What is street photography?

bdcolen · November 4, 2011

bfjr · November 4, 2011

Excellent again and thanks for the link.

Going to go back and read the whole story.

Quincy T · November 4, 2011

What an excellent conclusion.

"They’re afraid to use people, except as objects in an image. That is such a tragedy. People are the most interesting things on earth.”

torags · November 4, 2011

Thanks for the post bd

RSL · November 4, 2011

Good post, BD. These folks are some of the real street photographers.

sara505 · November 6, 2011

NYT's Lens is a wonderful resource.

The questions that always come up for me are, what makes these photos great? Are they really great photos, or do we love them because they call us back to another time, invoking a nostalgia? Along these lines, what ordinary situation can I see and photograph today that will someday be looked upon as a great photograph rather than a snapshot? The big question, though, is: I wonder if these photos somehow are more valuable and appreciated because there were fewer cameras and photographers in the forties and fifties. I seriously wonder, given today's proliferation of cell-phone cameras, point and shoots, and the fact that people are photographing and Tweeting/Facebooking/G+-ing every leaf that blows - will today's photos be as valuable to the next generation as these oldies are to us?

RSL · November 6, 2011

Sara,

The questions you're asking are ones I suspect are mused upon if not spoken outright by most of us who are serious fans of street photography. But I could ask the same question about most of the paintings in our museums that include people. Are we interested in these works for historical reasons or are we interested because they're art that moves us?

I think the answer is a mixed bag of "yeses," "noes," and "maybes." But I also think it's possible to distinguish between one of Cartier-Bresson's great street photographs and his photojournalistic efforts in publications like The People of Moscow.

To me, the factor that makes the difference -- that takes us from "no" or "maybe" to "yes" is whether or not the picture or painting tells us something about -- well I don't think I can avoid the cliche -- "the human condition." A street photograph must tell a story to be a street photograph, but sometimes the story is a joke, or a passing fancy -- a transient kind of thing that makes us laugh or speaks to a current situation. I think that jokes tend to lose their punch with the passage of time, and it becomes almost impossible to understand a current situation as soon as it's not current. But a street photograph like Cartier-Bresson's "The Locks at Bougival, France," or Helen Levitt's picture of the expression of despair on the face of a kid being teased are the kind of art that can speak to us no matter what our native language is or how recent the picture is.

Most of today's photographs will be forgotten, just as most of today's paintings and most of today's music, and most of today's poetry will be forgotten. But really good art in any genre won't.

torags · November 6, 2011

Sara you have articulated my views & RSL not so much.

Here is a contrarian's view.

Photography is not art, it's craft.

The photographer is documenting a moment. The document may be pleasing or not, but the photographer didn't materially originate anything.

That said, where a photographer takes an image, materially alters it in PP; and creates an entirely different rendering - is an artist. Many of these people are held in less esteem today by real Photographers as is PP.

A lot of photographers call themselves artists, but like masturbation - pleasing but not the real thing. It does help in marketing, however.

I like the shots in bd's link; they bring a sense of the mystery/reflections of the past and this adds aesthetic value to the images, that is important to a small group of enthusiasts. They certainly are lost in the vast proliferation of images we seem to see every minute.

IMHO

sara505 · November 6, 2011

My thoughts and questions are mostly musings and rhetorical, the answers being different, I'm sure, for everyone, as well as being difficult to put into words. As for the art vs. craft issue - for me, it's a delightful combination of artistry/spiritualitywizardry/technology/gadgetry. I do wonder, a lot, about the proliferation angle. I have begun scanning and archiving my thirty year-old collection of BW negs of my young family, and I do know that my appreciation for the pictures from the days when shooting and developing a couple of rolls of 36-exp. Tri-X was a fairly big deal, the development alone taking up an entire evening, is much greater than for the 50 or 60 shots I dash off of my grandson in a morning and post into his First Year gallery, the latter being fine photos, but egads - it's so easy to over-do it. My old BWs are absolute treasures - even the bad ones - in part because there are many fewer of them.

M38A1 · November 6, 2011

sara505 wrote: »

...My old BWs are absolute treasures - even the bad ones - in part because there are many fewer of them.

