Busy City, Busy Lens
         
by Stephen Leithwood

It doesn't start with one, but hundreds. It may be recreation at first, but it quickly becomes an addiction. All that is needed is a camera, a computer and a love for photography.
Anyone can photoblog.

In 2003, the word blog was added to the Oxford Dictionary of English, but even before then, enthusiasts were developing a way to post personal pictures they've taken on a daily basis. All over the globe, people of all ages maintain their own photoblogs, and photoblogging is slowly gaining respect as a valid form of photojournalism. In some ways, these pictures can be a portal to an unknown culture- an open window to the other side of the world.

Among the thousands to photoblog world-wide, Canada is quickly becoming a hot spot. The culturally dense city of Toronto is a breeding ground for capturing images. Over 200 actively involved photobloggers live there and the city’s downtown core is a photoblogger's playground. The area is full of old and new, unique architecture, allowing for countless potential photo sites. Sean Galbraith knows this better than most.

An urban planner, Galbraith has a love for photogenic buildings. "A part of loving buildings is loving them throughout their life span. Everything has a sort of natural evolution, life and death cycle."  His passion for all things photography has gone beyond a regular pastime. Like most photobloggers, he carries his camera wherever he goes: to the office, out to lunch or a Sunday drive. "I spend a lot of time doing photography, at the great neglect of my fiancé and everything else in my life," he admits. "It's all consuming at this point."

Galbraith's style is fast, and borders on random. Much like an automatic weapon, his camera fires off 20 frames in a three second burst. Occasionally he slows down to carefully compose a shot, but little thought is put into the math of his photos. To look around and simply see subjects as photos, capturing still frames here and there, is much like how a photoblogger's mind works. On an average day, Galbraith will take 150 photos and maybe retain only 10 percent of them. This is common for photographers as not every shot is a keeper.

His pricey Panasonic FZ30 digital camera isn't for the average tourist, but the point-and-shoot aspect coupled with a fold-out LCD display makes it easy for amateurs. Galbraith says everyone has to start somewhere, so it’s best not to get discouraged. After all, most photo-takers start off with lousy shots and photobloggers themselves often go through a growth process. "There's this predictable pattern of photography subject evolution," Galbraith says. "People have to develop photographic confidence, and you do that by taking non-threatening photos first and then you eventually work your way up to threatening photos."

Aside from shooting buildings, many photobloggers like to take pictures of people as well. When he's shooting "street photography," Galbraith has seen everything from no response from people, to almost getting into a fight. "A fellow photographer who I was out with, took a photo in the direction of someone's kids, but didn't take a picture of the kids, but looked like it could have been. It escalated to a big problem. It was almost a rumble. Photographing children is very sensitive, but the power of digital gives you the chance to show and ask the parent if they have a problem with a picture, and if they do you can delete it right away."

His most memorable photo is of a homeless man in Toronto. "It's a shot I took, and his face was fully visible in it. I was nervous taking the shot. I relied on the super zoom of my camera's lens," he explains. "I was halfway up the damn block, zooming way in on this guy. And when I got home, I looked at the photo. He was looking straight at the lens. I didn't know.

“What I love about the shot is the look on his face: 'If life hadn't beaten me down so far that I'm sitting here on the sidewalk as people walk by, I would get up right now and kick your ass for taking this photo.' Not many photographers are fearless, which is why the backs of people's heads are common in photoblogs."

Because a lot of it is candid street photography, photoblogging isn't exactly commercially ideal. It's used as a promotional tool for photographic interests. "A presence on the World Wide Web is vital for a photographer's publicity. Photoblogging is one aspect of establishing yourself on the net," Galbraith says as his own website, SMLG.ca, decodes into his initials.

The reality is most photos posted don't have commercial value. Blogging is a strange medium because you’re giving away photos for free: anyone can view a blog. So what is left for the photographer to sell?

"The product is basically the photographer and their integrity, their brand as a photographer," Galbraith says. "The vehicle to make money off it would be advertising, which is hit or miss because you'll need a lot of web traffic to make money off of it. This would take a pretty dramatic reworking of the photoblog as a whole to turn it into a viable business."

Camera addict Matt O'Sullivan senses photoblogging is starting to show a true form. "Lots of people are getting into it, and lots of people who have been doing it for a while are really growing as photographers," O'Sullivan notes.

"I'm sure that over time many photobloggers will evolve into professionals or dedicated artists and focused storytellers as a result of their photoblogging hobby - people who might otherwise have never really explored their potential as photographers."

There are a lot of photoblogs, so it's extremely difficult to distinguish yourself from the herd. O' Sullivan's, thenarrative.net, is pulling in website traffic upwards of 2500 visitors a day. "It's rewarding to have an audience. I used to think about it a lot more, and feel a kind of responsibility to keep posting everyday and to post things that would generate comments," he says. "Now, I don't think about it. I just do it for me, when I feel like it."

O' Sullivan keeps food on the table by being self-employed and involved with a slew of media companies. "I learned how to process film and built myself a darkroom in my early twenties and I guess that was the beginning of taking it seriously," he reveals.

As photoblogs gain more respectable ground in the photography world, the doors are open to the anti-photographer, one without a face but with a little place on the web to call their own.  With constant advancements in available technology, it seems as though the field will only continue to grow.