is 'street photography' 'less than' other styles of photography?

back alley

back alley

IMAGES
Local time
12:36 PM
Joined
Jul 30, 2003
Messages
41,289
yesterday i asked about using the 'best' lenses for street shooting and consensus pretty much seems to be if it's street then you don't be needin' the best!

makes me wonder...is street 'less than' other forms/styles of shooting?
 
Personally, I consider street to be superior to many other forms of photography. Well done its certainly more engaging than most other styles, and certainly more demanding of the burk behind the camera.
 
I don't think that's the conclusion to be drawn from that statement, Joe.

Getting the best technical quality from any lens requires using a tripod. Most street photography requires a hand held camera for quick responsiveness to frame the world around us - which is at odds with maximizing the potential for realizing all the detail those glistening MTF curves promise us.

That's all the more I'd read into it.
 
Street photography is less demanding technical quality (equipment) but more skills (shooting technique, vision, speed) are needed ...
 
Is expressionism less than abstractism, realism less than romanticism? No cultural utterance is less than another in my opinion. There is a value, no matter how limited in every photograph, every poem and every painting ever created... But in the end it is all down to personal taste.

However, I have a predisposition towards things derived from emotion and instinct rather than overly deliberate thought processes. A photograph that is the result of a feeling on the street is worth more to me than a photograph that has been mulled over in a studio for two hours. Likewise, a painting by Cy Twombly speaks more to me than a painting by Michelangelo. And the same applies for street photography and photojournalism versus for instance fashion or still life photography.
 
The content and composition are more important than sharpness and Bokeh. The C Sonnar shines hand held indoors but it's just another sharp 50 outside with Tri-X. The genre is not less, but the lens requirements relate more to handling characteristics than the fine points of image quality.
 
I personally rate photographic categories in the following order:

Portaiture
Journalism
Fashion
Street
Landscape
Product
Weddings
Concert/Event

And in terms of difficulty (In terms of achieving greatness):

Journalism
Street
Concert/Event
Weddings
Fashion
Portraiture
Landscape
Product

To me anything that is driven by financial or commercial reasons is usually rated lower than those motivated by personal, emotive reasons. I also take account of the difficulty involved. In terms of image quality, street is perhaps one of the few categories where grain, falloff, distortion, blur and other technical maladies are both common and acceptable.

YMMV.
 
back alley said:
makes me wonder...is street 'less than' other forms/styles of shooting?
Click to expand...

"street" simply one of those labels that some people feel they must apply. However it is not really a defined term in spite of those who believe "they know it when they see it." Typically these are the ones who have seen black and have seen white but have not yet discovered there many shades of gray in between.

And, "less than other forms of shooting" is even more unquantifiable that "street."
 
back alley said:
yesterday i asked about using the 'best' lenses for street shooting and consensus pretty much seems to be if it's street then you don't be needin' the best!

makes me wonder...is street 'less than' other forms/styles of shooting?
Click to expand...

If you can't make the shot with the bar cue, you can't make the shot.

As with pool cues, sports cars, shooting sports, and lots of other things, equipment that gets out of your way and let's you perform to the best of your abilities is "the best." What's the best for me is not going to be the best for you. But that hardly means equipment doesn't matter.

What other people think is best is mere trivia. I like certain lenses. I have no issue with other people favoring other lenses. I like my car. I have no problem with people who prefer to drive something else.

Makes no sense to try to apply technical criteria to something as a measure of the endeavor's worth. You've got to be either asking a rhetorical question or trolling. Maybe I'm wrong?

I hunt. I prefer a rifle that is comfortable, accurate, and consistent. That way if I miss I'm not blaming it on the equipment. And plenty of rifles just aren't very consistent, so no matter how much you practice shooting, you will eventually hit the limits of the equipment. It's nice to use equipment where any error is your own. But if you don't practice and pay attention, you won't be able to tell the difference between good equipment and bad. Which is where it sounds like you are.
 
Last edited:
less what?

Read Bob Thall's intro to Gary Stochl's book "on city streets" where he talks about the subtle but deep differences between Stochl, Frank/Evans and Callahan/Metzger, underpinned by 3 different schools of thought around photography. These are photographers that most people would happily put in the same bucket labelled "b&w street kinda thing"

Maybe that will give an idea of the depth of visual languages possible in that type of photography, determined, amoung other things, by the quality of the lens used :D
 
this post is not meant to 'troll'...i am not a troll...
i do like getting a good discussion going though.
and the question is sincere...there are many derogatory comments made here at rff about 'street' photography so the leap from gear to attitude is not so great.
 
dcsang said:
I thought we had transcended the gear talk? :)

Dave
Click to expand...

not by a long shot my friend.

think about it...it's decembar in edmonton, temp is -18c with a wind chill of -26c...would you rather be shooting dressed like the michelin man or just 'talking' about gear and images on the net?
 
Bob Michaels said:
"street" simply one of those labels that some people feel they must apply. However it is not really a defined term in spite of those who believe "they know it when they see it." Typically these are the ones who have seen black and have seen white but have not yet discovered there many shades of gray in between.

And, "less than other forms of shooting" is even more unquantifiable that "street."
Click to expand...

This.

/thread
 
back alley said:
btw, this isn't even as cold as it will get in the coming months...
Click to expand...

...so we have it good at -15... I'll stop complaining.

Is street "less"...?
I just received Alex Webb's Istanbul & it contains page after page of incredibly dynamic street photos. I wouldn't call these images as being "less" than say Steve Mcurry's Afgan girl portrait... but what do I know... I'm biased :)
 
The term 'street photography' is used way to often. There is good 'street photography', there is bad one. It's the same with every other genre of photography. Not everything needs to be classified.
And no, street is not more or less than other styles.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom