The world has changed Street Photography

Timmyjoe said:
Could you share where you found this. I would love to read his thoughts.

Thanks.

Best,
-Tim
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http://erickimphotography.com/blog/...esson-can-teach-you-about-street-photography/

See #6

He was very sneaky. :)

I know that's a list with many cliches, but I think it's accurate in this case.

Now, one could argue: I can't shoot kids like he could! Note many of his kid shots are third world. The "creepo" paranoia is also much less in the third world today. But even then I think he was sneaky as often there are no adults in view.

Again it is possible to photograph kids with nary a bad look, if the context is right:


Moustache by unoh7, on Flickr


Leopard by unoh7, on Flickr

I got many smiles from these folks. Still of course a frown or two :) And I was no HCB, with two bodies, 75 Lux on the M9 and 300/2.8 EDIF on the A7.mod

But in general, if you think it's hard in a crowded city, try random picture taking of strangers in a small town. The more people the easier.

Complaining about the fact people don't like it is pointless. But comparing ways to cope is useful.
 
Fight fire with fire. I have had females, never males, approach me in a loud condescending tone that they think will give them some superiority. I have a standard reply in a louder tone, eyeball them and tell them to p!ssoff and get the f*ck out of my image.
I have no fear of what society thinks of me with a camera in my hand while i walk the streets my taxes paid for.
 
fireblade said:
Fight fire with fire. I have had females, never males, approach me in a loud condescending tone that they think will give them some superiority.
I have a standard reply in a louder tone, eyeball them and tell them to p!ssoff and get the f*ck out of my image.
I have no fear of what society thinks of me with a camera in my hand while i walk the streets my taxes paid for.
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Love this answer.... shuts them down completely! and their ego that you where taking their picture.
 
kshapero said:
When shooting out in the street, I have noticed an increase in tension from 3 places.
1. Feel like Police in general are on edge when shooting.
2. Feel like random subjects are less accommodating and sometimes just not accommodating at all.
3. Feel like business owners are more restrictive about photographers.

I have been shooting "the street" for 40 years, so of course, I have seen this before. But it now it seems increased. Recent events over the last 15 years, seems to have changed everything. maybe I am wrong.
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1: In Indianapolis, IN, USA, the downtown police are very friendly, and the one time I had couple complain to two cops near me that I had no right to take their picture without asking first. The officers both defended my rights as long they are on public property to take their photo.

2: I find random candid photos are less of a threat.. I may take a waist level or have my camera up to my eye and just keep it there after they have passed. It looks like I am waiting for them pass by before I take a picture.

3: If your inside a business, you are no longer on public property, and caution is advised. Most don't care, but some do... I have had no issues the few times I did take some photos (from the hip) in businesses. But, I don't burn through 10 images either in a very obvious way... one or two, and not obvious.
 
jsrockit said:
It could be as simple as they don't like to have their picture taken by an individual they don't know? It could be someone who isn't doing something they should be doing. There could immigration concerns. I'm not saying these are real, but people are not thinking that we photograph for fun because most people don't care about this aspect of photography. Sure, we are allowed to photograph anything we want in the street here in the US. However, think of the other side of the coin... do you think they are thinking in their heads that we are trying to make great photos / Art? Probably not...the NEWS makes sure people are paranoid. Just try going to a suburban neighborhood and sit in your car outside someone's home you don't know... what will happen?

I like to photograph in public. However, I understand there is another side to it all and try to respect people's concerns whether real or not.
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John, I understand your point completely. But it also seems that paying credence to people's paranoia (paranoia whipped up by media that does so to make money) is the beginning of a very serious slippery slope. At the bottom of this slope is a society so restricted by legal walls that we become just another authoritarian-ruled close-minded society... we've got too many of those in the world already!
 
Lauffray said:
I've been asked which newspaper I work for and whether the pictures will end up online, very often I smile, I say I don't have a facebook and I shoot film which requires dev and scanning. I don't know if they really believe it but for now it works.

