Help me understand street photography

[Roger Hicks]

I don't like street photography because, while there is an occasional gem among the rubble, for the most part it, to me, is boring and repetitious.

Quite unlike other forms of photography, then?

Cheers,

R.

 

[FPjohn]

Street Buskers

Street Buskers

Hello:

"Street photography" has the merit of recording the moment. I'm happy to have recorded the appearance of these people* on State Street, a specific place, during a brilliant spring in 2001.

yours
Frank

* I set out to record "Timeless Voices" new awning.

 

[raid]

With little children, hardly anything is a repetition since they grow so quickly. While less interesting to "strangers", family members enjoy looking at them ... oevr and over.

Maybe a balance between different types of photos is good to keep in you want to keep monotony away from your photos.

 

[Dogman]

Well, one would originally call it "candid" photography, or even "miniature" photography.

I like the term "candid photography". Much better than "miniature photography". "Miniature photography" brings up images of taking pictures of doll houses, Shetland ponies and the like. Not very interesting, you know.

I never knew what a "candid" was. If I did, I'd take a picture of it.

 

[michalski]

I don't like street photography because, while there is an occasional gem among the rubble, for the most part it, to me, is boring and repetitious. I think it's great, though, if someone enjoys doing it. It is indeed photography. But most of the images I see are simply not interesting to me. Not every group or person you point a camera at is interesting or doing interesting things.

I don't think you've said enough here. Is there something about street photography that makes it more boring and repetitive than landscape photography or studio photography, etc.? Is there a type of photography most of whose images you do find interesting? What are you comparing street photography to?

Rob


Edit: Oops, I see you have partially answered my questions.

 

[wgerrard]

Hello:

"Street photography" has the merit of recording the moment.

Yes, Frank, but...

Any photo always records the moment, by definition. The duration of the moment is determined by the shutter speed.

What SM has mentioned regarding context is very important. The photographer sees and experiences the context. The photographer sees, and is often involved in, the actions of his or her subjects. Those actions, which take time to occur, provide a context the photographer carries around in memory. A photo, however, since it 'captures the moment' can't provide the same context. The photographer's memory supplies a context that is unavailable to the rest of us.

That's why SM, and myself, see one thing when we look at photo's of Vietnam war protests, while our younger relatives see something else. Our memories supply a context that is unavailable to others, who have only the context provided by the image, and the context provided by their own memories.

This business about context may seem self-evident. (After all, it's the reason our neighbor is riveted by his vacation photos while we're laid low with boredom.) But, I think it accounts for at least some of the "Wow!" versus "Yawn..." reactions much street photography provokes.

 

[FPjohn]

Romanov Russia

Romanov Russia

Raid, you make the point. Photos are interesting to most people because they mean something to them, personally. Photos of random strangers on the street are just that, random photos.

Many of the classic photos that we find significant or moving today likely won't illicit the same reaction from people 50 years from now, except as curiosities from another time. The Great Depression will be too far away and too foreign (we hope) for most people to understand Dorothea Lange's photos, for example.

Hello:

You make an important qualification in that "most people" may miss the point of even fine images of record. However some can and will understand and that understanding requires the record to have been made and preserved. The look of the Russian Empire is accessible to us because it was recorded in a mundane fashion by a competent and diligent functionary.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/

Perhaps our blinkered age will forget the Depression but Lange's images might permit the recovery of the experience by a more empathetic one.

yours
Frank

 

[EcoLeica]

Man this is a intense thread (good read tho)....ok here is my two cents
Because of my training as a ecologist i have always approached street photography as a form of wildlife photography. Humans are amazing animals with social interactions that both interesting and sometime baffling. Thats what i want to document and i always thought that was the similar idea many of the classic 'street' photographers were trying to do.

I have to agree with some the arguments that some have said. Many of my photos wouldnt be accepted as something my parents or friends would want to put on their wall but i find a good street shot can tell a story that no landscape could

By the way here is my contribution...one of the shots from my study into New Zealand's drinking culture

 

[FPjohn]

The record has to exist in the first place

The record has to exist in the first place

Yes, Frank, but...

Any photo always records the moment, by definition. The duration of the moment is determined by the shutter speed.

What SM has mentioned regarding context is very important. The photographer sees and experiences the context. The photographer sees, and is often involved in, the actions of his or her subjects. Those actions, which take time to occur, provide a context the photographer carries around in memory. A photo, however, since it 'captures the moment' can't provide the same context. The photographer's memory supplies a context that is unavailable to the rest of us.

That's why SM, and myself, see one thing when we look at photo's of Vietnam war protests, while our younger relatives see something else. Our memories supply a context that is unavailable to others, who have only the context provided by the image, and the context provided by their own memories.

This business about context may seem self-evident. (After all, it's the reason our neighbor is riveted by his vacation photos while we're laid low with boredom.) But, I think it accounts for at least some of the "Wow!" versus "Yawn..." reactions much street photography provokes.

