What exactly is street photography?

[RJBender]

Yes. I'm being sued, you know.

What happened to your Steelers pin?

R.J.

 

[RML]

street photographs are probably grab shots, correct?

grab shot
A photograph taken without the subject's awareness (literally grabbed). Frowned upon by most photoethnographers because of the lack of informed consent.

Not correct. I never said anything about "street"being grab shots. That's what you make of it.

IMO street photography can be part of ethnographic photography, documentary photography or photojournalism. To say that it can't because "street" is "grab" is like saying all fruit are yellow because banana is yellow.

 

[RJBender]

street photographs are probably grab shots, correct?
grab shot
A photograph taken without the subject's awareness (literally grabbed). Frowned upon by most photoethnographers because of the lack of informed consent.

Not correct. I never said anything about "street"being grab shots. That's what you make of it.

IMO street photography can be part of ethnographic photography, documentary photography or photojournalism. To say that it can't because "street" is "grab" is like saying all fruit are yellow because banana is yellow.

That wasn't my question, Remy. I asked the question:
"Most good street photographs are probably grab shots, correct?"

I'll ask my question another way:
Is a good street photograph one in which you have captured the decisive moment without the subject's informed consent?

http://www.photo-seminars.com/Fame/bresson.htm

R.J.

 

[Socke]

I' consider this as street photography:

Those have been taken without the consent of the people 🙂

And for a decisive moment:

😉

 

[RML]

I'll ask my question another way:
Is a good street photograph one in which you have captured the decisive moment without the subject's informed consent?

For me there's only one answer to that question: NO.

 

[amateriat]

I step outside my door. It may be raining, sunny or dusk. My head feels light and I am happy to be out. Happy to be alert and in tune with my surroundings and the people in my city. I walk down the street, to the subway, across the bridge. I make pictures of people, things, myself sometimes. Sometimes I engage others, sometimes I move on. But I am happy to have my camera with me to remind me of what I see, smell and feel at specific moments that would otherwise be forgotten. It makes me aware of what it means to be alive.

Works for me, Amy.


- Barrett

 

[amateriat]

I'll ask my question another way:
Is a good street photograph one in which you have captured the decisive moment without the subject's informed consent?
R.J.

For me there's only one answer to that question: NO.

Sigh...and just what percentage of street/candid photos have any of us taken - good, bad or middling - with the subject's full knowledge and consent? In my case it's in the single digits at best. I wouldn't be quite so gauche as to say this is a non-issue, but at this point in time I don't regard it as a major one. There's a chasm of nuance between the above question and its reply, I think.


- Barrett

 

[dostacos]

O.K., since nobody wants to (or can) define what "Street Photography" is I will:

Street Photography is photography in public places, with or without people present in the frame .

That's it, I did it, no more pontificating as to what it is...my job is done here 🙂

Thank me later,
Todd

street photography is just like PORNOGRAPHY............. 😀
I can't define pornography, but I know it when I see it." Justice Stewart....

 

[RML]

I'll ask my question another way:
Is a good street photograph one in which you have captured the decisive moment without the subject's informed consent?

For me there's only one answer to that question: NO.

Sigh...and just what percentage of street/candid photos have any of us taken - good, bad or middling - with the subject's full knowledge and consent? In my case it's in the single digits at best. I wouldn't be quite so gauche as to say this is a non-issue, but at this point in time I don't regard it as a major one. There's a chasm of nuance between the above question and its reply, I think.

I'll clarify. The question was whether a good street photo was one that captured the decisive moment without the subject's informed consent. I must answer "NO" to that. Regardless of whether any of us do so, a good street photo can just as well been taken with the informed consent of the subject.

Another question would be whether a street photo is about the "decisive moment" (a term that I don't like). I don't know the answer to that question but I'm thinking "NO" again. That's because I don't care for the "decisive" part. I'm more interested in "fleeting" moments than "decisive" moments.

And there you have yet another discrepancy in terminology. Without this information, you wouldn't be able understand where my "NO" comes from. And it's exactly because of such discrepancies in terminology that I asked the initial question of this whole thread: when we talk about street photography, what are we exactly talking about?

