I watched the “10 min street photography challenge” with Sean Tucker and Pierre T. Lambert the other day (https://youtu.be/_ntHNgDkBUg). I like Tucker a lot (http://www.seantucker.photography/people): he is a thoughtful artist whose technique is very refined, and whose purposeful approach is quite remarkable.

The word “challenge” is a very confused one. In English it stems, via old French, from Latin’s calumnia and refers [originally] to accusation, false claim, etc. thus totally missing the point. Another descendant of Latin, Italian, does a much better job by borrowing a different word. The Italian word is sfida, a Barbarian spoonerism of disfida, a lack of faith, a back formation of fidare, fido, “I trust”. You are challenged because somebody (or yourself) doesn’t accept (or has no faith in) your ability to do a certain thing: to run a mile inside 4 min, to summit the Everest solo, or just to frame, expose and process a shot — anything.

A lack of faith in this case was in a photographer’s ability to find an interesting image within 10 min of being set loose on a street of London. Sean Tucker, it seemed, had little faith in himself but accepted the challenge and did a good job. While photography, it is my deepest conviction, is not a sport, here’s my humble contribution under the same challenge conditions, except it is not London, but the town I live in, and my street [the photo really begs for a large screen].

When you rise to a challenge, the trick is to get low.

I learned it from Tucker.

Have a good week.