The value of photographing what you know

Since the dawn of photography, people have carried cameras of all sorts to distant places. The value of the work produced for generations is invaluable and thankfully, increasingly well preserved through a myriad of public and private archives. Curious and adventurous people have produced delightful images of the world and the life in it.

Whatever camera you own, take it on your next trip. To photograph can be to observe more attentively. To look through a viewfinder can bring excitement where it is not evident. This last bit is particularly important at home or in spaces and communities which we consider routine. Access is at the core of an exciting photograph much more than gear.

Access allows you to take a photograph and to share it and it comes in many forms: family, love, friendship, a police id or a press card. Without it, doors will be literally shut for you and your cameras.

The good news is that you have much more access than you might at first realise. A project about your tuesday night football league can be an intriguing and exciting body of work exploring the egalitarian nature of amateur football, for example. Access is there, you are just missing the camera.

Bringing a camera to the places where you are accepted and photographing them is a privilege and it can also be a duty and a responsibility. As part of these spaces, you are an in an advantageous position to produce important narratives through photographs.

Start photographing what you know. Review your work. Keep shooting. Share your photographs. Let them make sense with time. There are many stories worth being told three flights away, but the most important is ten minutes down the street.