Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => Street Showcase => Topic started by: Rob C on October 30, 2024, 10:46:54 am
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The reference, of course, is to “street”, as in street photography.
There was a time, quite a long one at that, during which I felt that street photography could be fairly well defined in a manner that left little - if any - room for misunderstanding of what was meant by that term. Today, I have grown very unsure of that belief, to the extent that I am starting to think that the term no longer has any kind of real meaning anymore.
As we know, language itself is in a fairly constant state of flux, and it shouldn’t really come as a great surprise to us that that can also affect the meaning of once-accepted definitions. However, I think that in this case, with any formerly accepted definition of street, the difficulty doesn’t arise from linguistic changes, but from the very nature of the beast itself. It has expanded, become more than a little fat. In fact, it has become a victim of its own popularity and, in a sense, of its accepted masters.
Some were inclined to believe that the definition really meant nothing more than that a particular photograph had been made in a street. Many of us were infuriated by that attitude, thinking it to be demeaning of the genre - or at the very least to be an unconscious revelation of an absolute ignorance of what street truly is. Today, I’m no longer so sure that the formerly simplistic view was not really the correct one.
The Internet has opened eyes to a much wider world of opinion and experience. It’s not really any longer safe to cling determinedly to some old standards. Not only has the original meaning been expanded, some formerly unseen versions of the art made visible, but some of the old heroes have had feet of clay revealed for the world to see.
If those feet are now in the public domain, some of those sainted reputations at least diluted somewhat, it’s my belief that we can thank (or curse) those gallerists and book publishers whose greed led to the raiding of archives and the unveiling of so much material that might better have remained unseen. When you’re dead, I suppose you can do little to protect that which you leave behind, your reputation included.
Another thing to remember is this: photographers who once made names and reputations from photo-journalism have seen their markets all but vanish. What can they do to replace them? In some very notable instances, their agencies have gone on to recreate them through the production of books: Magnum comes to mind. Think of some of the illustrious names active there today, and your mind goes to the contemporary idea of street, especially in colour, and with an apparently new kind of distinction that’s referred to as layering. Once, it was simply an unremarkable part of creating an image, and nobody thought to label it as a new exotic. Today, it has become necessary to gild lilies.
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I know Street when I see it: I even know Street when I capture it. Defining it is somewhat of a fool's errand.
I'd post a few of my own here, but that could well be seen as another fool's errand.
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When you stop to think about it, Memphis Slim was right: “…we all gotta go back to Mother Earth.” The surprising thing is that we manage to do anything at all, considering the final pay-off.
It doesn’t pay to think too much. :-(
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The reference, of course, is to “street”, as in street photography.
There was a time, quite a long one at that, during which I felt that street photography could be fairly well defined in a manner that left little - if any - room for misunderstanding of what was meant by that term. Today, I have grown very unsure of that belief, to the extent that I am starting to think that the term no longer has any kind of real meaning anymore.
Haven't we been here before? (https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=125135.msg1047678#msg1047678)
At the risk of repeating myself (a habit which my wife frequently assures me is one of my most endearing traits), I think it is possible to define "street" in a way that is consistent with the classics of the original "miniature camera" era but allows a more expansive interpretation of the genre that is plausibly derivative of the originals without promiscuously accepting every random example of documentary or candid photography.
Anyway that's my story and I'm sticking with it.
Street photography documents ephemeral, unposed interactions in public spaces between people, or between people and their surroundings, in a way that implies a narrative instead of simply depicting what was in front of the camera’s lens. The narrative may be explicit or implicit, obvious or subtle, literal or ironic, and subject to varying interpretations by different viewers. Animals or objects may take the place of people if their relationship with other elements in the photograph contributes to the narrative. Similarly, the interaction need not take place in a street or an urban environment or even outdoors.
Donc, selon moi ...
(I tried to post these images inline, but that didn't work. Is that yet another new LuLa bug or did I fat-finger the syntax?)
