Is Street Photography Dead?

Is Street Photography Dead?

  • Yes

    Votes: 82 20.6%

  • No

    Votes: 317 79.4%
  • Total voters
    399
Quote:
"I believe art in street photography is about pushing the boundaries, finding new things to shoot, photographing things that reflect something spectacular about the human condition."

And though I find some of this true I find finding the moment when this along when all the elements come together and having the vision to first see it and then the technical skill to capture it is the true art of it. Because without those elements the image in most cases will not have staying power. Its read immediately, one gets immediate gratification and one moves on but as we know the great images have staying power and they call you back because the more you look the more you see those elements in the image.
 
airfrogusmc said:
And though I find some of this true I find finding the moment when this along when all the elements come together and having the vision to first see it and then the technical skill to capture it is the true art of it. Because without those elements the image in most cases will not have staying power.
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In bold. The history of photography and what galleries, museums, book makers, etc deem to be the best examples doesn't support this though. There are many photos that have staying power that do not conform to those elements all coming together. I'll admit that when they do all come together, the resulting image can be magical. However, I think the images of Walker Evans are magical too.
 
airfrogusmc said:
Quote:
"I believe art in street photography is about pushing the boundaries, finding new things to shoot, photographing things that reflect something spectacular about the human condition."

And though I find some of this true I find finding the moment when this along when all the elements come together and having the vision to first see it and then the technical skill to capture it is the true art of it. Because without those elements the image in most cases will not have staying power. Its read immediately, one gets immediate gratification and one moves on but as we know the great images have staying power and they call you back because the more you look the more you see those elements in the image.
Click to expand...

This is why I think SP is the hardest Photography to master.... to produce photographs with "Staying Power'.

Don't get me wrong, many great SP photographs are out there... and are very good indeed. But, may lack that staying power for the long haul.

Although...... if a photograph had a great impression at 1st with one person... it may continue to have a great 1st impression later on... just thinking out loud in words....
 
DNG said:
This is why I think SP is the hardest Photography to master.... to produce photographs with "Staying Power'.

Don't get me wrong, many great SP photographs are out there... and are very good indeed. But, may lack that staying power for the long haul.

Although...... if a photograph had a great impression at 1st with one person... it may continue to have a great 1st impression later on... just thinking out loud in words....
Click to expand...

I think of it like music that I first hear and like because its easy to understand but doesn't hold up on repeat listenings. Many time I have heard a piece I didn't really like thee first time I listened but the more I listened the more it unfolded and I understood and this is the one I continue to go back to. You could apply that to a lot of great creative work of any kind. A great quote by Ralph Gibson that I fully agree with. But yes it can be simple yet effective but there is usually more there than what of the surface for it to remain interesting over time.
"A good photograph, like a good painting, speaks with a loud voice and demands time and attention if it is to be fully perceived. An art lover is perfectly willing to hang a painting on a wall for years on end, but ask him to study a single photograph for ten unbroken minutes and he’ll think it’s a waste of time. Staying power is difficult to build into a photograph. Mostly, it takes content. A good photograph can penetrate the subconscious – but only if it is allowed to speak for however much time it needs to get there." - Ralph Gibson
 
jsrockit said:
In bold. The history of photography and what galleries, museums, book makers, etc deem to be the best examples doesn't support this though. There are many photos that have staying power that do not conform to those elements all coming together. I'll admit that when they do all come together, the resulting image can be magical. However, I think the images of Walker Evans are magical too.
Click to expand...

In most great work there are those elements if you look for them. Evans work has them. Bressons work surely has them. Langes work has it. DeCarava work has it. Gibson, Arnold Newman, Winogrand, Robert Frank work all has it. They all were/are fluent in visual language and how fluent we are determines our level of understanding.

Weston had such strong vision his peppers looked like nudes that looked like clouds that looked like shells that looked like nudes that looked like peppers.
 
airfrogusmc said:
In most great work there are those elements if you look for them. Evans work has them. Bressons work surely has them. Langes work has it. DeCarava work has it. Gibson, Arnold Newman, Winogrand, Robert Frank work all has it. They all were/are fluent in visual language and how fluent we are determines our level of understanding.

Weston had such strong vision his peppers looked like nudes that looked like clouds that looked like shells that looked like nudes that looked like peppers.
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I think you misunderstood what I said.
 
I can't believe people are arguing about this. Who cares? This is one of those questions with no logical answer designed to ruffle feathers. If you like street photography, then continue to shoot it. If you don't, then shoot something else.

Street photography is no more dead than rock music. Everything is derivative, after all.

Personally, street photography isn't for me. I love it when it's well done, but to me, for every good image I see, there are 20 that look like nothing more than snapshots of random people walking down the street. But I applaud those who do it and do it well. I don't have the cojones to get close enough to strangers and snap their photograph. The only time I do this is when I travel. But here in Boston, sticking a camera in a stranger's face usually doesn't go over well!
 
Probably not (like film 😀) but the too many uninteresting pictures taken on a street and posted everywhere claiming to be street photography are making the genre less interesting for the viewer.
robert
 
porktaco said:
maybe. i have a hard time believing we're at the end of history.
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I didn't says it was entirely dead. We still have radio.

It's just not an artistic force capable of opening new worlds in the same, almost Romantic, way that the HCB/Winogrand era did.

