Street Photography Deciphered

shadowfox

shadowfox

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This got started when I showed my latest photo-book to my circle of friends. They start asking me about what street-photography is. Mind you, these are people who aren't used to see black and white images let alone "street" ones.

As I struggle to find a nice, clear and concise answer, I then realized that there is probably none. But I sure can find a bunch of opinion on what it is.

So to make the murky water even murkier, I tried to put what I think street-photography is in writing.

Here it is, and since y'all are street-photography savvy people, please have a look and suggest corrections/improvements/etc.

Maybe we'll have a discussion about it. :)
 
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Good write up.

I don't really consider myself a "street photographer" but I have been roaming the streets with a camera since I was in high school. I have always drawn to the street and wandering around, never really interested in anything else even though I had no idea at the time it was a loosely defined genre. I mostly shot the static scenes I would find but eventually got around to photographing people as well.

Anyway, ever since I discovered the "definitions" of street photography, my question has always been: if I wander around taking pictures of the street, are only the photos that contain people street photography? What are the other ones? Street still lives? Urban landscape? I am only a half-street photographer? Not at all a street photographer but a total street documenter?
 
If there are no people, I'd call it
urban landscape (large scale) and
urban still life (small scale).
People make streets come alive.
 
... what would be the point in taking 'candid' pictures of a re-enacted scene?
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I don't quite get this? There seems plenty of point to me depending on what you're trying to create!

Hollywood is maybe a 'small' example where fantasy rules and documentary film making takes a back seat!
 
I am very intrigued by street photography, but it is the style/genre I find most difficult. Landscape, wildlife, urban/architecutre make sense, but street require insight and spontaneity.

Just because a photo is surreptitious, doesn't mean it is street; voyeuristic, maybe, but not street. I really like Garry Winogrand's comment about the tension between form and content. Then there is the question of people. I really like these two photos of mine, the first one with people, and the second with no people. I feel strongly that the second one is a street photo, even without a person in it.

Ecuador family:
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Class barrier:
920521100_eBG8R-S.jpg

Tom
http://photokinesis.info
 
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FrankS said:
If there are no people, I'd call it
urban landscape (large scale) and
urban still life (small scale).
Click to expand...

That makes sense. I guess it's just a pain when people ask: what do you like to photograph and you reel off a list that all sounds sort of similar. Then their eyes glaze over. Anyway, I guess it doesn't really matter for me as I simply do it for my own kicks :)

People make streets come alive.
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That's your opinion, which I can respect but I don't necessarily agree. I find desolate urban areas fascinating and "alive" albeit in a different way. Sort of like how a plant is alive but is at the same time static.

I love taking candids and doing "still lives" in the streets equally and find good examples of each equally as great.
 
Often people are represented by the placement of their things, even when the people themselves are outside the frame.
 
Keith said:
I don't quite get this? There seems plenty of point to me depending on what you're trying to create!

Hollywood is maybe a 'small' example where fantasy rules and documentary film making takes a back seat!
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Keith,

I may not be clear, what I mean is this. Look at the example that I gave (HCB's shot of the two ladies and two statues in Athens). Would you still consider that street-photography if Mr. Bresson were to instruct the two ladies to walk under the statues so he can do the shot?

That *may* still happen for all we know, but I'd be surprised if it did. And I wouldn't call it street-photography anymore, it'd be just acting.

Am I making sense?
 
shadowfox said:
Keith,

I may not be clear, what I mean is this. Look at the example that I gave (HCB's shot of the two ladies and two statues in Athens). Would you still consider that street-photography if Mr. Bresson were to instruct the two ladies to walk under the statues so he can do the shot?

That *may* still happen for all we know, but I'd be surprised if it did. And I wouldn't call it street-photography anymore, it'd be just acting.

Am I making sense?
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I guess it depends on what the photographer's intentions are Wil?

Because I tend to be very premeditated in my approach to image making I don't sit well as a street shooter ... I would be making people stand here or maybe hold this because I want this scene to look just so! :p

I do like HCB's work though ... more so than the Winogrand style ... to me there's a lot more 'art' in what he did!
 
Keith said:
I guess it depends on what the photographer's intentions are Wil?

Because I tend to be very premeditated in my approach to image making I don't sit well as a street shooter ... I would be making people stand here or maybe hold this because I want this scene to look just so! :p

I do like HCB's work though ... more so than the Winogrand style ... to me there's a lot more 'art' in what he did!
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Keith,

I agree with you, it depends on the photographer's intention. But I maintain that street-photography should not be staged.

It can be planned or premeditated *by the photographer*.
But the moment the subject is aware or have to re-do what they did, it has lost the "candid-ness."

Speaking of artists, Nick Turpin is another good one. So is Ying Tang (sakura love on flickr).
 
shadowfox said:
Keith,

I agree with you, it depends on the photographer's intention. But I maintain that street-photography should not be staged.

It can be planned or premeditated *by the photographer*.
But the moment the subject is aware or have to re-do what they did, it has lost the "candid-ness."

Speaking of artists, Nick Turpin is another good one. So is Ying Tang (sakura love on flickr).
Click to expand...




I agree ... the instant it's staged it's no longer street photography ... it's just a photographer using the street as a set so to speak!

I did see some stuff somewhere where some guy had gone to a lot of trouble to set up a street scene with all sorts of unusual elements in it and shot from a very unusual perspective. It was a brilliant photo but there was certainly nothing candid about it!

I remember really liking the end result though!
 
Keith said:
...
I did see some stuff somewhere where some guy had gone to a lot of trouble to set up a street scene with all sorts of unusual elements in it and shot from a very unusual perspective. It was a brilliant photo but there was certainly nothing candid about it!

I remember really liking the end result though!
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Crewdson does that all the time.
 
I think I always have been drawn to photography because I want to construct a perfect world. I want to try to create this moment that is separate from the chaos of my life, and to do that I think I create enormous disorder. And I like that craziness because I think that it creates almost a sort of neurotic energy on the set, and through that there is a moment of transportation. And in all my pictures what I am ultimately interested in is that moment of transcendence or transportation, where one is transported into another place, into a perfect, still world. Despite my compulsion to create this still world, it always meets up against the impossibility of doing so. So, I like the collision between this need for order and perfection and how it collides with a sense of the impossible. I like where possibility and impossibly meet.
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Never heard of the guy ... I need to get out more!
 
Will, a good essay !

For me street-photography is always a mixture of some parts of voyeurism with some parts of being at the right place and right time and also being able to use a camera without thinking about technical details.

I also think street photography is highly influenced by our own cultural back-ground and the cultural background of the area where we take the photos, it makes a huge difference for me to find "interesting" scenes in Europe or in in Japan.

In the end ... it all depends on the choice of the right strap, camera bag and if the Leica was black-paint.... :p:D:angel:
 
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