Conversation: explaining me (to Gareth Jelley)

Gareth Jelley: My brain goes "ah, I want that moment", then the camera comes up. I used to worry a lot more about where everything was in the frame, but I don't worry so much now. I tend to trust my instinct... but it is hard. Bryan made a comment about knowing when not to shoot - when you see something but know it won't make a photo.
Joni Karanka: Yeah.
GJ: That is the key - eliminating the "moments" that are good moments, but can't be good photos.
JK: The funny thing is that most things will make a picture.
GJ: Well... yes...
JK: Oh, moment-wise? Yeah, I know I'm not the right person to shoot many things.
GJ: But there are certain things I don't shoot. I'd never shoot the things you shoot.
JK: I just went with Maciej to shoot the rugby matches, and it's not my place to shoot. I know it, I just don't like it. One reason is because there's too much content already. There are situations that are so loaded with meaning that they don't mean anything anymore. I don't shoot that.





GJ: Yeah. Too much clutter hurts my brain, sometimes.
JK: It's not the clutter. It's the meaning. A French fan is a French fan. It's so loaded that it's not surreal anymore.
GJ: Hahaha.
JK: You recognize it, and then it's not a picture of a person doing something strange. It's worthless. It's just a fan. It makes things make sense.
GJ: You are definitely moving more and more towards abstraction.
JK: Sure, at least now I know it. I didn't know it.
GJ: Your shot of the girl hiding I liked, on one level. I wasn't sure about the composition. But I could see exactly why you shot it.
JK: That, yes. I had two shots. The other composition was more strange, less perfect and better. Not so balanced.
GJ: It was a very Joni-moment, in lots of ways…
JK: Yeah!
GJ: …but the composition seemed to kill it.
JK: Too much composition is another loaded gun…





Captions to my pictures:
French fans before the match - Queen Street.
Girl in wall - Milano.