By, Max Hartenstine
Photography has always been a passion of mine. I started doing it in high school as a distraction from school and life. Street photography has always been my favorite. There is something so cathartic and rewarding about it. Capturing one random moment in time.
Street photography to me is true photography because it is not planned or orchestrated. It is spontaneous and unpredictable, like its subject matter. The first streets I ever photographed were the ones in my hometown. The ones I walked on my way back home after school, when I had nothing else to do. Never would have imagined I would be doing the same thing in Ireland one day. If you had told me I would be in Ireland taking photos in two years, I would not have believed you.
When I had decided I was going on this trip one of the first things I thought of was all the photos I was going to be able to take. Photos of both the buildings of Dublin and the people who live there. I thought about how I was going to be able to look at those photos for the rest of my life. That is part of the reason I like photography so much. I have a notoriously terrible memory, but if you take a photo of something, it is great insurance to remember something forever.
I was right about the photos in Ireland being good. The buildings were different but in a good way. The architecture was foreign but visually pleasing. A lot of things were the same though. I remember laughing when I was looking through my photo gallery on my laptop. Because I was taking photos of the same things I photographed in Pittsburgh. Bicyclists, people eating outside, construction, cars driving past buildings, but it all felt different.
I am sure that is an entirely subjective opinion; everything feels different when you are in a new country. I still love every photo I took while I was there, because they are my moments of time captured in Ireland.
I remember talking to one of my photography teachers back in high school about Photographers. We were talking about how people now demean photography because they say everyone can do it. How people will look at a photo and say, “I could not have that!”
I remember how I made that point to him and how he responded: “But you did not! I did.”
I like the simplicity of that rebuttal. You can talk about hypotheticals indefinitely. Talk about how you could have done something, but at the end of the day you did not; they did. That is something you can never take away from.
I can make that argument now. People can look at my photos and say they could have done it, but I will not listen. Because I was there and I took the photo. That is something you can never take away. That is the real beauty of a picture if you ask me. The inherent intimacy between the photographer and the subject that you cannot fake, and you cannot steal it either.
I will never forget the photos I took in Dublin, partly because they are cherished pictures, but mostly because I am going to be editing them all summer.
