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Author Topic: Am I getting this 'street' thing?  (Read 33653 times)

Chairman Bill

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Re: Am I getting this 'street' thing?
« Reply #40 on: August 15, 2015, 06:11:31 pm »

Number four was taken for a particular reason  the juxtapositioning of the Big Issue seller (homeless bloke, selling a magazine designed to give homeless people a job), outside a bank, that was bailed out by the tax-payer when it went belly-up in the financial crash. Those people walking by, contributed to the bailing out of the bank, and paying bonuses to bankers, whilst the homeless guy has to hope they buy a magazine, so he can keep some of the money raised by doing so. So not a tourist shot, more a political statement shot.

tom b

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Re: Am I getting this 'street' thing?
« Reply #41 on: August 15, 2015, 06:28:21 pm »

"From what you're saying I gather that according to In-Public's definition of street photography, as long as the picture includes a street and doesn't include Half Dome it's a street shot."

Russ, have you visited the site, it has some great street photography.

In-Public.

http://www.in-public.com/photographers Check out Trent Parke if you want to see some great contemporary street photography.

Cheers,

« Last Edit: August 15, 2015, 06:49:34 pm by tom b »
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Tom Brown

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Re: Am I getting this 'street' thing?
« Reply #42 on: August 15, 2015, 09:58:22 pm »

Yes, I've been there and there's some very good stuff there. There's also some pretty bad stuff there. I didn't think In-Public was saying that. I thought you were saying that.

Yes, In-Public has some very good work.
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tom b

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Re: Am I getting this 'street' thing?
« Reply #43 on: August 16, 2015, 02:09:21 am »

"Yes, I've been there and there's some very good stuff there. There's also some pretty bad stuff there."

The sad fact of life is the older you get, the harder it is to find things that excite you.

The other thing that I have really noticed is the role of the curator. Who picks the photos you see is just as important as what the photographer took. I saw an exhibition of August Sander's photography at the ACP in the 70's and I found it very boring.

Twenty something years later I picked up a book of his photography. Seeing a much broader range of his images made me really respect him as a photographer.

Cheers,
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Tom Brown

tom b

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Re: Am I getting this 'street' thing?
« Reply #44 on: August 16, 2015, 02:27:30 am »

Thinking about the role of the curator brought to mind how similar the role of the photographer is.

Several years ago I went to a Primary School to do a photo shoot of children reproducing Andy Goldsworthy style artworks. I got some great photos and the project was a success. However, at the end of the project the children destroyed most of the artwork that they had made. "Art" is in the eye of the beholder.

Cheers,
« Last Edit: August 16, 2015, 03:01:36 am by tom b »
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Tom Brown

drmike

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Re: Am I getting this 'street' thing?
« Reply #45 on: August 16, 2015, 02:56:35 am »

Number four was taken for a particular reason  the juxtapositioning of the Big Issue seller (homeless bloke, selling a magazine designed to give homeless people a job), outside a bank, that was bailed out by the tax-payer when it went belly-up in the financial crash. Those people walking by, contributed to the bailing out of the bank, and paying bonuses to bankers, whilst the homeless guy has to hope they buy a magazine, so he can keep some of the money raised by doing so. So not a tourist shot, more a political statement shot.

I have watched this discussion develop and I will declare now that I don't really care about a definition of street photography although for me it is roughly 'a good well composed photograph that happens to have people in it and is usually is not posed and in a public place'. But I don't really care, it's usually quite obvious if a shot is intended as street or not.

In which case I think #4 the big issue seller fails as the composition - for me anyway - isn't strong enough. If you replace the people with bags of sand does it still work? And I fear if you have to explain it then it hasn't worked - and I definitely needed that explanation!