And to think maybe two years ago I cleaned out all my B&W negatives, as in trashed them all, gone, bye-bye thinking I'd never want to see them again let alone have a need for them. Probably 10 years of work. If there's a few things to kick yourself over in life, giving up thousands of images has to rank up there.

:

sara505 · November 6, 2011

m38a1 wrote: »

and to think maybe two years ago i cleaned out all my b&w negatives, as in trashed them all, gone, bye-bye thinking i'd never want to see them again let alone have a need for them. Probably 10 years of work. If there's a few things to kick yourself over in life, giving up thousands of images has to rank up there. :

ouch!

RSL · November 6, 2011

There are a lot of people out there who'd agree with you, Rags. But from that point of view, no artist ever originates anything. To make a painting you have to put paint on a surface. The paint and the surface preexist your painting. All you're doing is taking what already exists and making decisions about how it should be arranged.

A photographer may, as you say, be documenting a moment, but he has to make decisions about how the elements of that moment are to be arranged. A photograph never really documents "reality." Reality includes all the stuff you left out of the picture as well as what you allowed in. Post-processing may or may not enhance the picture and add originality, but the real creativity comes when you frame a picture and make decisions about subject matter and geometry.

But you're right about one thing: if you're judging on the basis of the bulk of what's posted on Street & PJ, you might as well be judging on the output from a security camera. And Sara's right, the thundering dump of images from digital becomes more and more confusing unless you're very serious about photography and set out to learn the difference between dross and art. But the same problem exists with painting, music, poetry... any art form.

I've forgotten who first said it, but one of the most important things an artist has to learn is when to stop. One of the most important things a photographer has to learn is how to cull. That means sometimes being willing to dump a picture you worked very hard to get when you realize it's not up to your standards. Of course, if your standards are low you don't have much of a problem, you just post everything that comes popping out of your camera on Street & PJ.

richardman · November 6, 2011

Wow! And to think the "Photography? Is it Art or Not" debate has been resolved since the early 1900s :-)

Rags, photography is a craft TOO, but to think that a photographer is only an artist if they postprocess the image to a different rendering, is... well, I don't know what else to say, but that it is wrong.

"Anyone" could have taken every single great picture that HCB has taken. How many actually did or can do?

"Anyone" could have written "The Americans," and to this date, it has not been equaled.

"Anyone" could do every single essay Gene Smith has done, most are in high esteem if they produce one body of work that is of equal.

Those are not mere craftsmen. Heck, HCB didn't print except in the earliest years. Those are great artists, equal of any great artists of any time.

I am really shaking my head on this one, Rags!

torags wrote: »

Sara you have articulated my views & RSL not so much.

Here is a contrarian's view.

Photography is not art, it's craft.

The photographer is documenting a moment. The document may be pleasing or not, but the photographer didn't materially originate anything.

That said, where a photographer takes an image, materially alters it in PP; and creates an entirely different rendering - is an artist. Many of these people are held in less esteem today by real Photographers as is PP.

A lot of photographers call themselves artists, but like masturbation - pleasing but not the real thing. It does help in marketing, however.

I like the shots in bd's link; they bring a sense of the mystery/reflections of the past and this adds aesthetic value to the images, that is important to a small group of enthusiasts. They certainly are lost in the vast proliferation of images we seem to see every minute.

IMHO

jonh68 · November 7, 2011

Looking at the latest threads about street photography, it looks like it's mandatory they should be in BW.

richardman · November 7, 2011

Not sure how you arrive to that conclusion. It's just the preference for the individual posters. I personally generally prefer B&W for (bunch of boring reasons), but certainly color has its place for (a bunch of other reasons).

When I shoot digital, I have a choice post, when I shoot film though, it's definitely B&W only.

jonh68 wrote: »

Looking at the latest threads about street photography, it looks like it's mandatory they should be in BW.

jonh68 · November 7, 2011

richardman wrote: »

Not sure how you arrive to that conclusion. It's just the preference for the individual posters. I personally generally prefer B&W for (bunch of boring reasons), but certainly color has its place for (a bunch of other reasons).

