Photographing Dupont Circle
July 1, 2005
Those walking on the mall are apt to be middle aged and carrying a camera, or, alternatively, to be quite young and wearing identical T-shirts. Not so in Dupont Circle. My camera feels much more out of place there as we are surrounded by young professionals going to a bar, or trendy kids shopping on Connecticut Avenue. This is a destination point for those who live in Washington.. who have no daily interest in the mall..
There is a store that sells photographs near Dupont Circle. Last time we were here we wandered in and looked at the photographs.. which come from many different nations. The unframed photos are stacked in small bins, grouped by country. The photos are nice.. as one might expect. They tend to capture representative sights and colors of different countries.. this often means landmarks such as Big Ben or the Taj Mahal, but at other times an open market or graffiti on a wall is the subject.
Having looked through the photographs in this store, I asked myself: who buys these photos? Who sees a picture of a beautiful scene in India and thinks to himself: "I want to hang that on my wall?" I would feel a little ashamed to have the Taj Mahal prominently displayed in my house only to have to explain to visitors that I have never actually been there, but simply liked the picture. Bearing that in mind, it seemed more likely that the people who buy photographs here have already visited the place. They see a picture and think: I saw scenes just like that in Paris, and I’d love to hang that in my living room. And since Washington has a large number of people who have traveled internationally.. from diplomats to students of foreign affairs.. there would be a decent market for that kind of memory purchase.
But of course as a photographer I cannot help but do some mental comparing.. “I was in Egypt.. How do my photos stack up with his?” I was also curious to see what this photographer did with Washington. After a moment I realized that this was comparing apples and oranges. This photographer had always to consider prospective purchasers.. thinking about what subjects will appeal to someone who has visited France or Egypt.. and the result is a generalized style.. photographs that could have been taken by anyone. My photographs grow out of personal experience, and I try to restrain the postcard impulse.. I cannot imagine my photographs hanging on someone’s wall. They are not meant to strike a general taste, but rather to document the beautiful and historic sights that we come across.. which makes my photographs more journalistic than those of my imagined competitor near Dupont Circle.
We also found a bookstore that carried a good selection of used books. I have always thought that a used bookstore makes a great indicator for the interests of a local populace, since used bookstores survive on the books that are traded in, and in turn stock books that they believe they will be able to sell. And I duly noticed here an unusually strong section of books on international studies and politics.
The park in the middle of Dupont Circle has a central fountain shaped like a large goblet, and the small park seems to be always filled with people sitting on the bench and reading, laying on the grass with a lover, or meeting a group of friends.. or even playing hackey-sack. That is clearly a more popular reason for coming to Dupont Circle than either the photography store or the bookstores. And we had more to do also.. we first had to find a Thai restaurant..
