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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A different point than my writing, but I do agree.
