“If your pictures aren’t good enough you aren’t getting close enough.”
-Robert Capa
That quotation has become a truism, cliché and whatever else you want to call it but that doesn’t stop it from being true. Perhaps the biggest single problem I see in the photographs of amateur photographers is that of distance: most of the time people just don’t get close enough, they don’t cross the critical distance.
A Marine recruit faces his final test. © Damaso Reyes
What do I mean by critical distance? Essentially it is the amount of space that we usually keep between ourselves and other people or objects. In the case of street photography it is the view that we might have of a scene as we walk by. Most photographers, especially when just starting out, feel uncomfortable getting close and crossing that critical distance.
Anti-war activist Brian Haw loses his election bid to Parliment. © Damaso Reyes
But as the phrase implies it is critical to put yourself in that space. As photographers our job is to go places that the viewer never would. In large part this is what makes many images interesting or different from a simple snapshot. Part of going there is getting up close and personal. Often one of the first assignments I give to my students is one where they shoot at or near the minimum focusing distance of their lens. By forcing yourself to get closer you change your relationship to the subject even if it is an object and not a person.
A child receives treatment for Malaria in Tanzania. © Damaso Reyes
Filling the frame is just part of what I’m talking about, an essential part to be sure but more important is the idea that you as the photographer are occupying the same emotional space as your subject. By doing so you understand more about what you are photographing and hopefully can better convey what you are experiencing to your viewers. The photographer is the bridge that spans the gap between subject and viewer. The gap is the critical distance and the only way to make good photographs is to fill that space.
Cancer survivor. © Damaso Reyes
It’s also important to remember that the critical distance is not a static amount of space, it changes just as the situation you photograph changes. In reality the critical space is that feeling inside of us that we are close to something, regardless of physical distance. The critical distance is not a measurement of space but of emotion.
