“I think most photographers are guilty of trying to bring balance to chaos, order to disharmony. It is a long-standing photographic trope that an image must be ‘well composed’ and the edges of each individual element must be independent and separated from the elements behind it. I guess this leads itself to a type of clarity and makes the image easier to view – perhaps this is the difference between a snapshot of an image and one that has been thought through.
Sometimes it seems like these harmonious images actually do a disservice to the reality that they intend to represent. Occasionally, if you’re lucky, you can take a photo of a disorganized mess of an event in a jarring, slightly offkilter way – with tangencies, overlaps that don’t quite seem right, and skewed horizontal and vertical lines – that better represents the moment than any organized frame could.” - Jonathan Auch
While the scenes and subjects are ever-changing and purely organic, the street photographs photojournalist Jonathan Auch produces in his hometown of New York City aren’t just happy accidents. Street photography is a tough monster to tackle- and Jonathan fully acknowledges that it isn’t always “fun”- but the resulting images are captivating. Through his lens he records glimpses of stories that forever remain untold, and it’s that mystery and and rawness that draw us in.
Jonathan shares almost daily on his blog, and we love that each image is accompanied by a bit of background and insight on its creation or inspiration. We’ve included a few of our favorites here, but the entire collection on his site is fascinating.
And if you’ve never attempted street photography and you’re in the mood for a creative workout, check out this post Jonathan wrote to take some tips from abstract painter Jackson Pollock.