Robert (stamper), you're right. I didn't say I don't admire some street photography, and some of the stuff you, Russ and others have posted here has certainly piqued my interest. Much of it, though, I don't understand: that's to say, I don't know why the photographer did, or I should, find the shot interesting. As I say, I must concede that it's my failure as people I respect seem to agree on those images which are "good street". I just don't do it myself.
1. Rob, I think different considerations apply when you are earning your living from photography. You have more than yourself to please. Professional portrait photography is another area of the craft I don't really understand: 2. are Leibovitz's photographs interesting because they're by Leibovitz, or because they're of famous (and impliedly at least interesting) people? I mention her name only because it sprang to mind, of course, not to single her out.
Russ, it's not cruel. I understand your dismissal, but I don't share it. My motivation in shooting scenes others have shot before is that the result is mine. Of course it's not Ansel's; probably (certainly?) it's not as good as his; but I did it, and what hangs on my wall is the result of my efforts.
I don't get the transcendental experience you mention from street photography. I do get a sense of wonder from some really good landscape, and I do remember the images. You're excluding the effects of light and shadow, of weather, of cloud. Those are the things that make good landscape. Of course Half Dome is unchanging, over our lifetimes at any rate; but the conditions around it, or other constant land formations, are hugely variable. See this, for example.
Anyway, this is essentially a meaningless discussion. You like your art; I like mine. Neither is better than the other. De gustibus non est disputandum. When I covered certain topics at law school, I used to describe pointless theorising as mental masturbation.
Jeremy
Jeremy,
1. I'm not sure what 'professional' has to do with anything that I wrote - I was referring to the emotions, not the business factor that sets off the possibility of doing the work in the first place; in fact, for me, the commerce simply allowed me the finances to do what I wanted to do: photograph female beauty, even if it was sometimes compromised by the goddam products we had to try and sell.
"As for today's exponents: my feeling is that, devoid of almost any actual possibility of doing photography as a means of regularly putting bread on the family table, disinterested in the vacuity (which I feel) most landscape represents, they have little else left to explore and from which to attempt to garner their jollies. Trouble is, it's now totally irrelevant. As is almost all of photography."
The reference, above, to photography as career wasn't supposed to suggest that everyone doing photography today would have also had professional hopes; more that the amateur outlet is pretty much all that's going, and will increasingly be the case, I think, and that unless you dig landscape, there's not a lot left to do other than 'street'. It was an extension of my attempt to answer your 'why' about the reasons people shoot 'street'.
2. I think your second point is more than fair: her pictures, IMO, depend almost totally on the people within the frame. Her value, I think, lies in her own fame and the ability that has given her to feel (I imagine!) absolutely not disadvantaged/intimidated by subject fame/presence. Skill has to be taken as a given at almost all levels of commercial work if you are to survive for any length of time, and she has plenty of that (and assistants too, with their contributions). But, she could still hack it pretty well when she was alone, on the road with the Stones, for
Rolling Stone, a delightful combination of similar words and different meanings, now I see it in print. But originality ain't there to any huge degree: her famous shot of Ms Goldberg emerging from the bath of milk was already done ages ago, as was the shot of Bette Midler lying on the bed of roses... all old ideas.
Huge problem with photography: it's all derivative now, unavoidably so. Like I said, it's amost irrelevant.
Rob