If someone reacts angrily or aggressively from the start I just ignore them, no point arguing, otherwise I try to look friendly, confident and calm. If you start believing you're doing something reprehensible people can smell it off you
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This is the truth. If you're confident and move with purpose, you can get away with a lot. Or just act geeky. Both work.
 
daveleo said:
Complex topic, that I have little to zero experience.
But this one case.
Long long ago, I was taking a photo of a 6th grade class where I had just done some "Mr. Engineer" airplane demos. One boy came up and said his mom told him never to let a picture be taken of him "Because her ex-boyfriend said he would kill them if he ever found where they lived".

I agree with the statements above about unfounded paranoia, but once in a very rare while, the fear of photographs is justified.
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Dave, what was the justification of the boyfriend's attitude?
 
Making a photograph in our public space is, essentially, expressing our American right to free speech. Period. If we're willing to give that right up, for any reason, we help push our society over the edge of a slippery slope that leads to one run by fear-based authoritarian rule. There are too many of those societies in our world already.

If you want to be polite and ask permission to make a photograph in public, or not make the photograph at all, by all means continue. But you need to ask yourself what would our society be like if EVERYONE behaved like that. What will we have given up? Look carefully at history.
 
Here is how I do it and I have been using pretty much the same method for years and years. First, be confident. Your body language and posture tells volumes about you. If you sneak about, you look suspicious. It is rare when I shoot from the hip- I usually only do this if I simply cannot get the camera up to my eye fast enough.

I usually look through the viewfinder and shoot. If someone notices me and seems upset or a intrigued, I smile, walk over to them, hand them my card, and explain that I am a street shooter and I found them interesting enough to take a photo. Charm goes a long way. I then tell them that I will probably be posting the photo on my website and I tell them if they would like a copy of the picture, just email me and I will email them back a copy of it. This method works about 99% of the time.

The very few times it has not worked, I simply smile once again and walk away. And there have been only a handful of times that things really got weird, but still, it all seemed to work out. Maybe it is just me, I don't know, but I do not seem to have much problem in the streets. Also, I shoot with small cameras with relatively short, wide angle lenses, so that may be a factor. Could be I am just lucky?
 
I may be wrong, and I am limited by the space I photograph, but I have seen the same thing as KShapero.

Others have described the problem better than I could. Since the peadophile scandals of the nineties, kids don't come on the streets unattended anymore, or very rarely.

I've had the accusing 'why do you take pictures?' in many forms and shapes. A guy on a bike once followed me for an hour because I had taken his picture. A 12-year old called the cops on me, because I had taken his picture while goofing around on a bicycle with a friend. Spent an hour explaining my rights and duties while surrounded by six cops. Today, a colleague (!) nearly made me miss my train (my job), because I'd tried to take a picture of him.

It isn't everybody, nor is it all the time, but it is a sorry state of affairs.

I try to find a healthy balance between being open and frank about the fact that I am taking pictures, and trying to hide the moment I am taking them. Often, I keep the camera away from my face, and concentrate on the subject. It sort of works.

I get photo's of kids :

med_U54266I1446345977.SEQ.2.jpg


I'll shoot while asking permission, before it can be denied :

med_U54266I1445813546.SEQ.4.jpg


And sometimes, I even catch the cops :

_DSF5948.jpg



Cheers, Thanks for a thoughtful and relevant discussion.
 
Jamie Pillers said:
Dave, what was the justification of the boyfriend's attitude?
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I didn't ask, but he said something like "we're hiding from him" or "we moved where he won't find us" or something like that. (This was 25 years ago.)

I about died when the kid said these things.

It was none of my business, as a classroom guest, so I didn't ask any questions.
 
Wow lots of different experiences and perspectives. This is obviously a real issue. Don't see it calming down anytime soon. Me thinks sadly.
 
Love those lukitas. Light behind the cops really striking :)

Hsg said:
HCB would appreciate the surrealism of this shot where only one kid out of everyone is perfectly in focus.
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Obviously I have nothing in common with HCB, for one thing I love landscapes. ;) Nor to I pretend to be any good, except by accident. I just practice alot with varied techniques and lenses, and here and there is a shot I like.

