What A Cosplay Austrian Taught Me About Myself
... and why I'll forever suck at street photography ...
About five years ago I was coming back from Ireland, after a pleasant trip home to see my wife’s family. I’m one of those nervous travellers that likes to get to the airport in time, lest there be any last minute surprises, like a change of gate, or a cancellation, but also to make sure I’m first in the queue to get my bag into the overhead bin. Yep, I’m one of those travellers, a side effect of a rather traumatic event from my youth involving a taxi ride through the Portuguese countryside, a misreading of the departure time and a plane full of angry passengers waiting for us to take our seats. But I digress.
My wife and son had ventured off to the various shops, given we had a three(!) hour wait before our flight boarded, so I was left alone in a largely empty departure lounge at Dublin airport. I had just gotten out my book (James Robertson’s “And The Land Lay Still”) when out of the corner of my eye I see a man approaching. But not just any man. This man was dressed head-to-toe in Victorian outfit, complete with top hat, cane, white gloves and one of those surgeons bags you see in films about Jack the Ripper.
“I have to say, that’s quite the outfit”, I said as he walked past. “Thank you, Sir”, he replied and sat down next to me. We got chatting, and it turns out he’s Austrian, living in Ireland, and on his way to The Netherlands to see some friends.
- “do they dress up like this too, your friends?”
- “no, they don’t, but they don’t mind that I do, they sort of accept it”
He tells me his name is Jacob, and that he lives his life as much as he can as a Victorian gentleman. Clearly, there are times when modern life breaks through the facade - he had a bright pink suitcase with him - but for the most part he lives the life as much as he can, complete with mannerisms. I even got his card. In his bag he had all the communication methods of your average 19th century-man-about-town: a quill, ink, paper, envelopes and some wax for his seal. We had a great chat about how difficult life is, living like this, but for him it was completely normal, and natural.
- “but how do you deal with people’s reactions?”
- “it’s difficult, sometimes. People point and stare, but for the most part I’ve gotten used to the looks and comments.”
- “have you ever considered stopping, if it all got too much?”
- “no, this is how I want to live my life, so I put up with the comments. It just doesn’t matter to me”
We spoke for a while, and while we were talking I was acutely aware of people staring and giggling. It made me incredibly uncomfortable, but Jacob didn’t seem to mind. He certainly didn’t get the impression he was aware of it, and if he was, he did a great job of not letting it get to him. Eventually, our flight was called, and Jacob shuffled off to the top of the queue - he had priority boarding. Once on the plane, having left his pink suitcase in the overhead bin, alongside his top hat, he sat in the middle seat of three, resplendent in his Victorian outfit, between some fat bloke covered in tattoo’s, and a nun. I lost track of him at Schiphol, but I would have loved to have seen the reactions of the people at the airport in The Netherlands. The Dutch, after all, have a reputation of brutal, unadulterated honesty, and generally don’t put up with fools gladly. “Doe even normaal”, a common Dutch expression that translates to “just act normally” but which is generally taken to mean “don’t be an arsehole”.
Look, I don’t have much time for the cosplay. But what I do appreciate, and the thing of which I am insanely jealous, is the fact that Jacob had the courage, the sheer fucking shamelessness to go about the place dressed like that. The ability to just not care what other people think and to do your own thing is something that’s just beyond my comprehension, and it’s something that’s held me back in life.
It’s the same with street photography. I am not jealous of the images the great (and not so great, there’s quite a few of those) take. I’m not jealous of the likes, and comments, and accolades, or their fancy Squarespace websites.
No, what I am jealous of is the fact they are able to take the images they take. Like Jacob, they don’t care about the judgement, or the attention, of the fear of ridicule, or confrontation. It’s like a shield, a forcefield that lets them approach people, to get into the mix of things, into the life on the streets.
It’s a personality trait I don’t have. I care too much. I’m too sensitive. And I wish it’s a quality I could have surgically removed. It’s the main reason I don’t really do a lot of street photography. In this day and age, it has a certain reputation, not helped by the sort of thing most people associate with street photographers. I have enough problems of my own, the last thing I need is to be considered creepy. So I stick to landscapes, desolate stuff, things that don’t require people, and more importantly, their opinions and judgement.
How do I get to be Jacob? And if I was, would it improve my photography? Possibly. It would open up a lot more avenues, more directions to go into. My ongoing project about the town in which I live, Amstelveens, has died a quiet death because I’m taking pictures of the same places, and not really capturing the essence of the place because I am me, and not Jacob.
Can anyone identify with this? If so, how did you deal with it? Or did you just learn to live with it? How did it affect your photography? Do let me know!