Who else doesn't get street photography?

Alaikum salam Ko.Fe!
I said Winogrand's photograph is creepy. Not him. The atmosphere of his image.

Thanks for the discussion and the links. I was familiar with HCB's shot, but not Winogrand's..

(p.s. my whole premise was tongue in cheek to start with)
 
jsrockit said:
People are learning, trying to figure something out. You do this by trying. They are excited. It is not easy to be GREAT at something. No one here is presenting these type of photos as masterpieces. You take this forum photography too seriously. Now, if you go to a good gallery or a museum and you feel the same way... that's a different story.
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In the Eastern Orthodox liturgy of St Basil the Great, the priest announces readings with "Wisdom! Let us be attentive" and I feel maybe jsroclit's post should have been similarly heralded.

Even if you look at something and know it's crap it's worth bringing a little charity and humility to your discussion of it. Even if the photographer thinks it's good and other people think it's good and every bone in your body and hair on your head is bored by it, it's worth recognising that it is probably, nevertheless, the work of someone who cared about what he was doing and thought he saw something worth preserving and worth showing to others. Maybe it's someone young and learning, maybe it's someone who entirely lacks understanding of the art and will never be able to successfully convey what he saw in an image or maybe it's someone for whom what is banal to you is still new and fresh. Or maybe you've missed something in the work. We aren't all equally equipped to see the merit that's there. Chesterton said "is ditchwater dull? Naturalist friends with microscopes tell me it teems with quiet fun". Whichever it is tolerance rather than impatience is more likely to lead to the spread of insight. And anyone who is tempted to criticize a photograph, street, landscape, or other, might want to think back to his teenage years and consider how easy it was then to hint at a superior understanding and taste by savaging the songs friends and acquaintances liked and how hard it was, when a song is being ridiculed, to say no, that's good. Cynicism is a much easier pose to carry off than earnestness if you want to seem grown up and cool. But there's a lot more to be gained by thinking about and talking about why things succeed than there is in just pointing out that something's failed.
 
“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place…. I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” – Elliott Erwitt

The street photos that catch my eye can be described this way. So many have nothing interesting, yet seem to get many kudos nonetheless.
 
JHutchins said:
there's a lot more to be gained by thinking about and talking about why things succeed than there is in just pointing out that something's failed.
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No one is being a critic here, per se.

The observation is as I posted above: it appears that street gets praised simply *because it is street.*

No one has to agree with this observation, of course. :)
 
JHutchins said:
In the Eastern Orthodox liturgy of St Basil the Great, the priest announces readings with "Wisdom! Let us be attentive" and I feel maybe jsroclit's post should have been similarly heralded.

Even if you look at something and know it's crap it's worth bringing a little charity and humility to your discussion of it. Even if the photographer thinks it's good and other people think it's good and every bone in your body and hair on your head is bored by it, it's worth recognising that it is probably, nevertheless, the work of someone who cared about what he was doing and thought he saw something worth preserving and worth showing to others. Maybe it's someone young and learning, maybe it's someone who entirely lacks understanding of the art and will never be able to successfully convey what he saw in an image or maybe it's someone for whom what is banal to you is still new and fresh. Or maybe you've missed something in the work. We aren't all equally equipped to see the merit that's there. Chesterton said "is ditchwater dull? Naturalist friends with microscopes tell me it teems with quiet fun". Whichever it is tolerance rather than impatience is more likely to lead to the spread of insight. And anyone who is tempted to criticize a photograph, street, landscape, or other, might want to think back to his teenage years and consider how easy it was then to hint at a superior understanding and taste by savaging the songs friends and acquaintances liked and how hard it was, when a song is being ridiculed, to say no, that's good. Cynicism is a much easier pose to carry off than earnestness if you want to seem grown up and cool. But there's a lot more to be gained by thinking about and talking about why things succeed than there is in just pointing out that something's failed.
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I was certainly attentive to your post. Wonderful to see the Orthodox liturgy invoked. To say nothing of Chesterton. Thank you.

I think there is something deeper in street photography that may often not be present, but when it is it may not be obvious. The philosophy underpinning a fine still life or interior or even landscape is possibly deeper still. The remarkable thing about RFF is that we get to see examples of all of these that really are very good. A lot of what is here is indeed better than what we see in many galleries. A colleague whose wife is a poet once said to me that there are a thousand fine poets of whom we will never hear. The same goes for photographers. Except that I see them here at RFF.
 
On a side note...I think street photography needs "the eye" - both the photographer and the spectator/critic need it. Most people (of both categories) don´t have it, unfortunately.
 
I'm scared to get involved in this thread but... ;)

I find the random snaps of strangers to be pretty boring and more like a sterile anthropological study.

This photo struck me as an excellent example of 'street' photography...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...-of-new-years-mayhem-in-manchester-goes-viral

It kinda reminded me of this...

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/d9/ae/b4/d9aeb4bfdc1532c5ad13846df9663c25.jpg

But, I got a copy of Lee Friedlander's 'Human Clay' and was disappointed at how much (I feel) were meaningless photos. They often seemed to serve only as a documentary of people (which isn't necessarily a bad thing) rather than being interesting photos.