When I shoot digital, I have a choice post, when I shoot film though, it's definitely B&W only.

i was joking but just looking at the threads, the majority are BW.

bdcolen · November 8, 2011

Sara raises excellent questions - musings - and the responses are quite interesting. I'd say that of course part of the attraction to the work of the greats of the 30s, 40s, and 50s is that they take us back to a simpler, quite different time. One of the important aspects of the genre then was that, in cities, people lived in the street. The urban block was a playground, social club, coffee klatch, shopping center, 'air conditioner' in the summer - an escape from the hideously oppressive heat of unairconditioned, poorly ventilated, apartments. Street photos from that era not only show us the clothes people wore, but how they lived. At the same time, however, the photos of Helen Levitt, Saul Leiter, Weegee (somewhat later), and others do, as RSL 'requires,' tell stories, jokes, pose questions: they make us think.

I have to say hearing HCB described as a "street photographer," especially in a thread in which someone actually contends that photography isn't an art form. HCB is best described not as any kind of photographer - rather, he is best described as an artist whose tool was a camera during much of his career. (Keep in mind that he began his life as an artist painting, was involved in cinema, and for the last 20+ years of his life left the camera and returned to drawing and painting. HCB's was one of the great artists of the 20th century, whose medium happened to be photography. Most of his memorable photos are not about the people or places in them, they are about light and geometry. They are, on the whole, rather emotionally cold; they appeal to the head, not the heart.

Last winter I had the opportunity to view, on the same day, the massive HCB show at the MOMA, and the Eugene Smith "Jazz Loft" show at the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center. I have to say that I came away from the two feeling that if one has to rank the greats, Smith is number 1, and HCB is number two; HCB was unquestionably a genius; but Smith was a god. Smith's work, in addition to exhibiting stunning control of light and composition, speaks directly to the heart; HCB's does not. HOWEVER, I certainly understand this is a question of personal taste, and therefore means next to nothing.

RSL · November 8, 2011

I have to say that I came away from the two feeling that if one has to rank the greats, Smith is number 1, and HCB is number two...

And I'd agree, BD. But I think HCB went through a couple phases. To me, he certainly was a street photographer early on -- before he became a photojournalist. After that, I'm not so sure. His drawing and painting was fair, but far from great, and his film work was forgettable. But pictures like "Aubervilliers, France, 1932," "On the banks of the Marne, 1938, "Trafalgar Square on the day of the coronation of George VI, 1937," and even a lot of his later work, like "Rue Mouffetard, Paris, 1952," and "Ascot, Great Britian, 1953" seem, to me, to be the very definition of street photography. I think Gene Smith, and the others who came along after HCB owed him a lot.

bdcolen · November 8, 2011

I don't want this to become never ending, but...First off, HCB was not a "photo journalist;" he was an art photographer who took some magazine assignments because they brought money into Magnum, an organization he co-founded, and deeply believed in. But the vast majority of his so-called photo journalism is, by his standards, mediocre at best. You refer to his photos by title, and by doing so, I think make the best argument we've seen here for not titling photos. I have numerous HCB books, know many of his images by heart, and have to guess at all but about one of those titles. The titles are utterly meaningless - the images do the talking.

Yes, of course Smith, and all of us, owe HCB an incalculable debt - if nothing else, he "invented" 35 mm photography as it came to be practiced throughout the 20th century and beyond. But let's also remember that Smith is unquestionably the father of the modern picture story. I was not in any way suggestion that HCB was not a staggeringly great photographer. Is there any of us who would not give his or her camera to have a single image that could be confused for an HCB? But that said, I am still a Smithie. ;-)

richardman · November 8, 2011

bdcolen wrote: »

...
Last winter I had the opportunity to view, on the same day, the massive HCB show at the MOMA, and the Eugene Smith "Jazz Loft" show at the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center. I have to say that I came away from the two feeling that if one has to rank the greats, Smith is number 1, and HCB is number two; HCB was unquestionably a genius; but Smith was a god. Smith's work, in addition to exhibiting stunning control of light and composition, speaks directly to the heart; HCB's does not. HOWEVER, I certainly understand this is a question of personal taste, and therefore means next to nothing.

Bravo. I am glad that you two are having an engaging and enlightening conversation. I wholeheartedly agree with what you wrote here. I often have similar thoughts, but could never articulate them as you did.

Looking at HCB's, I often say "How did he do that?!!"

Looking at Smith's, it's more "OMG...."