 

[Bertram2]

Another question would be whether a street photo is about the "decisive moment" (a term that I don't like).

And I don't like it either. It is one of the inventions of HCB's US publisher, and that HCB itself later used it himself as an descriptive element for his own work does not change anything.

So why should we bother ourselves with all this foggy babble of critics and businessmen who have put stickers on his photos to explain them to their clients ?
Does that concern US ?

We must recognize the HCB photo work was and still is a product with a very clever marketing and HCB itself did his very best to contribute to this marketing.
Maybe the reason why some have probs to keep his art and his commercial instinct always separated.

He was a rich bourgeois, his family were wealthy entrepreneurs and those folks
know very well how to sell anything. These folks can go the way of top-down selling.

Regards,
bertram

 

[3js]

We must recognize the HCB photo work was and still is a product with a very clever marketing and HCB itself did his very best to contribute to this marketing.
bertram

We? Well, I have a faint belief that he could have made it without a marketing of any kind. But I might be wrong. 🙂

 

[RJBender]

And I don't like it either. It is one of the inventions of HCB's US publisher, and that HCB itself later used it himself as an descriptive element for his own work does not change anything.

So why should we bother ourselves with all this foggy babble of critics and businessmen who have put stickers on his photos to explain them to their clients ?
Does that concern US ?

We must recognize the HCB photo work was and still is a product with a very clever marketing and HCB itself did his very best to contribute to this marketing.
Maybe the reason why some have probs to keep his art and his commercial instinct always separated.

He was a rich bourgeois, his family were wealthy entrepreneurs and those folks
know very well how to sell anything. These folks can go the way of top-down selling.

Regards,
bertram

I briefly read through HCB's book Europeans on Sunday. Most of his subjects have stoic facial expressions. Today, I'm thinking where did I see this style before? In a Calvin Klein ad??? 😕

A few minutes ago I found this image:

source: http://www.davidtoc.com/ck/modelpix.cfm?Model_ID=85​

Do you recognize the model?








It's PECKER (Edward Furlong)!

R.J.

 

[Bertram2]

I briefly read through HCB's book Europeans on Sunday. Most of his subjects have stoic facial expressions.
R.J.

I own this book and know the photos and I do not all of them find worth to be published, but that's just MY opinion.

In general my sight of HCB is very critical and I find that his work must be seen very differentiated, I mean much more differentiated than the marketing idea of HCB is.
As a painter by nature he has a very artistical and individual , a self-centered way of expressing himself , like speaking in a personal code.
An artist ( he WAS an artist undoubtedly) has the right to do so , but as a spectator I have another right which is to say "I have no clue what you are talking about here visually, Monsieur, for me this one is just NOTHING !"

And I think he would not have felt offended or vioalated by this reaction, no real artist expects his work to talk to EVERY spectator.

And that's what HCB 's work is for me, a collection of extremes, some is phantastic, and some is "nothing".
Among the protagonists of the Photographie Humaine tho he is the only one with ( in my perception) such a multiple broken oeuvre.

Back on topic: I bet I am not the only one with such a view on HCB's oeuvre,
so how to find out what the " spirit (s)" is / was in his work ?
The description given in the rules do not describe it, it just generates individual associations, presumedly very different from person to person.
So to many contributions it can happen that at the end they are told that THIS wasn't what was meant.

I personally will stay outta this contest until I see there is a clearly descripted expectation or task, until I know who is in the jury and until I see all sbmissions are anonym. The way it runs now it is more a lottery IMHO, not a contest.

Regards,
Bertram

 

[RML]

Betram,

Here ( http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16329 ) are more examples of what Jorge has in mind.

I agree with you that the gallery should be anonymous.

I'll participate in this contest. I'll just upload 3 shots that I think are in this intangible spirit of HCB.

 

[varjag]

Marketing might make you fashionable, but it alone will not promote you to the ranks of classics in any genre. The world has seen a lot of fads; there were numerous artists in the past, famous and popular at their time, whose names can hardly be remembered now.

HCB have seriously changed the genre of documentary photography, and it remains greatly influeced with his work to the day. Such a trick cannot be pulled by sales skills and artsy mumbo-jumbo alone.