Street Photography

[bixaorellana]

Do you all agree that all of us who make photo reports on anyport are in essence street photographers?

It intrigues me that we set out to record images intending to pull them together into a coherent sequence with accompanying text but, even with that discipline in mind, wind up taking photos that stand alone as good photography.

Is the photographic eye honed because of having a camera at the ready? Or do we get the good pictures because we are on the alert and have technique under our belts? It could be any number of other reasons and motivations. Whatever the answer, sometimes it is hard to get out there and just try to capture worthy images, which can lead to whole dry spells of ignoring our cameras.

What started me thinking about this is a video an amateur photographer friend shared. To me, besides the useful suggestions, it serves as a nice little pep talk.

It would be great to hear opinions on street photography in general, likes & dislikes about it, etc.

Here is the video:

[onlyMark]

I watched this and certainly learnt quite a lot. It's also funny though as to what is a 'good' shot because I've often experienced going through photos and one I felt was ok but nothing much, another stops at and likes it better than I do. Or vice versa.
Especially with the trips I do I tend to be a 'whole thing' photographer in that I may concentrate on one detail or another but generally the photo is not for me, it is for others and I can imagine it is frustrating to just see little bits of something. When I say it is not for me, it is but in many years, not in the short term.

I have stood in certain places waiting for a good shot to happen but I don't really have the patience for it so any good shots I obtain are spur of the moment. I do walk around and try and get the best angle on something but if not successful, I still take shots anyway and weed bad ones out later because it is that thing I want to record - and that brings me on to the main thing with this video - people.
If I would do what he is doing I'd concentrate on the people, but that is rare. I can't remember without going all the way back through it but I don't think there was a shot, as excellent as they are, without someone in it.
You could say he is more a people photographer than a street photographer, if you skew the meaning somewhat.

I certainly do and enjoy taking photos of people but I am conscious of the furtive way it usually needs to be done. I was once approached in Germany by a woman who had walked all the way across a market square to me to tell me to delete the photos with her in it as it was illegal. I corrected her as to what I understood German law to be but she was adamant. I left her frustrated as I refused. There were other times in different countries as well.
My photos are of places that may happen to have interesting people in them rather than the other way round but I still find the video a learning experience and glad I watched it.
My dry spells are because I didn't go anywhere not that there were no people to photograph.

[kerouac2]

That is a good video even if I myself did not learn all that much -- it just confirmed some things that I have learned all by myself over the years. Digital photography changed everything because there is no longer any "wasting" of film like in the old days. I have become a master of instant deletion when I am trying for a particular shot just so I don't have to wade through as many failures later on. I know that it isn't all that evident from my often crummy photos that I post here, but that's because I prefer to remain as spontaneous as possible and not try to winnow things out excessively. And like Mark wrote, sometimes other people prefer some photos that I took that I was not in love with. I don't take pictures for glory but just because I have always liked taking pictures.

In terms of altercations, a woman ran up to me one day in a park because she thought I was taking creepy photos of her son. It had taken her a little while to track me down because I had already taken quite a few more pictures. But I scrolled back through the photos with her until we found the photo of her son. "I took that picture because of the shadow of the bicycle wheel on the pavement." And she saw that it was true. Even though her son was in the photo, it was obvious that he was not the subject of it. So she was relieved and did not even ask for me to delete it. (It's somewhere in one of my Buttes Chaumont reports.)

[bixaorellana]

Illuminating comments from both of you -- thanks! It seems you both agree with my perception that we (or some of us) who make anyport reports can be called street photographers.

The video is pleasant and possibly useful, but for our purposes more of a springboard to conversation. As I said, for me it was a good pep talk, as lately I haven't felt the impulse to take pictures.

One thing I'd quibble about with the video is the thing of waiting for or carefully framing a shot. Mark alluded to this in saying that the guy could be called more a people photographer than a street photographer.

To me the essence of street photography is its spontaneity -- the ability to recognize and snatch that instance of art, surprise, humor, wtf from daily life. Of course if we can simultaneously manage to seize the moment & frame the shot well, that's all to the good. Kerouac's instance of snapping the bicycle shadow is still street photography, for instance, because it was about noticing something ephemeral without looking for it and having the wit to photograph it.

As far as having to be furtive about taking pictures of people out in public, yes and no. On the one hand, if you fear some stranger may snap your picture, either stay home or don a burka. I don't hold with the thing of publishing a crowd shot with every face blurred out. On the other hand, you don't want to be too obvious, because the beauty of street photography is that it's a record of life in the moment, which includes pictures of people in the act of being themselves without an audience. I do admit to being a sneak about getting shots of indigenous women in traditional markets. That is because of walking a tightrope between showing something specific to a place and dehumanizing the subjects by showing them as The Other.

Feb 2, 2024 8:04:01 GMT onlyMark said:

Especially with the trips I do I tend to be a 'whole thing' photographer in that I may concentrate on one detail or another but generally the photo is not for me, it is for others and I can imagine it is frustrating to just see little bits of something.

Bingo! That describes how I operate as well in the framework of wanting a picture to function as a record and as part of a story.
But there is always with me a desire to record what I saw as I saw it, in other words, that thing with a photo that makes others appreciate why you took it.

Feb 2, 2024 16:09:02 GMT kerouac2 said:

I have become a master of instant deletion when I am trying for a particular shot

Eek! I worry that you have discarded pictures that would have made the cut if you had unloaded them at home for a second look.
I want to wade through my failures at home. It doesn't take all that long and it's a good way to be a fair critic and possibly learn something. Anyway, I never look at pictures on the back of my camera.