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Blog // Technology
March 24, 2014

Taking Photos Or Sharing Them

Watching some fellow photographers print photos on the go and share them in remote parts of India was a fascinating and inspiring thing to see.

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On my recent trip to Rajasthan, Matt Brandon and Piet Van den Eynde carried the new Fuji Instax SP1 portable printers. This allowed them to print and share photos they made along the way, with the people who were kind enough to give up their time and pose for them. The image you see above is Matt sharing a portrait he had made with a gentleman in Alwar, Rajasthan.

Time and again I saw these great moments, where people smiled in recognition as a small photo, a simple gift, was given to them. It helped turn a sometimes awkward moment “can I take your photograph” into a more meaningful human exchange “here is something we made together.”

Matt has posted a thoughtful review article on his recent experience with the Instax SP1. It’s a good read if you want to understand the device and the process of transferring images to it for printing and sharing.

I almost bought one of these before the trip and I really regret not having done so. When we photograph people, especially in poorer countries, it is often such an asymmetrical situation. We are there with thousands of dollars worth of gear hanging off our necks, asking people who might not even have a photo of themselves, let alone a camera, to give up their time so we can photograph them.

The situation has made me ask myself, over and over again, who am I doing this for? How is my “craft” helping them? Vague ideals, like being a “humanitarian,” feel so far removed from the reality of being somewhere distant and strange, asking someone to pose for a picture which will help you advance your career, or photographic goals, but will give them nothing more than an odd, incomplete story to tell.

I now have a Fuji Instax SP1 in my camera bag and it will travel with me for the rest of the year. It sits well with my social concerns about photographing people in public (Stealth Photography And Other Urban Problems) and will probably lead me to add something to my Photographic Manifesto as well.

This simple little device, which might look like a toy to some, will surely help a lot of us make photography more social and kind. Allowing both the photographer and subject to leave their meeting with a photo to share and a story to tell can only be a good thing.

Responses
Edena 10 years ago

So easy and makes so much sense. It’s always such an awkward situation so amateurs tend to capture subjects too far away or risk cultural misunderstandings. This is at least a step towards bridging that!

Veronica 10 years ago

I love the idea of having a small portable printer with you as you take pictures. I never really thought about it before; youre taking a random picture of a person who may not even own a camera themselves. It’s sad in a way, and I can see why it would make a person feel guilty. Being able to share the picture with that person probably makes their day. Their incomplete story is now complete. They can go home to their families and say, “look what I got for free today”, and that picture will probably be cherished.

I am definitely going to look into the Fuji Instax SP1, it sounds great!

Louisa 10 years ago

I was going to comment on the fact that these photos mean so much as they are as rare to some people in remote countries as they were to us when cameras were new and so giving them a photo is giving them something they will not have many of and we all know how precious those photographs are when someone passes away but then again, I could take hundreds of photographs but they all still mean so much to me. In fact, Someone could show me their posh car, their nice house, their jewellery and none of it would interest me. If the same person gave me their photo albums and told me the stories of the people in them, I’d be in heaven.

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