RSL · November 8, 2011

I think what you're saying, BD, is a more direct way of saying what I was implying. Once HCB started doing his (non-photojournalistic?) magazine assignments, I think he stopped doing the kind of great street photography he did in the beginning, while he was still a surrealist.

Yes, titles aren't much help. "Aubervilles, France, 1932" is the picture of a sad-looking, badly clothed little boy with a forlorn look, leaning against the side of a corrugated steel shed. It's a heartbreaking picture of the effect on a kid of extreme poverty. I'm sure you know the picture. I'm pretty sure you recognized "On the banks of the Marne." Everyone knows that one. "Trafalgar Square" is the picture of the drunk who's fallen asleep and fallen off the wall, while in a proper British spirit of fairness, nobody on the crowded wall has scootched over and taken his place. I'm sure you know "Rue Mouffetard," it's the kid with the two wine bottles and the two girls behind him, giggling. "Ascot" is the guy sitting in the rain with a newspaper over his head.

I agree that HCB's pictures are emotionally cold compared with the pictures of Gene Smith or Chim or Walker Evans. But I don't agree that they're not about the people in them. A lot of them primarily are demonstrations of his superior eye for composition, but "Aubervilles" certainly isn't, nor is "Trafalgar Square," and "The Lock at Bougival" is a very moving story about the people in the picture.

I'm not any more interested in getting into a discussion of semantics than you are, but to me HCB is sort of the paleo street photographer, even though one could make a case that Kertesz started it, or even that Atget pointed the way. But, street photographer or not, I agree that HCB certainly was one of the great artists of the twentieth century.

lizzard_nyc · November 8, 2011

Not to take anything away from the masters Winograd born in 1928, Evans born 1903, HCB 1908, SMith 1918, are there no contemporary street shooters worth talking about?

richardman · November 8, 2011

There are some Magnum guys still kicking around :-)

I also like Craig Semetko's stuff. Juan Buhler is local to SF and talented.

lizzard_nyc wrote: »

Not to take anything away from the masters Winograd born in 1928, Evans born 1903, HCB 1908, SMith 1918, are there no contemporary street shooters worth talking about?

michswiss · November 8, 2011

lizzard_nyc wrote: »

Not to take anything away from the masters Winograd born in 1928, Evans born 1903, HCB 1908, SMith 1918, are there no contemporary street shooters worth talking about?

Why not you?

If you still think publishers and editors add value, you can find a lot of contemporary work on Phaidon Press. Another place to start would be with Nick Turpin and the Street Photography Now collaboration with many current street photogs. It's almost needless to say you can find as many blogs, flickr groups, etc on Street as you have time.

My humble observation is that most work currently being considered seriously is from the absurd / surrealist camp. Nothing wrong with that, and if you take Russ' and B.D.'s analysis into account, it builds on HCB's earlier work. (Shh, it's a secret but most of it is in colour these days)

That said, I think the simple reason we aren't discussing contemporary shooters is that they aren't dead yet. Time has a way of filtering and editing bodies of work to their essence. Prolific, talented shooters with an eye toward themes, social issues, ideas, locations that do a reasonable job of cataloguing or having their work catalogued and promoted will inevitably survive, and be discussed, more often than most.

lizzard_nyc · November 9, 2011

michswiss wrote: »

Why not you?

If you still think publishers and editors add value, you can find a lot of contemporary work on Phaidon Press. Another place to start would be with Nick Turpin and the Street Photography Now collaboration with many current street photogs. It's almost needless to say you can find as many blogs, flickr groups, etc on Street as you have time.

My humble observation is that most work currently being considered seriously is from the absurd / surrealist camp. Nothing wrong with that, and if you take Russ' and B.D.'s analysis into account, it builds on HCB's earlier work. (Shh, it's a secret but most of it is in colour these days)

That said, I think the simple reason we aren't discussing contemporary shooters is that they aren't dead yet. Time has a way of filtering and editing bodies of work to their essence. Prolific, talented shooters with an eye toward themes, social issues, ideas, locations that do a reasonable job of cataloguing or having their work catalogued and promoted will inevitably survive, and be discussed, more often than most.

Hey Jenn,
Thanks for responding.

What do you mean "cataloguing" exactly--how does one do this?