Example...

https://www.vincentborrelli.com/pictures/112616_3.jpg?v=1473355150

There are many excellent photos in that book though :)
 
Streetpotography is the art/mystery of story telling in just one second. In a glimps of the eyes and the impact which is caused in the onlooker's brain.

There must be a 'hook' within the scene. Most photographers thinks that photography under open sky on the streets has something to do with 'street', but it's not. ;-)
 
grouchos_tash said:
I'm scared to get involved in this thread but... ;)

I find the random snaps of strangers to be pretty boring and more like a sterile anthropological study.

This photo struck me as an excellent example of 'street' photography...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...-of-new-years-mayhem-in-manchester-goes-viral

It kinda reminded me of this...

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/d9/ae/b4/d9aeb4bfdc1532c5ad13846df9663c25.jpg

But, I got a copy of Lee Friedlander's 'Human Clay' and was disappointed at how much (I feel) were meaningless photos. They often seemed to serve only as a documentary of people (which isn't necessarily a bad thing) rather than being interesting photos.

Example...

https://www.vincentborrelli.com/pictures/112616_3.jpg?v=1473355150

There are many excellent photos in that book though :)
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sorry, for me as an old-school-streetphotographer these scenarios have nothing to do with my understanding of 'streetphotography'. For me it's photojournalism as f.e. war photography.
 
silverbullet said:
sorry, for me as an old-school-streetphotographer these scenarios have nothing to do with my understanding of 'streetphotography'. For me it's photojournalism as f.e. war photography.
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Sorry, what scenarios are you referring to? Do you mean the photos I had chosen?

Would you not consider the early work of Joel Meyerowitz street photography?

What is your definition of street photography?

N.B I'm not disagreeing with you; I'm genuinely interested in your opinion :)
 
splitimageview said:
I simply made an observation: everything from poor to mediocre to average street photography seems to reap inordinate amounts of praise. For example, as someone who sent me a PM phrased it: "as if the shutter was just tripped accidentally when pulling it out of the bag."

It's almost as if *any* street photography is considered *good* street photography just *because* it is street photography.
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I haven't really noticed this, at least not to a higher degree than I see with any other sort of craft or art. It's usually beginners praising other beginners.
 
splitimageview said:
“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place…. I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” – Elliott Erwitt

The street photos that catch my eye can be described this way. So many have nothing interesting, yet seem to get many kudos nonetheless.
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This is all true. Here, Erwitt says pretty the same thing as Willy Ronis, for instance (but Ronis introduces the concept of the "predicted good situation" and the frustration when that good situation doesn't come out eventually).

Now, howzabout just skipping the many pictures you find nothing interesting in them and try to concentrate on pictures you find many interestng things in them, even if they belong to an unknown genre ?

When you come to listen to some music which makes your ears grind, in spite of being depicted as great contemporary music by the critics, what do you do then ?

I still can't think of highly praised photos being highly praised "because it is street" while they are obviously crap.

Of course, now we need to define what "obvious perception of art" and "crap" mean.
 
splitimageview said:
It's almost as if *any* street photography is considered *good* street photography just *because* it is street photography.
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two possible explanations:
- critical comments online usually leads to reputation of being an a**hole. thats why many prefer not comment at all.
- shot with exotic or expensive gear or medium, has added value to some so they choose to praise it regardless is it worth it. gear is their hobby more than photography.
 
jarski said:
two possible explanations:
- critical comments online usually leads to reputation of being an a**hole. thats why many prefer not comment at all.
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Yup. I find it funny the uproar that ensues when someone points out the state of "street" today. Even more ironic is the justification of bad street examples in a thread about bad street.

I'm sorry but this image doesn't do anything for me. It's exactly what the op describes. Random snap on the street. Compare the ops initial post to this image.

Apart from how the woman is dressed there is literally NO interest to this image. Even still being that I'm out looking for shots a lot, she isn't that interesting compared to real characters in the street.
Ko.Fe. said:
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We're all capable of taking good images. Ko I've seen you post some decent stuff. It all comes down to editing and how critical you are of your images. People seem lazy. Post whatever. I don't think there's any pro street photographers that post here often, it's all amateurs. You can't always expect magnum level **** online from amateurs.

Signed,

The ass
 
Street Photographer

Street Photographer

I consider myself as a street photographer and I think that:

- 99% of street photos online are ****,
- 99% of my street photos are ****.

Cheers
 
So many comments, so many fingers pointing at the moon (as Buddha would say). Ask yourself what is "street" in a hyper gentrified neoliberal surveilled Street View world? If you can't muster up an informed response to this, do yourself a favour by reading some David Harvey and the you might realise that the genre of "street photography" has been conceptually and socially redundant since at least the OPEC crisis of 1973. In all seriousness, what is this "street" ye speak of?
 
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This excerpt from A.D. Coleman's book, Light Readings, is appropriate here. Maybe our tastes are too museum-quality refined?
 
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