It's something that's grown into me as I age: I no longer see everybody in the world as somehow there for my personal pleasure, to do with as I will if I can get away with it.
That said, to revert to the topic of those old photographers like HC-B, Ronis et al., and before jumping to the conclusion that professionalism inevitably leads to sin, you must bear in mind that they were not working for themselves either: they were all selling to, and shooting for, mainly far-left publications, which accounts for the plethora of "charming" photographs of lower-working-class people; it's striking how the published images strive to represent a Paris and country of peasants; it's as if they were almost the entire population. That was the point: make the population appear somehow oppressed; it's how you stoke revolution. More than one such photographer flirted with communism, so don't allow pretty pictures to blind you to the other sides of the personalities you see today in those coffee table editions.
None of those guys, French or recent émigrés, was doing photography just for the hell of it, quite unlike most of those who revere them today.
Hi Rob, Of course professionalism doesn’t lead to sin. But it does lead to the slant desired by the person or outfit paying the tab. Let’s face it; if it doesn’t you’re out of a job next time around.
Some of the professionals, after doing their professional work, reverted to personal indulgence in their off hours. To me the classic example was Elliott Erwitt who, after putting away his boxcar-sized collection of professional gear, would get out his battered-looking Leica and start doing the fun stuff, which sort of is why we have that beautiful picture of Nixon poking his finger at Khrushchev. Erwitt has long been one of my all-time favorites because of his sense of humor.
And if you really believe what you’re saying about peasants, please give me at least a short list of examples. I don’t remember HCB doing a bunch of peasants. Quite the contrary – unless you’re thinking about the boat people in “Locks at Bougival.” But these folks weren’t peasants. They were hard-working boat folks with a grandma and a baby. He did do some Russian peasants because communism had pretty much reduced the country to rulers and the peasants.
I don’t have any coffee-table editions, though I do have a copy of HCB’s
The Decisive Moment, whose title wasn’t an accurate translation of the original title:
Images à la Sauvette, the translation of which, if my research is correct (my year of French won’t do it) includes the implication of a touch of sin.
In any case, I’m not the least bit worried about carrying on the traditions of street photography. Fifty years from now we’ll have a pretty good resumé of life and attitudes in the United States during the early two-thousand twenties. Europe’s resumé, produced by European media, will tell us all about politics.
