Isn't it strange how there is always a moral obligation to create a subset of 'rules' to the arts...
It's a genre I'm neither happy shooting nor much good at, probably because I'm really rather shy and unwilling to confront people - even if I know them well; I prefer to avoid unpleasantness of all kinds, if I can. However, those that do it brilliantly (shoot street!) and without causing damage to others do deserve admiration, if only because they are actually out there doing something instead of dreaming about doing whatever their something might be.
It strikes me that the genre is not really all that easy to place as genre. People oft refer to HC-B et al. and their work as if their era was the same as the one we face today: it isn't; not even remotely. The pace of life is vastly different, the actual people-types that made up a lot of the classical genre subject matter no longer exist and have been replaced as subject by addicts etc. If you look at any of the old masters' books (I speak of the Paris-based original matrix), you really see nothing of the kind: you see normal working-class sorts doing their normal blue-collar thing, or perhaps a sly dig is being made at the expense of the rich in some formal gathering or another, at which stage you must not forget that a lot of those photographers worked primarily for very leftish magazines, even HC-B, who was personally far from poor. On the whole, there seems a very clear absence of photographer malice, but depending on just how far back you care to place that dividing line, some definite changes come about - especially in the USA scenario.
I suppose that I'm really thinking, here, about the visual aggression that the extremely close 28mm work of Klein etc. shows. Yes, I do admire Klein for his nerve, his eagle eye and also very much for his fashion stuff, but I don't think the one totally excuses the other. And, as I noted about the differences, Klein is American. I think the American ethic is an entirely different one and so in-your-face that it can hurt. Which leaves the Brits (see? no offence in that abbreviation: I use it about myself!) out on a limb somewhere, not entirely sure to which group they want to belong, or whether they are indeed strong enough in volume to make up an entirely independent grouping of their own.
This, of course, leads to the next problem: what to do with street images once you have a collection of good ones? Is a book the answer? Who will publish it unless you are Magnum-sponsored? Are successful street books successful because of their images or because of the real or imaginary 'magic' created by the constantly churned publicity surrounding their authors?
Perhaps street, after all, is just another personal delusion; a dream of times past and a futile battle to recreate what's no longer there, critical (as well as much personal) acceptance being given to anything that remotely mimics what went before?
Isn't it a bit like Hollywood suddenly thinking of making its movies in black and white?
Rob C
