CATEGORIZE IT!

Please have a look at the image below. It shows a girl waiting at the Millenium Bridge in London.
How you would categorize it? A portrait, an architectural image, a street photo, something else?

The other photo shows a fire-eater from Sri Lanka, shot analog in 1985. Does it fit into Action, Travel,  or maybe another category?

And here now my third question: Do we shoot in categories? Or in other words, do we try to take images that will fit in a category? If you look at all the photo magazines and photo forums  around everything will be categorized. I won’t say it’s a bad thing, because otherwise you end up in chaos, but will we change the way we take photographs. Do people go out and try to shoot explicit for a category in a magazine, let’s say for a contest? I guess they do as a lot of people can’t judge a picture because it doesn’t fit into a category! You may say, there are also “themes” around, but these  are just more detailed categories, nothing else.

I came across that when I wrote a note about a picture in PhotoPortale (www.photoportale.de), a forum I’m a member of. I wrote about a portrait of an old lady and I stated that I like this portrait study. I got the answer that this term (portrait study) for a picture is new to him and it won’t fit into any category, because no one uses this “description”. Coming from illustration every portrait, finished or unfinished, is a “portrait study” for me, as it only shows a moment in time.

Maybe time to add a new category for portraits?

Please let me know what you think about this theme. And enjoy the pictures.