’s probably a couple of hundred onlookers now, most not daring to get the equipment from out their rucksacks. But there’s always one. “Snappers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your 5X focus!” you roar, relieving the last photographically deluded fool of his Olympus PEN EP-3, and tossing it to the fishes.

The crowd has potential to become a mob. A lynch mob. But you are not deterred. “At least take pity on your friends and family”, you say, “do you really think they want to see another slideshow of 180 jpegs of the day you spent in Prestatyn? Are you sure they give a buggery about the minimum chromatic aberration that your Olympus Zuiko affords? Do you not think that all talk of comparative shutter speeds makes them groan with dead?” And here, inviting all fifteen Japanese tourists for a group hug, you nail it. “Don’t you think they’d rather you wrote them a post card? . . . well, don’t you?”

The tension in the crowd subsides with barely a gasp. The tourists tearfully embrace each other, reminded of the times they used to send letters. The football fans hand out biros and stationery and airmail stamps. International peace and harmony is restored. The tyranny of the camera is ended. Everyone sobs and writes a note to their loved ones.

If ever I was interested in a photograph, that moment would be it.