Ah, gather round, dear snappers, for I've a yarn to spin that's sure to tickle your diaphragms. It's a tale of a certain breed of photographer, the kind that could outshine a supernova with the sheer brilliance of their self-regard. Yes, I'm talking about the Egotistical Lens Lords, the Blowhard Clickers, the ones whose self-praise is so abundant, they could fill an SD card with JPEGs of their own accolades.

The Grandiloquent Shutterbug Saga

Picture this: a street photography meet-up, where the air hums with the chatter of high ISO tales and the sharp click of shutter buttons. Amidst the cluster of pixel peepers, a character emerges, draped not in shadows, but in an unmistakable cloud of self-proclaimed brilliance. His lens, vast enough to warrant its own postcode, swings from a strap as he holds court, showering the crowd with a flurry of technical terms that flicker like the rapid-fire burst mode of his high-end DSLR.

His speech is peppered with the latest digital jargon—his camera’s megapixel count, the dynamic range debates, and the sanctity of RAW files are his scripture. And as he launches into a sermon on the virtues of his DSLR over mirrorless, or the inverse square law's impact on the light falloff in his latest 'masterpiece', the crowd is swept up in the digital rhapsody, a symphony punctuated by nods to the greats who once captured light on film but are now the patron saints of the digital darkroom.

His lexicon? A veritable thesaurus of photographic terminology, seasoned generously with acronyms that dance off his tongue like a ballet of bokeh. To the untrained ear, it's the gospel according to Saint Ansel, chapters and verses of ISO and EV compensation. With each utterance of 'dynamic range' and 'chromatic aberration', the crowd nods, their expressions a mixture of awe and the strained effort of keeping up.

Oh, the joy of watching this spectacle, as this maestro of megapixels cites Ansel Adams and Henri Cartier-Bresson like old drinking buddies. He tosses around 'hyper focal distances' and 'zone systems' with the nonchalance of someone discussing the weather. And yet, amidst the barrage of jargon, a truth begins to dawn—a realisation that, much like the emperor and his new clothes, our hero's grand monologue is all sizzle and no steak.

And so, dear clickers of the street, let us recall the wisdom from the East: "An empty vessel makes the most sound." In the world of street photography, our cameras are our vessels, our images the sound. Let us fill them not with the echoing void of vanity but with the rich symphony of stories that only candid shots can tell.

For in the end, it is not the one who speaks of light but the one who captures it who tells the tale. So the next time you encounter a Blowhard with a capital 'B', remember, it's the quiet ones, the observers, those who speak through their prints, that truly understand the art of street photography.

© Peter Pickering 2024. www.peterpickering.com