I have no idea what all this guff about ambiguity is about :)

Mike
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stamper

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Re: Am I getting this 'street' thing?
« Reply #46 on: August 16, 2015, 03:43:58 am »

Quote Russ Reply #39

I don't think most people starting to do street realize how few of their shots are going to be worth keeping. There's no way around it. Even with the camera in your hand, zone-focussed for the area you know you're going to work in, far too often when you raise the camera, the scene in front of you dissolves before you can trip the shutter. Then there are just plain bloopers where you thought you had something but it turns out to be crap. People look at the work of a street shooter and think that the guy just walks down the street shooting one keeper after another. If there's one exposure in a thousand you'd be willing to hang your reputation on, you're doing really well.

unquote

My experience exactly.

drmike

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Re: Am I getting this 'street' thing?
« Reply #47 on: August 16, 2015, 03:46:21 am »

Totally agree. I have seen good photographers just shed their artistic abilities when shooting street resulting in mediocre shots.
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stamper

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Re: Am I getting this 'street' thing?
« Reply #48 on: August 16, 2015, 03:48:52 am »

Number four was taken for a particular reason  the juxtapositioning of the Big Issue seller (homeless bloke, selling a magazine designed to give homeless people a job), outside a bank, that was bailed out by the tax-payer when it went belly-up in the financial crash. Those people walking by, contributed to the bailing out of the bank, and paying bonuses to bankers, whilst the homeless guy has to hope they buy a magazine, so he can keep some of the money raised by doing so. So not a tourist shot, more a political statement shot.

Unfortunately Bill, your connection is tenuous. Taking images of people in the street is the easiest form of photography imo but taking interesting images is the hardest. I see where Russ is coming from with his ambiguity but I also understand other members disdain for it. There isn't an easy definition.

Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Am I getting this 'street' thing?
« Reply #49 on: August 16, 2015, 03:05:58 pm »

There isn't an easy definition.
Amen!

But if you look at most of the stuff that is posted here by Stamper, Seamus, and Russ (or even Russ's pal HCB, who doesn't poste here very often), and just try to make photos that are as interesting (but not copies), then you are doing OK.

Once every couple of years I try my hand at "street" photography of that sort, and all I've learned so far is that it is EXTREMELY difficult to get the nice interactions that these guys get. That may be one of the reasons that my own "street" photography is usually limited to pavement shots with no people present at all.
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Re: Am I getting this 'street' thing?
« Reply #50 on: August 16, 2015, 04:22:56 pm »

There isn't an easy definition.

Actually, Stamper (Eric too), I don't think there's any complete definition in words, any more than there's a complete definition in words of "Impressionist' style painting. To understand it you have to be familiar with the history of the genre. With street photography I'd even go way out on a limb and say you have to have tried it to understand it. You certainly have to have tried it to understand how difficult it is.
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Am I getting this 'street' thing?
« Reply #51 on: August 16, 2015, 05:32:52 pm »

Actually, Stamper (Eric too), I don't think there's any complete definition in words, any more than there's a complete definition in words of "Impressionist' style painting. To understand it you have to be familiar with the history of the genre. With street photography I'd even go way out on a limb and say you have to have tried it to understand it. You certainly have to have tried it to understand how difficult it is.

Absolutely.
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churly

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Re: Am I getting this 'street' thing?
« Reply #52 on: August 16, 2015, 06:24:52 pm »


But if you look at most of the stuff that is posted here by Stamper, Seamus, and Russ (or even Russ's pal HCB, who doesn't poste here very often), and just try to make photos that are as interesting (but not copies), then you are doing OK.

Peter (petermfiore) has posted some very nice street work here as well.
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Chuck Hurich

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Re: Am I getting this 'street' thing?
« Reply #53 on: August 16, 2015, 06:31:21 pm »

Absolutely!
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Am I getting this 'street' thing?
« Reply #54 on: August 16, 2015, 07:52:17 pm »

Peter (petermfiore) has posted some very nice street work here as well.
Yes, indeed. I'm sorry to have neglected to mention him. There are no doubt others I've forgotten.
My brain has a hard time holding more than about three names in it at any one time. Maybe when I'm as old as Russ, I'll be smarter.   ;)
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Re: Am I getting this 'street' thing?
« Reply #55 on: August 16, 2015, 09:50:03 pm »

Unfortunately you don't seem to actually know why you believe - "What Henri meant by the decisive moment was the moment when the photographer made his decision".

