NYT Weighs In on "Street Photography" (uh-oh...)

[amateriat]

Read this, and tell me if they're onto something or not


- Barrett

 

[Morca007]

It's nice to see something about it in The Times, but I didn't take much away from it that I hadn't read elsewhere. Except, of course, that the editors there aim to choose the most boring photographs to run.

 

[MCTuomey]

Barrett, I don't think that the author is suggesting anything different than what has seemed to be true of the written word for awhile. Despite the proliferation of image quantity, real quality is still rare.

I agree that the freedom exercised by prior generations of street photogs seems to have lessened these days.

I'm feeling old since I prefer B&W for street photos ...

 

[NickTrop]

Whenever I do street photography, all my pictures come out black. Must have something to do with the color of the asphalt.

 

[sirius]

I was rather transfixed by the woman with the slipped shoulder strap. I couldn't explain why it did that to me...

Neat article.

 

[Ororaro]

Street photography is getting boring. How many photos of people walking in front of buildings do we really need.

Person walking in from left.
Person walking in from right.
Two people from left.
Two people from right.
Two people from left, one person from right.

Enough! 🙂

Good street photography is a feast to look at and savour. I know I'm in heaven when I see Great images of Street Photography. It is also the hardest kind to shoot. There are too many bad street shots around of, indeed, people just walking on the street.

Instead of saying street photography is bad I think it is more appropriate to just say there is Good and Rubbish street photography.

Here's a shot of mine. I am not implying it is great or not but such slices of life are worthy to be captured. This shot always makes me smile. The old man was telling the little dog to stop barking or he'd be shipping him down to Florida. It was a funny moment.

 

[MikeL]

Just like sunsets.

What about sunset street photography with a lens-baby that's been cross-processed?

 

[MichaelHarris]

I like it, I just suck at it:

 

[MichaelHarris]

Well thank you Pitxu, that's one of my latest ones. I shot it in San Francisco last week. I live in a very, very small town so I don't get a lot of practice.

 

[MichaelHarris]

hahahahaha that's funny, I'm going to steal that line.

 

[dcsang]

"Street" photography has to tell a story - the image should, imho, tell us something about what's going on..

Classic street photography, back in the "golden age" of the 50's, was awesome.

Photos of people walking away from you, unless the image tells a story, are indeed boring - I've shot tons of those but the only one I ever liked was an image that portrayed young lovers.. that's it.

So many people think they can walk out there with an M or SLR and shoot the most mundane crap and suddenly it's "art"...

I miss the days when cameras weren't as prevalent as they are today... everything is a camera, everyone is afraid of a camera, and everyone has a camera... makes for exciting images of people trying to hide, cover the lens, or charge you with violating their "privacy" in the public space..

Dave

 

[RML]

I found the examples in the NYT article quite good. At least they kept my attention for longer than a fraction of a second.