I'm lost with "Street Photography" definition.

Seems to me like a variation of the creation/ curating debate. Photograph for your personal vision, but the curator will be looking to see what lines you painted inside (or outside).

Schools and styles may have definitions, but there is no need to fit within them.
 
I answered your question. By doing so does that mean I'm upset?

Heres the way I see it. There are those that need to put things into neat little piles or categories to understand them. I would never tell them not to do those things. I will say it is as Adams said silly. I think Winogrand called it stupid.
I'm not that harsh but it is in the scheme of things, to me and many, irrelevant for the most part.
 
oneANT said:
I dont understand, ...what if I am looking at both A and B and C as well and even D ....are you saying that I am locked in because I read a definition. ...and what folks worry and why would they? who are they?

Seriously, you said this two maybe even three times so you must have something to say about it. I'll ask you again ...how does a definition destroy creativity. If you dont know just say so but I cant wait about.
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So you are saying that having pre conceived ideas and trying to fit work into categories doesn't inhibit creativity?
 
airfrogusmc said:
So you are saying that having pre conceived ideas and trying to fit work into categories doesn't inhibit creativity?
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...of course it doesn't and of course it does. It depends on if you have imprisoned yourself inside a narrow and inflexible definition. You can stretch the boundary but it still fits the definition. Isnt that what creativity is about? There are many ways to be creative, you can have your head in the clouds but still have your feet in the street.

I understood what you said but its not the only way, creativity is about not limiting the ways so being creative within a definition should be another. To say you cannot is against the premise of creativity ...like a censoring.

An example. To say that street can be done even without a street in the definition means that a street photo can even be taken in Africa and have an elephant in it. There are some that disagree and there are such pics by the way. Amazing to see too but there are some that say it cannot be done. So *** to them and the African photographer has his audience in street photography and he/she can be regarded as creative and skilled as it happens.
It means that street can be international and rural and at the beach and even on a farm. There are some that say it must be on a street and it must have people and it must be candid and it must be film and it must be b+w and it must be a FF and there is the problem ....but not all of us suffer this or them.

Now its fine that you dont want to be regarded as a street photographer but its a wider definition than you know and its 2014 and not as it was before and street is still evolving. even the wiki makes it sound like it ended in the 80's as if the world stopped.

So is fine by me if you dont want to be labelled as a street photographer ...but I do because thats where the challenge is and the creativity and I'm not alone, there are a lot of us.

We are just one small part of photography and thats where we are happy to be and you should be ....happy for us (grin).
 
I'm very happy. Where did you read I wasn't? And I prefer, as Adams did and Winogrand did, to not be pigeoned holed into a definition that can't really be defined. I am a photographer though. That can be defined.

It is my life. I have been feeding the family with it for several decades. I have taught at the college level. I also do a lot of personal work which I have also had some success with. So the professional work feeds the family and the personal feeds to soul. I am very happy to be able to do what I have real passion for.

I do know that there are those that need to put things into categories but I like the two photographers I previously mentioned think those categories are silly and irrelevant because for one reason by the posts in this very thread, it really can't be defined.

I think great photographs can be taken with any kind of camera and have been. I do know the way I like to work and I have seen plenty of great examples of great work created by people that work much differently than I do. In that regard I say find equipment that matches your vision and the way you work because the tool is only relevant to the way it helps you create. There are tools that are better suited for some tasks but there are plenty of examples of those tasks being created by all kinds of different tools.

Bigger question I have yet to see answered; why are categories that can't be clearly defined important?

They aren't. Thats why this discussion is silly and irrelevant.
 
airfrogusmc said:
I answered your question. By doing so does that mean I'm upset?

Heres the way I see it. There are those that need to put things into neat little piles or categories to understand them. I would never tell them not to do those things. I will say it is as Adams said silly. I think Winogrand called it stupid.
I'm not that harsh but it is in the scheme of things, to me and many, irrelevant for the most part.
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Adams categorized himself when he co-founded the group f/64.
 
gb hill said:
Funny that when you type 'famous Landscape photographers' Ansel along with the Weston's come up & rightly so. The broad term of 'just a photographer' is too generic & just plain wrong, but the world is too generic now a days. One reason most photography shot now is quite boring.
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Whats really funny is that Weston was really known for his peppers that looked like his nudes that looked like his shells that looked like his clouds that looked like his peppers that looked like his nudes not his landscapes.
 
gb hill said:
Adams categorized himself when he co-founded the group f/64.
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Adams and many other photographers were forming groups that were meant to advance photography as an art form by moving it away from pictorial photography(photographs that imitated paintings) and to straight photography and even so that group had little to do with categories because there were many different photographers shooting many different styles that belong to that group.
I'll repost this:
There is little ambiguity in Adams words. As we can see in this thread it has gotten worse instead of better as Adams had hoped.

