ON ASSIGNMENT

Photo Journalism Meets Flaneur

This year, one of my on-going projects is to get out in my spaces and go ON ASSIGNMENT with my photography of the surrounding urban landscapes. This combines two activities I love: Photo journalism and the practice and personal vocation of being a Flaneur.

What is a FLANEUR exactly? Author of the book Flaneur: The Art of Wandering the Streets of Paris and fellow flaneur Federico Castigliano defines the role and practice:

"The word flaneur derives from the French verb flaner, which means "to wander", "to waste time"."

This Parisian pastime reminds me of another quote I love from Francoise Sagan, which captures the Human Design Projector essence quite succinctly:

"My favorite pastime is letting time pass by, having time, taking time, wasting time, living out of time."

More on my personal interest in flaneur-ing later...

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Last month, I took up a self-created challenge of choosing a place and purchasing a disposable camera and filling up the roll with anything that caught my intuition.

The DISPOSABLE CAMERA part is important. Too often, we take photos with our phones and never see those images again! They get lost in the digital sea of taken & forgotten personal content. My creative aim is to get personal with my photography again and that starts with using an actual camera!

On this recent outing, I chose Downtown ARLINGTON, TEXAS for my location to explore. Two hours and twenty-eight pictures later, I had used a full roll of film. Now, off to developing! I'm using my local Walgreens to develop this batch.

Note// Back in the day, photography associates developed film on-site. These days in the age of digital photography, development of disposables or any other kind of film to sent out, processed and eventually returned.

After I retrieve the finished product I can share my Arlington photo moments, visual treasures and discoveries here. Stay tuned for this and other On Assignment posts!

Fun Fact// Disposable Cameras go for about $25 right now. A lot more expensive than my teenage years!