As far as my work..don't have a body of work really. I've only shot street for two years which is not nearly enough time. Though if you'd like to discuss me, be my guest

I think I hit a wall sometimes when discussing the masters, though I admire their work and have slowly started to build a collection of books on their work, but like B.D. said it's from a different era. It's mostly film, all taken during a time where people "lived" outdoors, there was little tv, no ac, no gameboys, no iphones, so lives were lived outdoors. What we capture now is so different, from the way we capture it (digital) to what we capture. I think sometimes there is a nostalgia for the old days, and I get nostalgic myself when looking at the shots though most were taken before my time.

Buy my question is why the comparison to the masters all the time. Times have changed drastically since the masters were in their hey day. Why compare so much of the work now to theirs? Sure I learned much from them and still I'm learning, but shouldn't our shooting evolve somehow? Maybe push boundaries that were not accepted as street back then. Michael Penn comes to mind when saying that.

I'd love to be compared to one of the masters, but I'd love it even more to have my own unique style, easily recognizable as mine.

So back to the start..about cataloguing?...

bdcolen · November 9, 2011

Yes, one definitely wants to develop a personal style, personal vision if you will. What better accolade than to have someone say, 'that is such a great....Lizzard!'

But keep in mind that the 'masters' each had a personal style - no one is going to confuse a Winnogrand with a Smith, or a Smith with an HCB - or a Winnogrand. But why do we keep coming back to the masters? We come back to them because they were the masters - the same reason people keep coming back to Leonardo, or Degas, or Picasso, or Pollack. That doesn't mean there aren't some great shooters today. But we tend to measure their efforts, and ours, against the creators of the genre.

lizzard_nyc · November 9, 2011

bdcolen wrote: »

Yes, one definitely wants to develop a personal style, personal vision if you will. What better accolade than to have someone say, 'that is such a great....Lizzard!' But keep in mind that the 'masters' each had a personal style - no one is going to confuse a Winnogrand with a Smith, or a Smith with an HCB - or a Winnogrand. But why do we keep coming back to the masters? We come back to them because they were the masters - the same reason people keep coming back to Leonardo, or Degas, or Picasso, or Pollack. That doesn't mean there aren't some great shooters today. But we tend to measure their efforts, and ours, against the creators of the genre.

As in "did you hear that lizzardnyc's "Assimilation" sold for $5 million!". I can dream:)

I get your point truly, but Picasso's work and Pollack's work was discussed while they were very much still alive and working. Maybe their genius wasn't as apparent until later on, but their work was very much discussed while they were still working. So I guess I would like to know who today's prolific street shooters are, though the genre seems to be overly saturated, perhaps this wasn't the case back in Winograd's time.

Richard · November 9, 2011

It's an interesting question. In part we study the masters because their images are just really a pleasure to look at. I think that's at least in part because we're wired to respond to awesome light, composition, textures and other visual elements that don't depend at all on the subject matter or social context--both of which are more likely to change with the times. But it is nevertheless true that art evolves continually, so though we can learn from the past, we mustn't feel bound by it. A reincarnation of Picasso would be irrelevant today if he only produced more cubist works.

RSL · November 9, 2011

michswiss wrote: »

That said, I think the simple reason we aren't discussing contemporary shooters is that they aren't dead yet.

Just hang on, Jennifer. I'll be 82 in March.

RSL · November 9, 2011

bdcolen wrote: »

But why do we keep coming back to the masters? We come back to them because they were the masters - the same reason people keep coming back to Leonardo, or Degas, or Picasso, or Pollack. That doesn't mean there aren't some great shooters today. But we tend to measure their efforts, and ours, against the creators of the genre.

Well said, BD. And I think there's another reason too. Most of these people created at least a piece or two of timeless art. Times certainly have changed since Leonardo painted the Mona Lisa; Techniques have changed, methods have changed, the whole human world has changed, but people haven't changed, and Leonardo caught something transcendent in that painting that he passes on to us and that we all recognize but can't put into words. Same thing with some of Gene Smith's work, etc., etc. You don't study the masters to learn how to shoot the same things they shot. You study them to get a grip on something fundamental about portraying human nature.

richardman · November 9, 2011

RSL wrote: »

Just hang on, Jennifer. I'll be 82 in March.

OK, time to buy some RSL prints :-)

What is street photography?

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