ยฉ Tony Ray-Jones
Write Your Own Rules
The thing that would make you improve most isn’t a new camera. It’s a short list of your own faults, written by hand, that you carry when you go out. Almost no one keeps one, because it’s easier to buy gear than to admit what you always get wrong.
Tony Ray-Jones had studied in America, at the Yale art school and in Alexey Brodovitch’s lab in New York, and could have lived off that pedigree. Back in England, between 1966 and 1968 he drove around the country in a van photographing English customs, the seaside, the fairs, the village fรชtes and parades. And he kept a notebook of orders to himself: be more aggressive, talk to people, stay with the subject, be patient, take simpler pictures, don’t take boring pictures. He died at thirty, of leukaemia, in 1972. That list outlived him and shaped the way Martin Parr learned to see.
Look at what those lines are. They’re his recurring faults, turned into commands. If he wrote “stay with the subject” it’s because he felt himself leaving too soon; if he wrote “get closer” it’s because he stopped too far away. Each one hits a specific mistake of his own. It’s a self-portrait made of flaws, and that’s why it worked.
And that’s why his list is no use to you, you need your own three or four lines. Think of the last times you came home disappointed and ask what you got wrong again. You stayed too far back, you shot too early, you avoided talking, you repeated the same framing. That’s the material. Turn it into three short commands and keep them in your pocket.
It’s the most honest way to watch yourself work from the outside, while you’re about to slip. A scrap of paper with your three lines reminds you of your usual mistake at the moment it counts, out in the street, an instant before you make it again. The new camera you dream about never will.
Marco Savarese
Editor-in-Chief
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marco Savarese
Marco Savarese is Editor-in-Chief at Eyeshot, the independent publisher he founded in Italy in 2018. He spends most of his year reading portfolios, judging the Open Call, and editing the magazine catalogue. The reading desk is open, and he takes one-to-one Professional Reviews from photographers working seriously on long-term projects.
Who Finishes Your Photograph
NOTE #210. A photo isn’t finished until it survives to where people see it. Paul Strand chose hand photogravure for Photographs of Mexico so the printed copy kept the tonal weight of his prints. Protect the tone to the end, or the worst medium decides for you.
What the Dark Does
NOTE #209. A face lost in shadow reads as underexposed, a defect to fix. Gordon Willis kept Brando’s eyes in the dark in The Godfather and held it against the studio. Before you rescue a shadow, ask what it does; if you can say it, you decided it.
The Place After
NOTE #208. Of a huge event, often only an ordinary place is left. In On This Site (1996) Joel Sternfeld photographed fifty banal American places where violence happened, each with a line of text. Photograph the aftermath, and let the line do the work.
The Photo Made Together
NOTE #206. Street photography teaches you to steal people; there’s another way. In Malick Sidibรฉ’s Bamako studio the youth chose how to be seen. Before you take someone, ask how they’d want to look, and make the photo together.
Write Your Own Rules
NOTE #205. The thing that improves you most isn’t a new camera, it’s a short list of your own faults. Tony Ray-Jones kept a notebook of orders to himself and it shaped Martin Parr. Write your three rules and keep them in your pocket.
Watch the Master Work
NOTE #204. You don’t learn from a master’s finished prints, you learn from watching them work. In 1962 Joel Meyerowitz watched Robert Frank shoot, quit his job that day, and picked up a camera. Watch the body, not the result.
The Work Before the Name
NOTE #203. The worth of a photo and the worth of the byline are two different things. Koudelka shot the 1968 Prague invasion anonymously as ‘P.P.’ and revealed it sixteen years later. Photograph what must be photographed even when no one will know it was you.
The Subject You Run From
NOTE #202. The strongest subject you have is the one you’d rather not photograph. Ishiuchi Miyako went back to Yokosuka, the occupied base town she was taught to fear, and made it her life’s work. Point the camera where it’s uncomfortable.