Street Photography: Are set-ups and poses ever permissable?

[stet]

It seems like this is a personal preference, like whether you want to use flashes. Some do it, others don't, some don't like photos that use flashes/might've been staged, others don't care. What you prefer, to do and to see. Although, it seems like a lot of people do it at least occassionally. In that sense, these street photographers are like poets who mainly write sonnets, but occassionally dabble in free verse. (or, if you prefer, daily journalism vs. literary or gonzo)

Granted, I haven't been shooting long, but I only asked someone to pose once, which is the "smoke break" photo in my gallery. At the time it seemed weird to ask to stage it (he was smoking just a few feet from the benches and sign) but at the same time it was cool in that I got him to acquiesce. Sorta like going one step further when you interact by silentlly asking perrmission to take a shot. Then, when I was printing it, I thought the whole photo felt contrived and dirty. I have a lot of admiration for photojournalists, and that's probably what made me feel ill toward it. Now, though, weeks later, that's all forgotten and I'm more bummed that it's crooked. 😛

 

[Sean Reid]

First off, I agree with Garry Winogrand that there is no such thing as street photography.

sean, what do you call it then?
or, how would you describe what one would 'normally' consider street shooting.

i walk around and take pics of what i see happening on the street, the interactions between people and things.
what would i call that?

joe

Hi Joe,

It's an interesting question. I've often been called a "street photographer" though that doesn't describe my work very well at all. Winogrand actually refused to participate in an exhibition of "street photography" because he said, essentially, "There is no such thing. Or if there is, its not what I do." Then, half-jokingly, he said his work would better be described as "zoo photography" which isn't far off the mark in my mind. The anecdote comes from my friend Ben Lifson, a friend of Winogrand's who, I think, used it to open his essay in a book on Winogrand.

With respect to naming, I think that one could begin by considering what his or her true subject is when he or she is walking the streets. There have been some good pictures of streets but that's not usually what's meant when people talk about street photography. In general, I think that people are talking about subject that is often found on the streets of cities, towns, etc. - it's a term that's often loosely attributed to various small camera photographers such as Winogrand, Frank. Levitt, etc.. But the fact is that there isn't really a catch-all term for the work these photographers did. Frank, Winogrand, Levitt, HCB, etc. were not making the same kind of pictures at all even though all three sometimes made pictures on streets. Strip away a superficial (in my mind) term like "street photography" and then one has to look harder at what these various pictures really are.

Cheers,

Sean

 

[gns]

I believe that what GW was stressing was that one could take a photograph of just about anything and the concerns would be the same. He was interested in the pictures, not the subject. So making distinctions (or pigeon-holing photrographers) based on the subject (portrait, landscape, etc,) was just not usefull to him.

 

[back alley]

hhhmmm...something to think about.

my initial thought might be to call it 'people' photography but then not all my shots have people in them, most of them but not all.

why do i shoot on the street?
the spontanaity, the dynamic of watching people interacting with others, because i have a short attention span and prefer not to set things up.

i'm at a loss right now, i have always used that term- street shooting.

need to think...

thanks,
joe

 

[Bertram2]

First off, I agree with Garry Winogrand that there is no such thing as street photography.
Sean

Interesting, id did not know he said so. IMHO it's always been an amateur derivate from photojournalism, tarted up with artistic woodoo lala.
And everybody understands it as what he keeps it for. One of those who have a real great interpretation of this word here on the gallery is Alle Gilman in Tokyo btw.

Brady is IMO not suited as an example, he was just a reporter doing his work and trying to make his living. Was it documentation ? Not worse than the stuff TV serves us today. photos could be manipulated form the very first beginning on and many could not resist to make more money by manipulation. But that's not what we are talking about here.

It's simple: if you sell a posed photo explicit as reality you are cheating the public. No matter if amateur or pro. If you just keep your mouth shut it is what it is, a photo, which one can like or not.

Bertram

 

[Sean Reid]

What Brady's crew did is a good example of a process whereby a photographer (photographers in this case) manipulated the subject matter (literally) to strengthen the pictures. That all those men died in those fields is a fact that the pictures present truthfully, I think. The men didn't necessarily die in such artful arrangements as we see in the pictures but those changes of form don't, in my mind, change the essence of the content. Brady's pictures are treated by many as evidence of how awful that war was, how many men died on fields like that, etc.. That "journalistic", if you will, truth remains even if the bodies are moved.

Jacob Riis, no doubt, asked his immigrant subjects to stand in certain places in their tenements but the clothing, the faces, the filth, the crowding, the apparent poverty, etc. seen in the pictures are, I believe, all true to the real conditions of the time. So there was a posing, of a sort, in those pictures, but they're still truly documentary.

Sean

 

[Kin Lau]

I don't consider myself an artistic person, so I have a hard time trying to "arrange" something. I find it easier to "find" something that appeals to my senses. Street photography can be very satisfying when I "find" that scene, and capture that moment. I don't think I would be as satisfied if it was "posed". Of course, I still have many shots of my wife/friends/family in the "go stand over there and look that way", but I'm finding more and more I prefer the shots of them that are unposed.

