OzRay
Mu-43 Hall of Famer
Street photography is one of the styles of photography that, for some reason, almost completely eludes me. While there are photographs labelled as street photography that I do like, in the main, it just does not connect in any major way with me. And I'm not a photography snob, as I like all and any style of photography (note not all and sundry Photoshopping), but this is one area that I don't quite understand. I look at street photography completely differently to documentary photography.
I thought I'd raise this as a discussion point, following a post on TOP about a street photographer that apparently has a big following: http://www.jbuhler.com/ and his Flickr site: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbuhler/sets/. After going through lots of his albums, I'm still at a loss as to what makes this so very interesting, as hundreds of B&W photos of strangers in non-descript activities doesn't resonate at all with me. And no where does he include any sort of description about the shots, yet he does detail the camera, lens, exposure setting used etc which, to me, is completely irrelevant.
Then I came across an interesting video clip on street photography that explains one person's view on street photography, but also brings to light an interesting comment about 'the decisive moment': http://petapixel.com/2014/09/06/video-fear-books-asking-take-pictures/. Also mentioned were some books about classic photographers, such as Josef Koudelka; but when I re-acquainted myself with those works, they didn't really come across as the 'street photography' that most seem to associate with in their photography. In fact, most of Koudelka's photography captures people more or less posing for him, an antithesis of 'street photography' theory (from what I've read).
Is street photography something that you either 'get' or 'don't get' and that there's no in-between?
I thought I'd raise this as a discussion point, following a post on TOP about a street photographer that apparently has a big following: http://www.jbuhler.com/ and his Flickr site: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbuhler/sets/. After going through lots of his albums, I'm still at a loss as to what makes this so very interesting, as hundreds of B&W photos of strangers in non-descript activities doesn't resonate at all with me. And no where does he include any sort of description about the shots, yet he does detail the camera, lens, exposure setting used etc which, to me, is completely irrelevant.
Then I came across an interesting video clip on street photography that explains one person's view on street photography, but also brings to light an interesting comment about 'the decisive moment': http://petapixel.com/2014/09/06/video-fear-books-asking-take-pictures/. Also mentioned were some books about classic photographers, such as Josef Koudelka; but when I re-acquainted myself with those works, they didn't really come across as the 'street photography' that most seem to associate with in their photography. In fact, most of Koudelka's photography captures people more or less posing for him, an antithesis of 'street photography' theory (from what I've read).
Is street photography something that you either 'get' or 'don't get' and that there's no in-between?