Is Street Photography Dead?

Is Street Photography Dead?

  • Yes

    Votes: 82 20.6%

  • No

    Votes: 317 79.4%
  • Total voters
    399
I wouldn't call it dead, but with the ubiquity of digital images generally, along with images from cell phone and other cameras much smaller than anything the street photographers of the last 50 years ever comtemplated, it is a lot harder to make images that are noteworthy.

Still, there are people out there who continue to make great images. One example is Chris Weeks.

I'd say it's in no way dead, but it is in transition, and it is definitely no longer living in an era as friendly to the genre as it once was.
 
Street shots are very much alive although good street work is not always easy to find. We have a generation who have no concept of composition and no clue about decisive moments. Photography has been made so easy that quality is hard to find. Street shots also become more interesting with time as the clothes and vehicles date and take on an air of antiquity.
 
The problem is there is so little good street work. There was very little good back in the 50s and still is so little good and so little of what Bresson, Frank and many other great street photographers put into their work. There is so much going on visually in their work and those elements help elevate the work beyond the norm or average.
 
Another problem is that many people's definition of what street photography is (or can be), is ridiculously closed minded.
 
jsrockit said:
Another problem is that many people's definition of what street photography is (or can be), is ridiculously closed minded.
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Agree but there is a reason why there is good and bad in anything. Great places to start are with those that help define the form.
 
Street Photography (in the tradition of HCB and others) is very much alive and, in fact, you can argue that it's been going through a sort resurgence in the past few years (see the in-public collective, the Street Photography Now book, exhibits, etc.).

The argument that it's all been done or that all work after the greats is pointless is really strange to me. By that argument, why do anything in life? It's all been done, possibly (probably) better than you're doing it.
 
v_roma said:
Street Photography (in the tradition of HCB and others) is very much alive and, in fact, you can argue that it's been going through a sort resurgence in the past few years (see the in-public collective, the Street Photography Now book, exhibits, etc.).

The argument that it's all been done or that all work after the greats is pointless is really strange to me. By that argument, why do anything in life? It's all been done, possibly (probably) better than you're doing it.
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Totally agree. Just find a way to make it yours.
 
not dead, changing. lives are no longer unobserved and unrecorded. subjects are smarter. still, to borrow a book title, the unguarded moment is always seductive and often worthy of communication. our world changes and so do the images we care about. in this internet video crazed world, we have the outrageous popularity of the four-panel fuuuuuuuu... cartoons, i can haz cheezburger memes, instagram and emoticons. simplicity and directness of communication is at a premium in age full of noise. visual still imagery might be the best way to do that. i just don't know if anyone can get paid - no, check that, if a lot of people can get paid - for doing this thing that many of us seem to love.
 
Is ''street photography'' the square peg that doesn't comfortably fit into the round holes of studio, portrait, still-life, fashion, sports, wildlife, architectural, macro, landscape and family snapshot photography ?

Is it ''photo-journalism'' for mavericks, malcontents and misunderstood ''artists'' ?

Is it, like patriotism, the last refuge of the photographic scoundrel ?

Didn't it used to be called ''candid photography'', that branch of the trade that the Leica was specifically designed for ...?!
 
jsrockit said:
See, but that comes down to what you are interested in and what you consider beautiful. I'd rather look at gritty than pretty landscapes...though I like both. I tire of some things and never get tired of others. It's sort of like music... I'll never get tired of some generes regurgitating the same old same old, but in others it drives me nuts. I guess what we strive for is something, just anything, to make it feel somewhat fresh.
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Precisely. I do think that because far more people live in cities now, than in any point in the past, city life is no longer new or exciting for many people.
 
I think there's a number of issues that are having an impact on street photography;

Firstly there's not a whole lot of traditional funding available or traditional outlets available for it these days, as we all know a lot of publications have all but phased out "staff" photographers. It's very interesting watching the Bill Cunningham film that he's very much one of the last doing it within that kind of framework.

There are "street style" photographers, people like The Sartorialist, Tommy Ton etc. who have taken Bill's eye for style and (for lack of a better term) taken the "street" out of it, their shots are taken on the street, but they're posed, and presumably easier to fit neatly into themed issues of the same publications that would once have sent out photographers to find a story and would make the page space for those longer form pieces that might result.

Secondly, the classic issue that "Street Photography" is a somewhat amorphous term, that everyone brings their own perceptions and prejudices to, I know I certainly do.
I entered the first version of what became the London Festival of Photography (when it specified the word "Street" in the name).
I didn't win, I wasn't remotely expecting to, I wanted to lend my support to something that at the time was spotlighting Street shooting.
When I saw the winning entries I personally found myself coming out with the predictable "That's not street photography" for a few of them, and since then I've ignored the competition simply because it didn't fit my perceptions of it.

Thirdly, I semi jokingly tweeted a couple of weeks ago that "The death of the high street is a bit of a sod for street photography", all jokes aside a lot of the streets in commercial areas are significantly quieter than they used to be, which must have an impact.
 
thegman said:
Precisely. I do think that because far more people live in cities now, than in any point in the past, city life is no longer new or exciting for many people.
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As a countryside dweller, I find the city a fascinating place and a welcome distraction. The sooner I finish the repairs to my campervan, the sooner I can get to one. :)
 
A couple of thoughts by Bresson and I totally agree with that are really at the heart of all good photographic work, especially in good street work but what is absent in a lot of what you see today being done by the masses.

"You are asking me what makes a good picture. For me, it is the harmony between subject and form that leads each one of those elements to its maximum of expression and vigor." - Henri Cartier-Bresson

"What reinforces the content of a photograph is the sense of rhythm – the relationship between shapes and values."- Henri Cartier-Bresson

"To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event, as well as of a precise organisation of forms which give that event its proper expression." -Henri Cartier-Bresson

"..... content cannot be separated from form. By form, I mean the rigorous organisation of the interplay of surfaces, lines and values. It is in this organisation alone that our conceptions and emotions become concrete and communicable. In photography, visual organisation can stem only from a developed instinct." - Henri Cartier-Bresson

"..... This recognition, in real life, of a rhythm of surfaces, lines, and values is for me the essence of photography....."- Henri Cartier-Bresson
 
I do street photography almost every day.
Retired from a regular work, i can enjoy the passing scene.
Capture small and large moments, in a way, as a pro, i never could.
Limitless exposures, ease of travel, small ideal tools.
Wonderful ways of sharing our images.
True most are not great images. Here and there a miracle.
We the Street Photographers have an important task!
We are recording history..don't waste the opportunity.
 
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