Chloé Salmon
STREET PHOTOGRAPHY
I was first introdu-ced to photography through my mother. I remember always seeing her walk a-round with a Leica at hand, and as kids do, I was fascinated and wanted to do the very same. Rou-ghly six years ago I was given my first DSLR camera – a Canon 600D which I’ve been using ever since. You often hear people saying their lives changed when they got their first camera, but it wasn’t really like that for me. In fact, I got bored of it pret-ty quickly. The ini-tial fascination had somehow dwindles and was replaced instead by sheer frustration. Truth is, it was a heavy ca-mera and the technicalities were daunting for my age. There was an infinite gap bet-ween what I wanted to shoot and the end-result. Adjus-ting the ISO, aper-ture, white balance, shutter speed, ex-posure, composi-tion and so on – there’s a lot of science behind the magic of photo-graphy, which didn’t appeal to me at all. So I gave up on my camera for a while. That changed a couple down the line. I started get-ting more familiar
with the technical aspects that had once put me off,
and began regularly taking my camera on trips and using it for experimental projects. Two years later, I created my first Instagram. Honestly, I jumped on board mostly just because everyone was hyping this new platform up, I never really thought dee-ply about it. Today however, I realise IG actually helped my work mature. People use it how-ever they please, but to me IG func-tioned like a port-folio. What was simply a dumping ground of insignifi-cant pictures I took of daily life and travels became a way of tracking my progress and where I wanted to get. I wanted each picture to be better composed, more visually interesting than the last. I was slowly discovering what I was aestheti-cally drawn to – and I guess this is how I started really get-ting into the photo-graphy game.
I started getting more familiar with the technical as-pects that had once put me off, and began regularly taking my camera on trips and using it for experimental projects. Two years later I created my first Instagram. I jumped on board mostly just because everyone was getting hype over this new platform, I never really thought twice about it. Today however, I realise IG actually helped my work mature. People use it however they want to, but to me IG worked like a portfolio. What was simply a dumping ground of insignificant pictures I took of daily life and travels became a way of tracking my progress, like a vision board. I wanted each picture to be better composed, more visually thoughtful and poetic than the last. I was slowly discovering what my aesthetic was drawn to – and I guess this is how I started really getting into the photography game.
PARIS, FRANCE
