I’m easy to please. Put me in a few fields with over 30,000 happy people and I soak up the atmosphere until I’m giddy. A pill-less e-zone. Put a camera in my hands, however, and I’m lethal. The act of observation changes that which is being observed; but it also changes this observer.
There is an element to photography that is undoubtedly phallic, in that it is about probing, objectifying, penetrating, capturing, possessing. It can be, of course, the opposite: reverential, lyrical, sensuous, intimate. For every rapist-paparazzo, intrusive and disturbing, there is a humane portrait artist. For every image that captures the raw truth of a person’s character, gritty and uncompromising, there is one that offers a sublime reflection of the world around us, serene and inspiring.
When I started taking pictures a few years ago, in rural Italy, landscape was the object of my devotion; in particular, a beautiful valley right in front of my home, shifting moods from month to month, was where I would pray, with a click. I’d wake up in the middle of the night and find Venus rising over Montalcino – snap – and a few days later I’d wake up early and catch the dawn chasing the mists down the hillside, revealing a haze of spring buds on the trees clinging there. Snap. Poring over the results became a ritual of wonder, a rite of celebration of the natural world.
A landscape photographer’s footprints are gentle, invisible even. The mission is simply to record, to reveal: nature is not embarrassed when her secrets are discovered. The more one forages into a forest of rain-soaked silver trees and catches the sunlight glistening on the orange-leaved carpet, for example, or captures the breathless moment a hawk starts diving into a field of sunflowers, the more ego-less one becomes; a photograph records that instant of human awe. It’s why, time and time again, whenever I ask people what makes their heart sing, makes them glad to be alive, most will speak of being in contact with nature. Losing ourselves works wonders for the spirit. And taking pictures of those natural miracles is simply spreading the word. The photographer as missionary.
Taking photographs of people, though, is a very different experience. It requires a certain confidence to invite yourself into a stranger’s personal space and make yourself at home. I tend to use humour to break through the barrier, but I realise, from the reactions I get when I do so, that I must be ridiculously camp; time and time again I get comments about my being gay, especially at festivals, when inhibitions are relaxed-to-mashed anyway. It’s never in a bad way; I guess I’m just recording that my daily experience of living as me does not include a constant self-conscious awareness of being gay. But it’s the first thing other people notice. Maybe, in some unconscious way, people retaliate subtly when I put them on the spot, break through their privacy barrier, and they return the favour with a gentle dig, a personal comment that in ordinary circumstances would not be appropriate. But, I digress.
When I first plucked up the courage to photograph strangers, at last year’s Garden Party, there was an unmistakable erotic charge to the day; it was the only day of high summer, and everyone was stripped off and in full peacock mode, most especially the men. Long after everyone has forgotten the day, my photographs still remind me of that edgy sizzle, and are by far the most popular on my blog. This year’s Electric Picnic was a very different experience – (the weather does affect our temperament so much in Ireland, we should consider putting Prozac in the water if we continue to have wet summers) – it was far more mellow, dare I say it: cuddly. Eroticism was hard to find. And, believe me, it wasn’t for the want of trying.
The primitive belief that one’s soul is stolen when one’s picture is taken is not far off the mark. It’s not exactly stolen, however – it’s a bit more like cloning. When I go home and watch the images pop up on my screen, one by one, as they are being transferred from the memory card, sometimes I gasp at what I see – not because I’m a particularly good photographer, but because sometimes, an extraordinary thing happens, an alchemy of sorts. It’s a mystery why some people are photogenic, but when they are, their personality punches through the screen. Images take on a life of their own; something transcends from the ordinary to the sublime, the iconic.
In my transition from nature’s missionary to idolatrous soul-cloning image-stealer, I hit on a new high when photographing singer/songwriter Jay Brannan, who played his first Irish gig to a hugely supportive crowd in Crawdaddy on September 2, easing the pain of the come-down Tuesday. His photos aren’t erotic to me in a directly sexual way: ie, they aren’t pornographic, I don’t want to shag him. (Perhaps, I just wouldn’t know where to start, midlife insecurities and all that. Is it sad just to want to mop his glistening brow?) But the camera adores him. My camera adores him. I just merely follow where it leads.

http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photos/pod-irish-landscapes.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dermod/sets/1214722/