This is "street." (https://www.flickr.com/photos/chriskernpix/44465959424)
And so is this. (https://www.flickr.com/photos/chriskernpix/52976618309)
As is this, notwithstanding the interior venue. (https://www.flickr.com/photos/chriskernpix/47930537962)
This is arguable: maybe an informal portrait? (https://www.flickr.com/photos/chriskernpix/32542654325)
I think I can make a better argument for this one. (https://www.flickr.com/photos/chriskernpix/42164925292)
This is a street. It's not "street." (https://www.flickr.com/photos/chriskernpix/31784110053)
This isn't, either. (https://www.flickr.com/photos/chriskernpix/34335062033)
Finally, this really would be "street" but for Photoshop. (https://www.flickr.com/photos/chriskernpix/28721707852)
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When you stop to think about it, Memphis Slim was right: “…we all gotta go back to Mother Earth.” The surprising thing is that we manage to do anything at all, considering the final pay-off.
It doesn’t pay to think too much. :-(
The Downfall of Man.
(https://www.keithlaban.co.uk/The_Downfall_of_Man_large.jpg)
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IVO nailed one imo
https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=144073.0
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IVO nailed one imo
https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=144073.0
Agreed.
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The Downfall of Man.
(https://www.keithlaban.co.uk/The_Downfall_of_Man_large.jpg)
I suppose he was too drunk to read the implied No Entry sign; a hard day's night, then.
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IVO nailed one imo
https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=144073.0
Thanks. :-)
And that for someone who believe thinking outside the definition is liberating. :-)
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Donc, selon moi ...
(I tried to post these images inline, but that didn't work. Is that yet another new LuLa bug or did I fat-finger the syntax?)
1. This is "street."
2. And so is this.
3. As is this, notwithstanding the interior venue.
4. This is arguable: maybe an informal portrait?
5. I think I can make a better argument for this one
6. This is a street. It's not "street."
7. This isn't, either.
8. Finally, this really would be "street" but for Photoshop.
.........................
Alors, pour moi:
1. No; it's musical commentary (Abbey Road).
2. Yes, agreed.
3. No, not for me.
4. Certainly is.
5. Dangerously political for this thread! ;-)
6. Not so sure that it's not: gives the sense of a ray of hope.
7. Agreed, it's not.
8. Not for me; I like it on its own, non-categorised merits.
On the wider level, if one takes people like HC-B and declares them to be masters of the decisive moment, then the argument enters the world of the miraculous: HC-B used to be an aficionado of the contact sheet... are we to assume, then, that he managed to capture miracle after miracle, thirty-six magically decisive moments per cassette?
I believe that much of the success of such photography depended on serendipity, many exposures, and the final cut from whatever the contacts offered. I suspect that if the younger HC-B had had access to motor drives he would have used them.
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I suppose he was too drunk to read the implied No Entry sign; a hard day's night, then.
More likely the result of glue or weed. Cheaper and more widely available than alcohol in Islamic society.
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On the wider level, if one takes people like HC-B and declares them to be masters of the decisive moment, then the argument enters the world of the miraculous: HC-B used to be an aficionado of the contact sheet... are we to assume, then, that he managed to capture miracle after miracle, thirty-six magically decisive moments per cassette?
I believe that much of the success of such photography depended on serendipity, many exposures, and the final cut from whatever the contacts offered. I suspect that if the younger HC-B had had access to motor drives he would have used them.
No doubt. Serendipity inevitably is a component of good street photography—the decisive moment doesn't hang around indefinitely for stragglers—and with respect to motor drives, I also suspect Cartier-Bresson and his ilk would have exploited them had they been available.
What we now think of as the classic street photographers of the Golden Era were what we now refer to as early adopters. Instead of having to change plates for each picture, they glommed onto the new high-tech miniature cameras, which could be carried with one hand or slung from a narrow shoulder or neck strap, capture multiple images on a 36-exposure pre-loaded cassette, and offered virtually instantaneous focusing by merging two views in the rangefinder. They shot from the figurative hip and their pictures captured life on the fly. (I'm trying to squeeze in as many clichés here as possible, as you may have detected.)
Okay, Weegee may have been an exception to my early-adopter argument, but there is a counter-revolutionary in every artistic movement.