You point is a good one and valid for the subjective response to an image - there is an entire school of "response" theory. Photos of vets protesting the war might provoke the young to question now received accounts of the opposition to it. Or not.

We can make a record of our time and place as an act of responsibility rather than of solipism*.

yours
Frank

* Bordeau's rap on photography.

 

[wgerrard]

You point is a good one and valid for the subjective response to an image...

I suspect all responses to all photos are subjective. I'm not sure how you can react objectively to a photo, especially a photo of human faces. We all bring baggage to every image we see.

I don't think we can avoid trying to provide context for any image we see, and that context, determined by our memories and experiences, is subjective.

 

[FPjohn]

Hello:

I'm arguing for the act of recording as both necessary and valuable. Hence we should do it. My subjective response, or yours, is not necessarily accessible but we provide the stimulus for a common empathic world.

yours
Frank

 

[jan normandale]

this thread just keeps getting better and better!

BTW

Fred, you never responded to my post no. 119 but looking at your post no 131 it sort of suggests you might be, but you are using computer generated objects

 

[wgerrard]

I'm arguing for the act of recording as both necessary and valuable.

Images can provide resources for future historians, but historians have been fussing about their own subjectivity and objectivity for years.

Hence we should do it.

I don't know if I'd go that far. Our images may record something that may be of benefit to someone else, but I'm reluctant to couch it in ethical terms.

My subjective response, or yours, is not necessarily accessible but we provide the stimulus for a common empathic world.

I'm not sure what that means.

 

[FPjohn]

Subjective opinion on the value of street photography

Subjective opinion on the value of street photography

You point is a good one and valid for the subjective response to an image - there is an entire school of "response" theory. Photos of vets protesting the war might provoke the young to question now received accounts of the opposition to it. Or not.

We can make a record of our time and place as an act of responsibility rather than of solipism*.

yours
Frank

* Bordeau's rap on photography.

Empathy is based on ability to see/feel experience of others.

yours
Frank

 

[Pherdinand]

sitemistic
i have seen that image the very first time and had no idea what is it about
still found it a powerful image, liked it very much, well, empathy don't know, maybe even empathy

Do i know about the great depression? What great depression.
I am not and i was not connected in ANY way to the great depression of the US of A.
I think many of the people who appreciate that photo have nothing to do with the US of A, and only have heard about the great depression and the image's connection to the great depression from verbose art books.

I am 31. Now, not in 50 years. So maybe in fifty years a good image loses all its qualities, yes.
Maybe not.

 

[FPjohn]

Exactly

Exactly

Given the image, yes the possibility of understanding exists. Without it and the like, no.

Implicit in your position is a pessimism, readily justified by looking at our behaviour I admit, regarding our ability to recognize common experience.

yours
Frank

Will the image of Lange's Migrant Woman evoke empathy to a 30 year old, 50 years from now unless they have studied a long forgotten history from 130 years past? It may still be regarded as a great image (although, even that might not happen), but completely devoid of content without a long history lesson.

 

[wgerrard]

I think we are hardwired to react to images of fellow humans in distress or pain, etc. That's key to my earlier assertion that we react to all photos subjectively because we all bring baggage to it. When we have no personal connection with the subject, or no knowledge of it, our imaginations conjure up their own context. We make it up.

Example: My great grandfather died decades before I was born. I've only seen one or two photos of him as a very old man. He fought, however, in the American Civil War. I'd love to see photos of him from that time.

If I did, though, I wouldn't be able to recognize him. My reaction, empathetic and otherwise, would be drawn entirely from my imagination and my sketchy knowledge of the war.

 

[sjw617]

Do i know about the great depression? What great depression.
I am not and i was not connected in ANY way to the great depression of the US of A.

The depression started in the US but did go worldwide.

 

[ruben]

......What meaning, for example, do Vietnam era protest march photos have to 30 something year olds today? I participated in some of those marches as a young man, and they have very strong and specific meaning to me. Yet if they mean anything to a 30 year old, it's certainly not the reality the photos tried to capture. There is no universal, timeless meaning. It is lost......
QUOTE]

Wow, wow wow, my friend ! This is very much a political evaluation rather than a photographic one. And since my political evaluation of that period seems to run differently than yours, I would regard such pics the most important of my life.

As you can notice I am making my strongest effort not to cross the lines into the political arena. So let me compromise by saying that that was the finest moment of the American people. What a value those pics may have - you see it is all a contents evaluation.

Framing these sitemistic pics Raid?, one by one.

Cheers,
Ruben

 

[FPjohn]

Hello:

I return to the Romanov Russia record or Eugene Smith's Pittsburg Essay. I do not assume a certitude to my responses but I suspect they resemble those of others.

A tutored or knowing response would be better but its absence is not an argument against either project.

yours
Frank