Street Photography Deciphered

GW was a wonderful photographer but after reading and watching a lot about him, I came to the conclusion that he liked to intellectualize a lot photography even though he pleaded for the opposite.

Some people prefer tango to salsa, others bachata. Obviously they all Latin dance. Same with street photography, I'd obviously much rather meet with my peers than a macro flower shooter.
 
lawrence said:
Why is it necessary to apply a label? What purpose does it serve?
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Pass me that thing over there. It's on top of the thing, beside the other thing. No, not that thing, I mean the other thing.

(My mother-in-law once called me thing.)
 
I define streetphotography as urban environment with human elements being either a small part of the composition, or dominating most of the frame.
 
No one has ever asked me to pass them a street photograph. :)

Shoot what you like. Call it what you like. The pictures don't care and they stay the same no matter what name you give them.

Most of all, no one is keeping score.
 
None-the-less, we humans label things so that we can talk about them more easily.

She: "What kind of photography do you do?"

He: "Urban environment with human elements being either a small part of the composition, or dominating most of the frame." or "Street."

It depends if you are into the whole brevity thing.
 
Bill,

First of all, I appreciate the discussion that you have put forth. It is clearly coming from a position of thoughtfulness, not smart-alecks, wise-cracking comments as some of us tend to write just because we are "protected" behind anonymity.

wgerrard said:
I'm not so sure, or at least not so sure that the distinction between "photography" and "street photography" is a matter of concern for anyone but self-described street photographers.
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Once more, I am not trying to define street-photography just for my own sake or satisfaction. I was truly confronted with the question that boils down to: "What kind of photography do you do?"

Now, I can answer flippantly and say "you guys won't understand it even if I told you" or I can make an honest effort to describe, if not discretely define what I do. I choose the latter because I sense that the people asking may someday be inclined to take up photography, street-photography to be specifically. And if I can at least point them in the right direction, I have done my bit.

And as I put in front of my writing, and subsequently proven by this thread, street-photography is difficult to put in a box, unlike other styles of photography. But we all have to start from somewhere.

wgerrard said:
As I understand you, you are saying your opinion of HCB's work would change if you knew that some of his photos were not totally spontaneous.
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You are correct, within the context of using them as street-photography masterpieces.

But that doesn't mean I will stop liking Mario's Bike (or his other works). Some of them are just plain beautiful photographs.


wgerrard said:
In other words, you're suggesting that a proper consideration of street photography requires knowledge of a photographer's technique and behavior. I don't agree. We know, or we presume to know, what HCB was doing when he took that photo. But, that knowledge is completely inconsequential to anyone viewing the image. If it was otherwise, no one could really appreciate HCB's work without understanding how he worked, which is a notion I don't accept.
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Understand is the key here, not "appreciate", at least not yet. To understand street-photography, you have to know what makes a photograph considered as one, correct?

To get there, you'd have to start from what condition was the photograph taken, what was the motivation, and how the photographer went about doing it (behavior).

Not until someone *understand* what street-photography is, can he/she form a particular sense of appreciation. When the person gets to the point of appreciating street-photography in a bigger sense, he/she is well beyond the target-audience of my writing.


wgerrard said:
LIkewise, I know that those iconic images from Ansel Adams are the opposite of spontaneous, and that he worked long and hard to produce them. That doesn't influence my appreciation of his work. In fact, it should not.

I think that, fundamentally, a photo must stand on its own. If someone has never heard of HCB but likes his photos, the photos will look the same if he finds out how HCB shot.
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A different point than my writing, but I do agree.
 
Chris101 said:
None-the-less, we humans label things so that we can talk about them more easily.

She: "What kind of photography do you do?"

He: "Urban environment with human elements being either a small part of the composition, or dominating most of the frame." or "Street."

It depends if you are into the whole brevity thing.
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Thank you, Chris! :D
 
FrankS said:
Still photography would be the umbrella term, but if GW is dismissive of any labelling of the different genres of photography, I'm going to have to disagree with him, talented photographer that he was.
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I'm with you, Frank.
I have a suspicion that Mr. Winograd's comment is taken out of the real context. Surely a man with his experience recognize that saying "I'm a photographer" is as nebulous as saying "I'm a student"

... student of.... what? what are you studying?
 
Nikkor AIS said:
Thanks Taco, Like I said i just think it's great that street photography is being discussed.













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I *love* all the above photographs, especially the last one.
And yes, these are street-photography.

Btw, nowhere did I ever imply that street-photography can only be done with wide-angle lenses. It is true that some of us prefer them. :)

Gregory, thank you for your contribution to this thread, I am too glad that we are talking about it. Instead just sitting upon our understanding and being dismissive to those who don't "get it." :rolleyes:
 
Shadow, we all have differing opinions. Perhaps if I shot more of what you consider street photography, I'd have a different opinion. But, as i've explained elsewhere, my streets are pretty empty.