And I feel bad when people disapprove. As a impulsive male, I fight the urge to use fireblade's technique. Charged confrontations bother me for days, so like others, I try to walk away. Long run it's better, and if you provoke the wrong person it could get you stalked and killed in this country.

I like hearing how others handle this issue, fireblade included, and the horror stories are interesting too :)

Nothing like a dangerous obsession. We are all free to hangglide too, but it may not end well LOL
 
I do think fear and suspicion is more prevalent now than prior to 9/11. That gave politicians a free ticket to play the fear card in order to have a more compliant population. That's political opportunism for you. Not that fear wasn't an understandable response. I remember full page media adverts showing a large grid of cameras, all identical except for one, with the caption "if you notice anyone taking suspicious photographs, call the police" or something like that. People became more wary of anyone they noticed taking photographs on the street after that.

Soon afterwards there was much media attention given to the sexual abuse of children in institutions and of paedophile rings. High profile inquiries were held, including a Royal Commission in Australia. Arrests frequently mentioned the seizure of large caches of photographs.

The combination of these two factors changed the perception of photographers in public where there appeared to be no immediately obvious explanation for taking photographs, such as being a tourist or taking snaps of your own kids. Most people aren't aware of this thing we call "street photography". They may see historic pictures of life in previous times but they don't make the connection that these were often taken by street photographers. They would probably be surprised to find their public art galleries contain street photography collections.

To add to all this there is the increasing unease about the explosion in public surveillance, mostly by government, in the name of security and public safety. Not just in images but also in tracking our digital signatures and trails, physically and online. People understand this is necessary but far from making them feel safer it makes them feel more threatened; a reminder of unspeakable terror like 9/11, 7/7 and Paris and an invasion of privacy, perhaps future opportunity to control lives by a more authoritarian State. In that context anonymity seems an escape, but advances in face recognition software now means that an anonymous street photo is not necessarily anonymous.

The landscape has changed.
 
lynnb said:
I do think fear and suspicion is more prevalent now than prior to 9/11. That gave politicians a free ticket to play the fear card in order to have a more compliant population. That's political opportunism for you. Not that fear wasn't an understandable response. I remember full page media adverts showing a large grid of cameras, all identical except for one, with the caption "if you notice anyone taking suspicious photographs, call the police" or something like that. People became more wary of anyone they noticed taking photographs on the street after that.

Soon afterwards there was much media attention given to the sexual abuse of children in institutions and of paedophile rings. High profile inquiries were held, including a Royal Commission in Australia. Arrests frequently mentioned the seizure of large caches of photographs.

The combination of these two factors changed the perception of photographers in public where there appeared to be no immediately obvious explanation for taking photographs, such as being a tourist or taking snaps of your own kids. Most people aren't aware of this thing we call "street photography". They may see historic pictures of life in previous times but they don't make the connection that these were often taken by street photographers. They would probably be surprised to find their public art galleries contain street photography collections.

To add to all this there is the increasing unease about the explosion in public surveillance, mostly by government, in the name of security and public safety. Not just in images but also in tracking our digital signatures and trails, physically and online. People understand this is necessary but far from making them feel safer it makes them feel more threatened; a reminder of unspeakable terror like 9/11, 7/7 and Paris and an invasion of privacy, perhaps future opportunity to control lives by a more authoritarian State. In that context anonymity seems an escape, but advances in face recognition software now means that an anonymous street photo is not necessarily anonymous.

The landscape has changed.
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Well put. Thank you Lynn.
 
I've shot in about 10 countries over the last 5 years and never had any problems in any of them. Shot kids in parks in Philly this summer, mosques in Indonesia, temples in Nepal, nighttime in the underbelly of Pittsburgh, the gayborhood in Madrid, the Albayzin in Granada. No one ever says anything. Dunno what you're all on about to be honest. And I'm only 27, so I have no pre-9/11 experience to compare it to.
 
Not that I'm a big practitioner of street photography, but when I do shoot in and around Los Angeles, I've noticed more apprehension when I'm using my RF versus a DSLR.

Just my opinion as a local, but I think Angelenos are inured to seeing DSLR-toting tourists or paparazzi, but don't know what to make of RF shooters.
 
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