This week we are sharing work submitted to Lenscratch…

It does not happen often, but every now and then I will catch someone sneaking a candid of me in public.  It is the photographer in me that relates to the strides taken for the perfect image, and because of this I always pretend I cannot see them.  I shake their presence off in hopes that I embodied what they needed, that in some way I managed to help them in their quest for a perfect image.  Michael Tittel’s photographs satisfy my curiosity for all the photos of me I do not know, that I have not seen.  His portrayal of people touches on the humor in coincidence, and brings an evocative narrative to the casual.

Michael Tittel started his journey in photography when he was 16 years old. He has been hooked ever since. Michael received a BFA in photography from Ohio University in 1992 and spent the next 10 years as a commercial photographer. He left the commercial side of the business when he realized he couldn’t reconcile the agency-driven art direction with his creative aspirations. So with the advent of the Internet Michael became a creative director working in advertising. He thinks photography can make the strange feel familiar and the familiar more strange. It can bring idealism to life. It is something that he loves in addition to performing music and raising a family.

Behavior

Our daily social journeys are built on instantaneous and fleeting views that are often not grounded in truth but are instead formed by our perceptions of the hundreds of situations we observe. The saying “perception is everything” is the reality of our daily social interactions. This work is about those perceptions we form countless times every day. Reaction to these images is as relevant to me as the actual subject matter portrayed. Within this perceived truth, what is most interesting is the control of the photographer versus the vulnerable portrayal of the subjects and their activities.