On Street Photography

Have you view Vivian Meier's work? How does her work resonate with you? Many people have pleasant opinion about her work.

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Some of Buhler's work grabs me, some doesn't. It's not a straightforward type of street photography, but I think one thing that photographer is after is tying disparate elements together, like the speeding taxi with the woman running.

Some street stuff is arcane to me, it seems odd to put highly symbolic stuff up against what is way more documentarian, and call them the same genre. Perhaps we shouldn't really use "street" at all, though I get it's all the rage at present. I recall a quote from (the admittedly totalitarian and dystopian government of) The Giver, which I recently saw; "precision of language!" Maybe we need a little totalitarianism

 

I like it, although I'm rubbish at it (whatever 'it' might be).

For me, its all about capturing street life (usually strangers) in a moment in time; extra points for composition, angles, lines, symmetry, humour, juxtaposition and the surreal.

Some nice samples of modern 'Street' over at Hardcore Street Photography on flickr -

https://www.flickr.com/groups/onthestreet/pool/

Their constructive criticism discussion threads are brutal, but when they give props to a good pic you can see their reasoning.

 

This is literally "street photography" -


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Seriously, I have never totally understood the exact definition of "street photography". I think it is a pretty broad term. Most of the little photography I do on the street is what I consider people photography either candid or posed. Here is a definition of street photography that made a bit more sense of the term -

Street photography is photography that features the human condition within public places and does not necessitate the presence of a street or even the urban environment. The subject of the photograph might be absent of people and can be an object or environment where the image projects a decidedly human character in facsimile or aesthetic.

Still pretty generic!

 

Some classical style street photography is interesting, points where the photographer has caught an interesting happening or has hid some interesting light and so on. However there does seem to be a lot of what can only be called drek, people walking down the street or someone eating a mars bar on a bench. I have tried street photography, but I do not have anything interesting or new to add to the form or more bluntly I felt my output was super drek. I see my self as an Urban Landscape photographer anyhow and these get used for children's books ultimately. I can look at some street work people like Meyerowitz and Gilden are quite interesting, though I am amazed the later has not been battered. The form of photography I just don't seem to enjoy is Landscapes, it leaves me cold, even Ansel Adams though I see the quality in his work. I struggle with the definition of street photography too as it seems one person will include urban landscapes and others will go mad at you for doing so, I prefer to use the term Urban for people less work, gets it away from 'street'

 

Street photography is a very useful form of photography/documentary in a historical context. In amongst recording who won what war, who assassinated who, who cut down the rainforest, etc, is what daily life looked like. Even in the here and now it makes it easy to see the differences brought about by geographical, cultural and financial divides.

 

I looked at Buhler's street photo albums I & II on flickr and I thought they were far better than the random candids I often see under the street label. Buhler's shots have interesting juxtapositions, or candid expressions that say something about the human interaction that is going on. I don't fret about whether the "say something" that could be made explicit, though I have no doubt that a critic or an academic could explicate them. I just get a sense from them of some emotional context, which lesser photographers do not convey.

 

I think that's largely the ease with which modern enthusiasts can create and disseminate their stuff, you and only you are doing the culling. The classical street photographers are those who've stood the test of time and whose work still speaks to people.

Street photography because of its serendipitous nature is easy enough to generate, but the vast majority of it is crap, missed moments or moments that weren't what the photographer hoped they'd be or maybe just the product of a bored or novice or uncreative mind, frankly. Back in the day when galleries, not Flickr, were how work was seen you just couldn't afford that lack of craftsmanship, of professionalism.

 

Much of what is being captured in images today, like street photography, will be of more interest in the future than it is to us now.

A lot of what to us is boring, relatively unexciting "street photography", created today, will be of great interest to people 75 or 100 years from now... if for no other reason than to portray the "feel" of human life and culture in the late 1900's and early 2000's. People in 2100, if our human culture has not been nearly destroyed by then, will be fascinated by our vehicles, clothing, our appliances, hobbies, and activities.

This world, in 2100, will be a dramatically different place than it is today... probably far different than we imagine it will be.

 

While they provide some useful insights, I think that the author of that article has simply performed some neo-research and concluded that the few famous proponents of street photography in years past were 100% representative of the genre during their time. The increased democratization of photography in recent years means that it is accessible to more people, the change in camera technology means that new styles and techniques have emerged, and the ease of publishing your work on line means that there is an infinitely larger database of modern street photography on which to draw.