"Let us hope that categories will be less rigid in the future; there has been to much of placing photography into little niches-commercial, pictorial, documentary, and creative(a dismal term). Definitions of this kind are inessential and stupid; good photography remains good photography no matter what we name it. I would like to think of "just photography"; of each and every photograph containing the best qualities in proper degree to achieve its purpose. We have been slaves to categories, and each has served as a kind of concentration camp for the spirit."-Ansel Adams
 
I'm interested in good street photography. And not so much in landscape good photography.
I don't think Winogrand was good at landscape photography and Adams in street photography.
I have seen some of Adams people photography and it was nothing to write home about it.

Trying to define all as just photography is stupid. Reminds me "Demolution Man" with Stalone and Bullock, where only one place to eat food has left in the future and it is fast food chain.
 
DNG said:
now obviously, they took photographs of things that interested them, and they got better as they took more photographs and learned more about the things they liked to photograph... no mater what genre we may put it in... most of us do like their work.
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I'm not so sure that they photographed things because they liked them... they photographed them because it fit their agenda (Adams = conservation of land) and Winogrand (because it could make a good photo).
 
oneANT said:
... In fact Ko.Fe, I'm surprised at you with the abundant resource right here on RFF ...you should already be able to define it yourself by the examples that count for some of the best on the internet and every one of them worth a thousand words ...if only you read them.
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I find it to be more what I like on Flickr, to be honest. I have very good examples from all kind of photogs on my main Flickr page and groups I belong, where it is about street, candids and not so many beaches around 🙂

oneANT said:
Individual opinions took over and it had to have people, had to be in a street, had to be on film, had to be a rangefinder, had to be bw, had to be 35mm before it could be unanimously accepted as a street photograph.
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I defined it first to myself then I switched from DSLR to Oly XA. It was very liberating to walk on the streets with it for hours, but taking only few pictures 🙂. I also think now, it is great to take it with TLR too.


Many thanks to you, personally and others, like DNG. With my ESL it took me twice to read and get it, but I don't feel "odd and lonely" after it.

Thanks to another side, where people believe here is nothing but "photography".

Winogrand and Adams were depending on their photography as the source of income. I think, commercially it is better to be "photographer" if you want publicity and to get better paid for your job. And also to please personal ego as well.

But for guys like me you would have to prove it with your images of landscapes, portraits, macros, BIF, sports and etc. what you are good photographer.

On crowd level, yes, be a photographer, but for people who knew art little bit more, where aren't just artists.
I grew up with art, my auntie worked for decades with arts publishing house and I was able to see some rare and amazing art books at earlier age, not to mention constant visiting of museums and exhibitions to learn the difference in art and find what I like.

Where are portraitists, animalist, marineast and so on. Not all of those are taking my attention.

Again, look at the food analogy. Some just eat food. It is all, but food for them. But for guys like me it is categorised for the reason to be able to pick something we specifically like.

Cheers, Ko.
 
I'm calling this street photography, because I was sitting in the street when I made the image. 🙂

FED3_VeteransDayFlagGirl2.jpg

Other than that, I got no clue, either. I just go with the flow.
 
oneANT said:
So is a definition necessary ...hell yes.
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How can a definition be necessary on something that even in a place as narrow as the context of this thread can't be clearly defined?

So an ambiguous label at best might be important to you but that doesn't mean it is important to everyone. So the say it is important hell yes is not accurate. It is certainly not important to me.
 
ABrosig said:
I'm calling this street photography, because I was sitting in the street when I made the image. 🙂

View attachment 100018

Other than that, I got no clue, either. I just go with the flow.
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I'm right with ya....

To anyone in the big apple the show at the Soho Galley that I had a print selected to be in will be up until July 26th. It's a good show and was juried by Joel Meyerowitz's daughter Ariel Meyerowitz and if you are going to be in Chicago next summer I will be having a one man exhibit at the Rangefinder Galley on West Superior.
 
To me someone availability to sell their pictures doesn't always represent availability to take picture I'm going to like.
Vivian Maier wasn't good at marketing and "working the system" at all. Yet, she is one of the best street photographers to me.
 
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