Barry Ashenhurst – Breaking Conformity in Street Photography

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Spotify |

Barry Ashenhurst is a retired photojournalist primarily based in Newcastle, Australia, who labored for a few of the nation’s premier sporting and way of life magazines. After a long time {of professional} work—from motocross tracks to caravan publications—Barry transitioned to avenue pictures, buying and selling his heavy digital camera luggage for a single Sony A7 and 35mm lens. His article “Feeding the Fire” will probably be revealed November fifth in Street Photography Magazine.

Barry’s journey into pictures started in his household lavatory darkroom, finally shifting to his dad and mom’ canine kennel when his mom bored with the odor of chemical compounds. His method to breaking into journal work was unconventional however efficient: “I’ve never approached a magazine and said, this is who I am, this is what I can do,” he explains. “I’ve always just sent them a complete product, like a complete story, with the pictures, with captions set out in the editorial style that that magazine uses.”

Today, Barry is anxious about what he sees as an absence of originality in modern avenue pictures. He’s significantly vital of the trend-driven nature of the style: “There’s a conformity, a strangling conformity in a lot of this stuff. I think they get onto someone and they see what he’s doing. So now everyone’s photographing silhouettes.” Rather than following YouTube tutorials or copying fashionable photographers, Barry advocates learning the masters—fight photographers like Don McCullin and documentary photographers like Sebastião Salgado.

Drawing on wildlife photographer David Yarrow’s standards, Barry believes nice images share three qualities: “Number one, you probably can’t take it again. Number two, it’s interesting enough to look at for a long time. And number three, it touches the heart.” He challenges avenue photographers to use these requirements to their work as a substitute of chasing traits.

Barry’s philosophy is easy: “If your photographs are boring, you’re photographing boring stuff, mate. Go and find interesting things to photograph.”

Barry doesn’t at present have an internet site or different on-line presence. However he’s very effectively learn and through our dialog shared a number of glorious ebook and photographer suggestions. I used to be impressed together with his admiration of the writings by the late Joe Baegent from West Virginia. It was a pleasing shock that somebody from the opposite facet of the planet was impressed by tales in regards to the distinctive tradition of my native Appalachia.