But, i do stand with the notion that a photo must stand on its own, regardless of the conditions in which it was shot. I just don't understand the notion that true appreciation of photography comes only with an awareness of the photographer's motivation. behavior, etc. If nothing else, how are people to know that? I can see how things like that might be important to street photographers swapping stories. But, to visitors to an exhibit or a web site? No.
 
Street photography. Maybe it is just a photographer being out in the street taking pictures.

If I have a look at Vivian Maier's photographs I would say they are clearly excellent street photographs.

Personally I do not like using tele lenses in the street. It's the street, not the zoo.
 
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Thanks, Will.

In the last couple of weeks, I've shot about 20 rolls of street photography. My local lab's machine is down so the rolls are really piling up and I'm itching to see the results. The best part of street shooting for me is walking around my neighbourhood and getting to know my neighbours and staying connected to my community. I've mostly been using the Leicas and the Widelux F7. I must say, it feels good to get up close and personal for street photography. When I get some film back, I'll post.

This is still one of my favourites. I just love the kid in the white gi eating the hot dog. Look where his belt is :).




28 1.9 ASPH on Leica MP
 
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gho said:
If I have a look at Vivian Maier's photographs I would say they are clearly excellent street photographs.
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Aha, you see here is where my problem with the rigidity of the definition arises once again. Not all of her photos have human figures in the frame so they are not considered "street photography", but "urban landscape" or "urban still life". So even though the vast majority of her work was derived from simply walking the streets taking photos of whatever caught he eye the totality of the work cannot be simply labeled "street photography". Right?
 
Most of her images contain people. Her body of work as a whole can be called street photography and she can be called a street photographer. Some of her individual images with no people can better be described as urban landscape or urban still life.

If one sorted out all her images which did not contain people and pretended that was all she photographed, IMO, that is not street photography even though she took them while walking the streets. (There is a joke in there, eh?)
 
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wgerrard said:
But, i do stand with the notion that a photo must stand on its own, regardless of the conditions in which it was shot. I just don't understand the notion that true appreciation of photography comes only with an awareness of the photographer's motivation. behavior, etc. If nothing else, how are people to know that? I can see how things like that might be important to street photographers swapping stories. But, to visitors to an exhibit or a web site? No.
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Bill, I think as you spend more time getting more exposure on street-photography, the more it will become apparent to you that the knowledge that the scene is not staged or acted is practically a given.

I know of no street-photographer who is proud of his/her photos that are not candid. It's just part of the game. Again, I am not applying this to other photographic styles.

Although I think this concept does have its parallel, for example, a world-famous wildlife photographer, wins an award with a marvelous photo of a mountain goat overlooking a bluff at sunset. Later it is discovered that the goat was actually taxidermically-stuffed and posed the bluff.

Question #1: Is it still an excellent photograph? the answer is yes, of course.
Question #2: Is it still an excellent *wildlife* photograph? I would answer no.

Yes, this requires us knowing about some "behind-the-scene" info, but it's still a valid way to evaluate a photograph. And again, it's more important to some photography styles, but not others.
 
shadowfox said:
I know of no street-photographer who is proud of his/her photos that are not candid. It's just part of the game. Again, I am not applying this to other photographic styles.

Although I think this concept does have its parallel, for example, a world-famous wildlife photographer, wins an award with a marvelous photo of a mountain goat overlooking a bluff at sunset. Later it is discovered that the goat was actually taxidermically-stuffed and posed the bluff.
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Interesting points, Will. I agree that the assumption of candidness is an essential part of street photography. Viewers naturally assume that a photo that looks candid was unposed. Learning that a photo was posed, however, may impact the reputation of the photographer among other photographers more than the appreciation of the photo by everyone else.

Surrounded by images, we're all pretty good at spotting fake candidness. Yet, we go to movies, in which everything is scripted and nothing is candid, and we react as if watching "real people". Stills taken from a movie can look completely candid, especially if we don't recognize the actors.

Perhaps it is akin to suspension of disbelief. We see photos that appear to have been taken on the street and that appear candid, so we assume they were. That assumption is based on another assumption, i.e., that the photographer wouldn't con us. We make those assumptions because it increases our appreciation of the pictures.
 
FrankS said:
Most of her images contain people. Her body of work as a whole can be called street photography and she can be called a street photographer. Some of her individual images with no people can better be described as urban landscape or urban still life.

If one sorted out all her images which did not contain people and pretended that was all she photographed, IMO, that is not street photography even though she took them while walking the streets. (There is a joke in there, eh?)
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Frank...Ive understood all that loud and clear from the get go, so sorry to make you have to spell it all out again. I simply think an alternate definition makes more sense (street photography being the overarching genre with all those sub categories underneath).

But then again what I think matters little (or nothing at all).
 
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