 

[Sean Reid]

I believe that what GW was stressing was that one could take a photograph of just about anything and the concerns would be the same. He was interested in the pictures, not the subject. So making distinctions (or pigeon-holing photrographers) based on the subject (portrait, landscape, etc,) was just not usefull to him.

I agree with much of what you say above with one exception. I think that Winogrand was very keenly, deeply, painfully even, interested in his subject matter. Once he found it, early in his career, he never left it and my older daughter (about five at the time we had this conversation while looking at Winogrand pictures) really opened my eyes as to how specific Winogrand was about subject, how he came back again to certain subjects within his subject. Shortly before his death, Ben (Lifson) tells me Winogrand was talking about making nudes with a large format camera - a natural extension of the other work, actually, although really pared down. Among other things, one could say that he'd been making nudes (with clothing) in the streets for a long time.

Cheers,

Sean

 

[RML]

Like Joe I too have to think. I used "street photography" for lack of a better word but Sean made me realise even more that it doesn't cover what I do. Maybe I'm better off by just letting my pictures speak for themselves.

Anyway, shoot as you like. Stage it when you feel the need, or don't when you can't stand the idea. As long as your work is meant to be "art" than anything goes.

 

[gns]

The whole notion of a photrgraph (or any other kind of description) being used as some knd of factual document is questionable. Even if the subject is not directed or moved by the photographer, the picture is still subjective in so many ways. How it's framed (what's included vs. left out), how it's exposed/processed, etc. All of these thing "Manipulate" the subject. The simple act of editing (framing something and presenting it out of context) changes it, doesn't it?
All photos probably say more about the maker than the subject.

 

[rami]

set-ups are for loosers 😉

streetphoto is something about capturing real life, real moments... IMHO of course.

 

[FrankS]

Heh, heh, heh.

 

[gns]

Sean,
I think Winogrand would remind us that the picture is not the subject. And while he may have cared very much about his subject, he would claim that once you're looking at or talking about the picture, it's the picture that matters. I'm not sure we disagree.

 

[Sean Reid]

gns,

Yes, of course that's true. I don't think we disagree much on this at all. I've often mentioned Winogrand's observation that "the picture is not the thing itself, it's a new fact". That said, I truly believe that he cared very much about his subject matter and there were certain specific subjects that he came back to again and again. Winogrand was a good friend of my friend Ben Lifson but I didn't get a chance to meet him before he died in 1984. But he has been a major influence on me as a photographer and I think he was a genius (a word I use very rarely). I study his work again and again and have done so for twenty years now.

Ben (Lifson) and I have discussed this aspect of Winogrand often and if there's a second edition of "A Man in the Crowd" Ben is going to expand his essay to look further at Winogrand's subject matter...at the specific subjects he came back to again and again.

Cheers,

Sean

 

[Jan Cornelius]

Poses in so called street photography (often done!) will make a picture look interesting, sometimes, but is totally aside the concept of street photography.... getting people to pose in "street photography" is ... well, totally beside the concept.

 

[Bertram2]

Brady's pictures are treated by many as evidence of how awful that war was, how many men died on fields like that, etc.. That "journalistic", if you will, truth remains even if the bodies are moved.

Jacob Riis, no doubt, asked his immigrant subjects to stand in certain places in their tenements but the clothing, the faces, the filth, the crowding, the apparent poverty, etc. seen in the pictures are, I believe, all true to the real conditions of the time. So there was a posing, of a sort, in those pictures, but they're still truly documentary.

Sean

I agree, they are still documentary IMO too. All I wanted to say is that Brady is not suited IMO because this example has nothing to do with "street" as it is understood or interpreted today. He's been one of the very early "war photographers" , an ancestor of Capa and Nachtwey on could say, a photojournalist.

The more I think about this category "street" the less I can describe what it really is. Photojournalism, people, cityscape , to all these categories you can assign a clear definition, but street what could that be ? It's misleading because it's unclear and i really hate it to use interpretable categories. That' s lala- land
😉 maybe a trauma of the time when I studied history and politics . Today I have doubts if one can call this really science. And entering the world of arts always causes some kind of Dejavu.

Best,
Bertram

 

[Koolzakukumba]

Can anyone point me in the direction of a good Winogrand gallery? I've seen a little of his stuff and, I have to admit, wasn't too impressed. Maybe I've missed the good stuff? Or maybe it's some weird cultural thing and I just prefer European photographers?

Bruce

 

[RML]

Just recently I saw an exhibtion on GW. It was my first time I saw the real prints in real life. I was stunned! I wanted to visit it again but it had already left town by then. I still feel an urge to see GW's work in real life again.

 

[gns]

Bruce,
I don't know if you can find much online, but 2 of his best books, "The Animals" and "Public Relations" have been recently reishued so they should be pretty easy to find.

 

[jaapv]

Very interesting; this dicussion is closely related to the "ethical" discussion in wildlife photography. There the concensus seems to be that "not a twig be moved" without stating so in the caption and that digital manipulation is out of the question. That contrasts stongly with the general "the result counts" attitude here. Who, if anybody is right, I wonder ???