A Personal Street Photography Manifesto

When I first moved to NYC, I got a job in the pulp magazine business, with a real old-time publisher who had been in business since the 1800's.

We had "morgues" with hundreds of thousands of photos, some going back a hundred years.

Each one was "slugged" with a description on the back.

Some had half a dozen crop marks, white-out retouching, some were just cut to fit.

We used images the way a computer artist manipulates images today, but it was all done manually, with paint, airbrush, scissors, and a "lucy" machine.

I saw images as fluid, to be altered, stretched and played with to suit one's purpose, not as a rigid work of "art".

I like the photos with the frame edge showing, some of them are a nice effect, but if they don't work, or if they never existed, off they go.....

Nothing like a real glass plate. Now those were REAL photographers, not 35mm fakers and sissies.

 
No one has discussed the fact you don't really know what is going onto your film if you use a rangefinder, you may know if you use an SLR. So cropping, it's done and has been done. Almost all "masters" have done some post production on images from cropping to burning to dodging. Not all paper sizes correspond to the film ratios so that is another issue related to cropping. I hate to think of all the excellent images that would be thrown out due to a small corner of a shot containing a distraction. That shot of a historic moment with the distraction of a bird flying through the top right frame it’s not perfect. Throw it away. I think it’s a tough set of rules to work with.

The discussion regarding constraints of a canvas or paper for painting are not compelling. Artists put whatever they want onto a canvas and in whatever perspective or proportion. Picasso and numerous artists regularly painted over canvases they wanted to re work.

Some people set targets for themselves , run a mile in 4 minutes, run it in 5 minutes. Golf without a handicap or golf with irons only. Photography is a highly personal form of expression so we set our style and work with that set of constraints until it needs to be changed.

Some people consider hip shots "unethical" or "not street" others do it. I will never be able to tell a cropped image unless it's extreme, nor a hip shot from one taken from a sidewalk cafe. There is an interesting thread on Henri Cartier Bresson's "Mario's bike" over at flickr. People not knowing Cartier Bresson dump all over the shot. Others who do know the photo explain and contextualize the photograph. Who's right there? Does knowing the circumstances around Adam’s “Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico” add or diminish the photograph for the viewer?

To the point , it's not religion it's only photography.

BTW Nh3, I'm sure we all would be interested in viewing your photography
 
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You're trying way too hard

You're trying way too hard

There are as many ways to be a street photographer as there are photographers.

Here's how I do it. I select a compositional or poetic theme or something particularly newsworthy for that days shoot. That pretty much sets what gear I take out the door. Then I go shooting/fishing.

If I find something that happens along the way that is a pleasant surprise I shoot that too.

When I get home that night I count my catch.

Don't get me started on sidebars like cropping. Too many rules makes for overworking something that is supposed to be simple. I call this 'making finger paintings in one's own s**t'.
 
Talk and manifestos are easy, codes are easy, making challenging assignments -for oneself- is hard...actually following through on challenging assignments is harder.

Completion of challenging assignment is sweet...and by definition it's rare.
 
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