AEP Photography: March 2009

While searching through a list of documentary photographers, I came upon a name, that i was not familiar with, Andrew Stark. Andrew Stark is a street photographer from Sydney, Australia. Stark had a lot of his inspiration coming from the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, Roger Scott, and Tony Ray-Jones. Stark also drew inspiration from working in a black and white darkroom, and started shooting the streets of Australia in the early 1980’s. While shooting he always looked for a poetic moment, and believed “Absolutely anything goes so long as you remain within the candid framework.” For over 20 years he has shot with grainy 35 mm in black and white, and his second hand SLR.

"I genuinely believe photography to be at it's most potent when underscored by truth. To contrive is to control and frankly I'm more interested in observation than direction. Riding the ebb and flow of Sydney's streets, approaching the next corner afresh, never quite knowing what may present itself in the adjoining street. That's the random beauty of street photography. Control has to be a stultifying, creative brake. The magic, emotion charged moments are in my experience invariably captured using an almost sub conscious process, they must never be orchestrated and can rarely be dogmatically collated."

While looking though websites of his work, I found his work to be very inspiring, in the way he was able to capture moments and people. Eddy Avenue, Central, 2000 is one of my favorite photographs by Stark. The photograph is looked to be shot from the outside window of a train or bus station looking in. Inside he was able to capture 3 very different look people who all seemed to be rather relaxed. To me the most interesting part of the photograph is the graffiti on the window which he was shooting through, and the refections of the buildings behind him. There are so many different parts to this photo all working together.