The early Leicas and Zeiss Contaxes of the 1930s were photographic instruments as revolutionary as today's cellphone cameras. Actually, I would argue more so: because before the cellphone cameras, we had dedicated digital cameras which could do essentially the same thing (albeit without computational imaging techniques); the transition from the Speed Graphic to the Leica required a greater leap of faith.
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Street photography is always the same thing: an attempt to capture the reflection of the chaos of the world on the skin of a soap bubble.
Most of those bubbles simply burst.
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street
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Street photography appears to be mostly a desperate attempt to make a silk purse out of sow's ear.... to imply deep meaning where there is very little one... to forcefully elevate banality into "art"...
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talking about banalities:
wish you all a better 2025 !
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Street photography appears to be mostly a desperate attempt to make a silk purse out of sow's ear.... to imply deep meaning where there is very little one... to forcefully elevate banality into "art"...
“Mostly” that's where it falls. However, there are some amazing examples of where it works very well.
Of course, to support this argument, one first has to have a preconception of what one means by the term, street photography, when attempting to evaluate it. I feel that it's easier to recognise and evaluate when considering the earlier works, such as those of Saul Leiter. I find it is generally more successful when it takes the form of colour abstraction, rather than when it attempts to make informal pictures of random people.
Even there, with people, photos that depend on graphics can seem better than those that simply catch a facial expression. I suppose one could put informal street portraiture into the street bag, but somehow, portraits can just be portraits, with no subliminal meaning whatsoever.
All in all, perhaps this grey area of definitions is key to what keeps people who do it, doing it.
I think that there is just cause to accept that a “street” photograph can be of anything, and still have some merit/interest if the post work can make it look dramatic enough; after all, if we have no formally declared context, how will we ever know if the shot achieves its aims? At least, it might be more thrilling than yet another sunrise or sunset, however pretty that might look; predictable images of predictable events.
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talking about banalities:...
That's not banality, but bananity ;)
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That's not banality, but bananity ;)
The premodern Banana Art movement was characterized by an appreciation of rapidly-ripening fruit, and is believed to have been inspired as a western variant of the wabi sabi suki esthetic among North American and Western European visitors to banana republics during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, who believed, with Picasso, that "apples are a lie that make us realize the banana," and which subsequently morphed, in the 21st Century, into the Banana Fans movement after Internet influencers felt compelled to find a readily-available alternative to the elusive Fujifilm X100VI.
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I think that Fuji may be going off piste with their latest Mk VI.
They originally had a camera that caught the eye of a section of the buying public, began to iterate like mad, yet versions later, still don’t offer a real manual focus system (focus by wire is the best that it does) and the lens failed to come up with depth of field scales. To the kind of person who does what the thing is supposed to be for, street, setting focus before framing takes place is a common technique (zone focussing) that requires scales that are visible without resorting to graphics on a screen.
I wonder why they feel obliged to start going with more megapixies? That can only drive up costs and addresses none of the non-af focus problems. Street’s not about silken images - in fact, many people add grain just because of the subject matter. Could it be that they are thinking of starting to compete with the Leica Q variations? I suppose that if you do drive up prices you might also drive up the expectations of the buyers… real rainproofing comes to mind.
However, having just castigated Fuji for not offering a proper dof scale on the lens, let me mention Nikon: pretty much a career-long Nikon user, I have to admit to total confusion with its dof scales. Coloured lines instead of numerals is a cheap, lousy cop out, in my opinion, and next to worthless, especially in the heat of the moment.
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I think that Fuji may be going off piste with their latest Mk VI.
They originally had a camera that caught the eye of a section of the buying public, began to iterate like mad, yet versions later, still don’t offer a real manual focus system (focus by wire is the best that it does) and the lens failed to come up with depth of field scales. To the kind of person who does what the thing is supposed to be for, street, setting focus before framing takes place is a common technique (zone focussing) that requires scales that are visible without resorting to graphics on a screen.
