The WIP #36: Long Lens

The Week in Photos (31 August - 6 September 2024)

You often hear people lamenting that Instagram is no longer good for photography. It’s true that my ‘Explore’ page consists of juvenile memes (Honestly, algorithm, that’s not who I am!). But I wonder if the problem is higher up the chain.

Why did we ever think that these small glass rectangles were enough? Both for viewing or taking photos. This week, I brought out the big camera and have been amazed at how much the phone misses.

It helped that I had a long lens. I couldn’t hear what this guy and the street preacher were arguing about, but I could see the emotion.

I was like a seagull observing the world without engaging.

The long lens flattens everything and, like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window, feels unethical. Perhaps more so than Bruce Gilden’s in-your-face street photography.

Even so, it was nice to have a fresh perspective.

The camera came out after I volunteered as photographer at Parkrun on Saturday. See my photos of suffering runners here.

I was bowled over by Niall McCallum’s exhibition at Glasgow Project Room, which moves EVERYTHING in his flat into the gallery. I still need to see the second half of the show which is a flat stripped bare.

The urbanists of Glasgow were out in force for Brutal Glasgow, an exhibition about this most loved and hated form of modernism. It’s said that buildings are most at risk of being demolished one generation after they are built, and perhaps we are starting to regret knocking them down. Read more about Brutalist architecture in Glasgow.

Other than that, we have been clinging on to the last sunny days of summer …

… and visiting the house of the dragon.