Hi Martin,
You seem to be under the impression that if a photographer shoots street, that’s all he shoots. Never ceases to amuse me when I see a comment like yours regarding Frank or HCB. That kind of thing tells me you haven’t read my
https://luminous-landscape.com/on-street-photography/, where, among other things I make the point that HCB’s photojournalism usually wasn’t street.
The real joke is the photographer who shoots landscape and structures, reads about street photography and looks at the work of HCB and his followers, but is too wimpy to go out on the street with a camera and shoot people, yet is convinced he knows all about street photography. Sound like anybody posting here on LuLa?
Frank, by the way, did all sorts of things. “Pull My Daisy” comes to mind. It’s not that The Americans is street. Some of it isn’t. The reason The Americans made such a splash was this (from my essay, “What’s Photography For,” which you can find at
http://www.russ-lewis.com/essays/WhatisPhotographyFor.html.)
“Another revolution took place in photography in 1959, when Robert Frank's book: The Americans was published in the United States. I remember the reaction of the photographic community when that book came out. Popular Photography, which in those days actually dealt with photography rather than with equipment, panned the book. The problem was that The Americans dealt with us as we actually were in the fifties – showing "sanitation approved" motels and drugstore diners – rather than with the purified illusions presented by Norman Rockwell's paintings and by photographers such as Alfred Eisenstadt who followed Rockwell's lead. It was a giant flap, but Frank's book became a classic and changed the whole course of street photography.”
You see, I remember, because I was there.
So you’ve decided to overlook my bad influence on you and post again? Well, golly, I’m glad. But what have you posted other than this kind of absolute joke? Have you ever posted a picture on LuLa. I’m pretty sure you have, but offhand I can’t find one. Get out there and make pictures of buildings or pavements or walls. They’re out there, posing, just waiting for you.
If you really want to criticize street photography, first let’s see some of your own street photography. If you haven’t tried it you haven’t a clue. It’s not easy, like landscape.