I wonder why they feel obliged to start going with more megapixies? That can only drive up costs and addresses none of the non-af focus problems. Street’s not about silken images - in fact, many people add grain just because of the subject matter. Could it be that they are thinking of starting to compete with the Leica Q variations? I suppose that if you do drive up prices you might also drive up the expectations of the buyers… real rainproofing comes to mind.
However, having just castigated Fuji for not offering a proper dof scale on the lens, let me mention Nikon: pretty much a career-long Nikon user, I have to admit to total confusion with its dof scales. Coloured lines instead of numerals is a cheap, lousy cop out, in my opinion, and next to worthless, especially in the heat of the moment.
Off topic...
The Q cameras have fairly comprehensive and readable DOF scales and even have an additional sliding "Macro" scale for closer focus. The focus is silky smooth.
One thing that was putting me off getting into the Nikon Z system was exactly that, an absence of DOF scales on all of their native Z lenses. However third party manufactures offer a selection of wonderful manual focus lenses in Z mount and even more via adapters. Voigtlander gets a special mention here, superb build quality, optically outstanding and great bang-for-buck.
My Z7 bodies are comparatively long in the tooth now at five years old but meet all my needs and are more compact than recent Nikon bodies. The Q3 43 is almost identical in size to the Nikon Z7 with a similar focal length Voigtlander lens.
Very happy with the combination.
Sadly, bananas are bad for my heart.
:(
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Yes, we have no bananas either.
Now and again, I buy a couple, and if eaten within two days, all is serene. On the third day, should one remain, over the hedge it goes into the field, where I hope some wild creature can consume and enjoy. Nothing lasts. I suspect they are months old, live in freezers, then get unleashed unto the innocent public. Even on the racks, they lie there, turning black. I wonder what becomes of them when they can’t be sold? The same happens with lemons and mandarins - and the darned things grow here! No, those don’t go black - they just turn into mould.
My first cardio told me to avoid bananas: too much sugar in them.
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The Q cameras have fairly comprehensive and readable DOF scales …
Keith, Rob
I’d be surprised if those Q3 DoF scales are usable. Leica, on SL / S series glass, don’t have any DoF markings primarily because they’d be inaccurate. The M class have them but it’s cosmetic and a throwback to their heritage (although still useful on their latest film cam revivals). Modern sensors render film era dof calculations, based on 30 micron CoC, pretty much obsolete on cameras using sensors with a pixel pitch of <4 microns.
A longtime Lula member, Anders Torger, wrote an excellent DoF calculator, Lumariver DOF, available on iPhone / iPad (link below). Incredibly versatile - strongly recommend having a look.
https://www.lumariver.com
Intro & discussion thread on GetDPI (https://www.getdpi.com/forum/index.php?threads/new-depth-of-field-calculator-app.58351/)
Happy new year, boys - health & serenity!
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Manoli, yes, the DOF scales are inaccurate, but they have been so for years, particularly when modern CoC calculations for digital sensors are taken into consideration, to be taken as a guide rather than wahrheit. Only used when all else is impossible. Certainly wouldn't rely on them unless stopped down considerably. That said, I'd rather have them than not.
Thankfully the Q3 43 focus aids are brilliant, I've not missed critical focus yet even wide open.
Happy and healthy new year to you and yours.
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...too much sugar in them.
...and potassium.
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Keith, Rob
I’d be surprised if those Q3 DoF scales are usable. Leica, on SL / S series glass, don’t have any DoF markings primarily because they’d be inaccurate. The M class have them but it’s cosmetic and a throwback to their heritage (although still useful on their latest film cam revivals). Modern sensors render film era dof calculations, based on 30 micron CoC, pretty much obsolete on cameras using sensors with a pixel pitch of <4 microns.
Happy new year, boys - health & serenity!
Greetings to you, too, Manoli.
I think I’ve mentioned here in the past that, personally, I’m of the opinion that dof is a bit of a hope, rather than a fact, that there is only one truly sharp plane, and that’s the one where you've focussed the camera.