Maybe you saw something in Montier's book which gave you that impression, maybe it was something else, maybe you're just wrong.

You suspect I missed Henri Cartier-Bresson and the Artless Art and you're just wrong.

Isaac, just so you don't go to bed out of sorts, check page 156 in Bystander: A History of Street Photography. I finally remembered one place where I read it:

"A la sauvette is a colloquialism roughly equivalent to 'on the run,' but, . . . there is also an untranslatable future element involved. The instant being described is the one when you are just about to take off, the point at which the shortstop is ready to dash in any direction as he watches the batter step into the ball, or when the pickpocket waits for his victim to be distracted so that he can strike. Images a la sauvette is the right title because it characterizes the photographer's actions as well as his subject's -- it looks both out and in."

There's also this in the previous paragraph: "The Decisive Moment is misleading as a translation, for the moment referred to is that just before a decision is made, the moment of anticipation rather than conclusion."

This isn't the only place I've read the equivalent. As time goes on I may remember one or two of the other places. One of them may even be in Montier, but it's been a long time since I read it, and I haven't time to review it.

Hope you sleep better knowing that.
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spidermike

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Re: Am I getting this 'street' thing?
« Reply #56 on: August 17, 2015, 03:23:11 am »

So am I correct to understand you are saying it is not the event as such but the photographer instinctively recognising the event for what it is and having an instinct to take it without thinking. That the two - the event and the photographer 'being ready' - are inseparable.

A similar quote (apparently from the man himself) is in the preface to the book
http://fotografiamagazine.com/decisive-moment-henri-cartier-bresson/

Quote
Finally, here is another excerpt, found elsewhere in the preface, which most succinctly summarizes Cartier-Bresson’s idea of decisive moment:


To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression.



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RSL

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Re: Am I getting this 'street' thing?
« Reply #57 on: August 17, 2015, 11:46:05 am »

I think you summed it up quite well, Mike, but I'm not the one who said it. HCB said it and Colin Westerbrook commented on it in Bystander. And, yes, I've used that quote by HCB many times. You can find the same quotes in his book, The Mind's Eye, which, as I pointed out in my annotated bibliography is very small, very short, and very inexpensive. It's one of my all-time favorites.

But none of this really matters. Who cares what "the decisive moment" means or what the exact translation of "a la sauvette" is? I guess Isaac does, come to think of it, but I don't. The important thing is to understand the action that Henri's describing:

"Sometimes it happens that you stall, delay, wait for something to happen. Sometimes you have the feeling that here are all the makings of a picture – except for just one thing that seems to be missing. But what one thing? Perhaps someone suddenly walks into your range of view. You follow his progress through the viewfinder. You wait and wait, and then finally you press the button – and you depart with the feeling (though you don’t know why) that you’ve really got something."

You can't really understand street photography unless you've done it for a while. I know that Stamper, Seamus, and Peter understand it because I've seen their work. All three of them understand what street photography is because they demonstrate over and over again that they can do it. To people who haven't done it, it's an abstraction, and I'll go way out on another limb and say that they don't really understand it. It's like flying. You can have all sorts of theories about it but unless you've done it you have no idea what it's like.
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spidermike

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Re: Am I getting this 'street' thing?
« Reply #58 on: August 17, 2015, 12:12:54 pm »

I remember one sports photographer saying 'if you see it in the viewfinder you have missed it' which comes to just knowing when the moment is right - maybe a lame analogy but I could live with it. 



And my absurdity gremlin has just started niggling at me with 'But what about Heisenberg's uncertainty principle...' :o

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RSL

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Re: Am I getting this 'street' thing?
« Reply #59 on: August 17, 2015, 01:38:21 pm »

Good point, but Heisenberg was talking about physics. I think that in photography you can take into account position and speed if you're paying attention and the camera's in your hand.
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