For some it veers into cultural look-see for the travelled (Indian gurus are now a Flickr dime a dozen...nothing new to see here folks...done to death), or degenerates into a funniest home videos equivalent...a semi-staged freak show. Security cameras capture more authentic "street" scenes now.

So, when people think "street photography" and plug into the HCB/Winogrand mindset, yes, mostly dead as a nouveau art form. As a standby photographic process of capturing the nuances and oddities of the public world now ubiquitous as is the concrete we walk on, sure, it persists. But more people drive now than walk streets, so the well to draw from was never really as democratically deep. It is no wonder that the "ethnic street" is where people look to know, with all the otherness voyeurism that implies (and which National Geo did address during the golden era in any case).
 
Very well put Aristophanes. However, is the only reason to continue to do something is to break new ground? Also, each year there are people who just discover there is something called street photography and it is all surely fresh to them. If we worry about your place in history, you may never actaully do / enjoy anything. It seems to me that the people who worry about if something is dead are the ones who are trying to "make it" instead of doing it because they can't help but do it. Doing something for notoriety seems to be a young person's concern.

This time period needs to be documented just as much as any other. That said, I guess the point comes back to the fact that people think it is overdocumented. I figure history will sort out and remember what's worth remembering.
 
clayne said:
Too many cameras. Unfortunately: yes. Killed by over saturation and the growing annoyance exhibited by subjects as a result.
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Annoying people while photographing is a clear sing of incompetence and lack of experience as a photographer, it has nothing to do with street photography, the camera or anything else for that matter.
 
Just look at all the "hot" cameras in the market today, what they're all good at? Street photography... That might tell you something very dramatic that all other genres of photography are dead and only street is left.
 
The only new ground in any visual art is making it your own somehow. In several thousand years of two dimensional art and over 185 years of photography, its really all been done.

There has been a recent new interest in street work and because we are being watched all the time and there are millions that don't have any regard for visual considerations the moment when all the visual elements come together is what will even make those that see it and can capture it that much more precious. The good work will always find a place and I would go further in saying the herd is just shooting people on the street with no rhyme or reason and that makes those that see and can put those elements into their work not the herd and thus special.
 
I think what people forget is that even the best of the best weren't great when they first picked up the camera. It takes time and practice to be great. Sure, it'll take some less time than others. The thing now is that we see all of the practice shots all over the web. Many of us here are guilty of it too. In the past, you only got to see the great stuff unless you were in a camera club, looked at amateur photo magazines, or were in school for photography.
 
Aristophanes said:
I didn't says it was entirely dead. We still have radio.

It's just not an artistic force capable of opening new worlds in the same, almost Romantic, way that the HCB/Winogrand era did.

For some it veers into cultural look-see for the travelled (Indian gurus are now a Flickr dime a dozen...nothing new to see here folks...done to death), or degenerates into a funniest home videos equivalent...a semi-staged freak show. Security cameras capture more authentic "street" scenes now.

So, when people think "street photography" and plug into the HCB/Winogrand mindset, yes, mostly dead as a nouveau art form. As a standby photographic process of capturing the nuances and oddities of the public world now ubiquitous as is the concrete we walk on, sure, it persists. But more people drive now than walk streets, so the well to draw from was never really as democratically deep. It is no wonder that the "ethnic street" is where people look to know, with all the otherness voyeurism that implies (and which National Geo did address during the golden era in any case).
Click to expand...

maybe the exoticism was gone from urban photography after atget, and yeah everyone's seen a camera and knows how to hold their facial muscles to look like hollywood, but humans are pretty fascinating and they leave themselves open to observation. it's not like no one's ever seen a picture, and i don't know that HCB's puddle leaper would have the effect today that it did back at the dawn of time, but visual imagery is very powerful. i don't know that photos are quite like radio, but your point is well taken. we would do well to remember that at one point, RCA and Zenith were high-tech companies and that hermes still makes buggy whips (though they likely are used primarily in non-buggy related applications 😱 ).

i'm always curious about the effect of cars. i grew up in a walking city - new york - and i live in a driving city - austin - and i'm quite conscious of the difference. public life still exists here, but it's not schoolgirls walking down narrow alleys to night markets. people have to be more intentional about how they congregate. that intentionality lends itself to observation. i'm often disappointed (from a photographic standpoint) in meandering around austin. i find i have to be a lot more intentional about my own activities. in new york, on the other hand, or in london or paris or hong kong, photographic subjects appear serendipitously (to me at least) a lot more frequently. still, i think there's a fairly deeply democratic pool of activity in my car-based environment.

otherness, voyeurism, narrative tension all exist in the city of austin, but i find that austin's public life is a lot more shopping/touristy/quotidian stuff than that of a city like new york. i have found a high level of exoticism in the otherness of india when i've been there, but it's not clear that i know what to look for or where to look for it in mumbai, even if i do know that there is a lot to look for. i have a pretty good idea about where to look in places i'm more familiar with. and for me, that helps me as a photographer. the world is indeed a smaller place and a less romantic one than it was 100 years ago, but i think there's still plenty of stuff worth shooting.
 
jsrockit said:
I think what people forget is that even the best of the best weren't great when they first picked up the camera. It takes time and practice to be great. Sure, it'll take some less time than others. The thing now is that we see all of the practice shots all over the web. Many of us here are guilty of it too. In the past, you only got to see the great stuff unless you were in a camera club, looked at amateur photo magazines, or were in school for photography.
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Absolutely..

Editing is SO important. What you don't show is as important, maybe more, than what you do show.
 
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