However, observation does point to the reality that an impression of sharpness is available on both sides of that plane, the more so the smaller the stop you are using, defraction notwithstanding. Also, there appears to be more of the gift behind that point than in front of it. In that sense, scales are useful as indicators of where you might want to place your bets. The other rough ‘n’ ready method was to focus about a third of the way into your image. Hence, available dof scales do provide a sort of guide to where your hopes of a useable image may best be assured. Again, a lot depends on just how big you show the image: the smaller the image the greater the impression of dof captured. In today’s world, where it seems fewer and fewer people are prepared to invest in printing, it might be thought that we are back where we started, regardless of the number of microns squatting on the head of our particular pin.
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. . . I’m of the opinion that dof is a bit of a hope, rather than a fact, that there is only one truly sharp plane, and that’s the one where you've focussed the camera.
I don't think that's only your opinion: it's objectively true: although, as you point out, there's some wiggle room if you stop down:
. . . observation does point to the reality that an impression of sharpness is available on both sides of that plane, the more so the smaller the stop you are using, defraction notwithstanding. Also, there appears to be more of the gift behind that point than in front of it.
However, I suspect a technical fix could be available just around the metaphorical corner if any camera manufacturer wanted to invest in developing the software (firmware) for implementing it. We now have plenty of camera bodies that can fire off a remarkable number of frames per second, as well as those that will, on command, automagically adjust focus between frames in order produce a series of images that can be stacked in post.
Combine rapid snapping with automated focus-stacking, and it should be possible to produce images that merge a series of those "truly sharp plane(s)" with a result that exceeds anything that could be achieved optically in a single frame. Probably wouldn't work for sports or other action photography, but probably would work for everything else.
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Thankfully the Q3 43 focus aids are brilliant, I've not missed critical focus yet even wide open.
I was sorely tempted by that camera but in the end went for the SL3 so I fully second your experience!
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I’m of the opinion that dof is a bit of a hope, rather than a fact, that there is only one truly sharp plane, and that’s the one where you've focussed the camera.
A lifetime of occasionally discovering that the tip of a nose or ear instead of the eyes were critically focussed (more so in the DSLR days) resulted in my having no hesitation in moving to mirrorless!
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I don't think that's only your opinion: it's objectively true: although, as you point out, there's some wiggle room if you stop down:
However, I suspect a technical fix could be available just around the metaphorical corner if any camera manufacturer wanted to invest in developing the software (firmware) for implementing it. We now have plenty of camera bodies that can fire off a remarkable number of frames per second, as well as those that will, on command, automagically adjust focus between frames in order produce a series of images that can be stacked in post.
Combine rapid snapping with automated focus-stacking, and it should be possible to produce images that merge a series of those "truly sharp plane(s)" with a result that exceeds anything that could be achieved optically in a single frame. Probably wouldn't work for sports or other action photography, but probably would work for everything else.
A matter of pressing the button and leaving Mr. Nikon, Mr. Canon, et al to do the rest.
Where's the fun in that? I'd rather miss the focus.
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A lifetime of occasionally discovering that the tip of a nose or ear instead of the eyes were critically focussed (more so in the DSLR days) resulted in my having no hesitation in moving to mirrorless!
Hi Manoli, agreed, mirrorless is game changing in so many ways!
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https://youtube.com/watch?v=Zos7BopFaRg&feature=shared
Sometimes, I wish I lived in such a place. Then, I ask myself: how would you finance that at your delicate age, and still enjoy a comfortable life? The underside of a bridge does not qualify.
I have often suggested that film people (movies) have a better - or at least more developed eye - than those of us stuck in the stills department. Staley seems to substantiate this notion video after video.
Enjoy.
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As is the case with landscape and any visual art, or for that matter any art, there’s good indifferent, and bad art. So it is with street. A classic example is Cartier-Bresson’s picture of a well-dressed woman disapproving strongly of a younger woman with a very short skirt. I’ve forgotten the title, but you can google it and find it easily. Had Hanri simply made a picture of the girl, it would be pretty bad art. Had he made a picture of the well-dressed woman, it would be indifferent art, but by showing emotion he made what I’d consider good art. Street is far from dead, but I agree with Rob that it’s fallen on hard times.
Russ Lewis