Remembering

[RSL]

I'm really reluctant to do this. I've been doing all my posting on PhotoPXL, including my street photography. I've dug out a mass of photographs from my catalog of more than 24,000 pictures, and for weeks I've posted a daily landscape shot, a street shot, and a wabi sabi shot on PXL and on Facebook. But PXL is glacially slow and there's minimal response to the pictures I post.

Here's one upon which I'd like to start a discussion, and I don't think that's going to happen on PXL It seems to me that almost everyone has forgotten what street photography really is. In the days of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Andre Kertesz, David Seymour (Chim), Robert Doisneau, Willy Ronis, Brassai, Walker Evans, Elliott Erwitt, Mark Riboud, Garry Winogrand, Helen Levitt and Robert Frank the difference between informal portraiture or snapshots on the street, and street photography was understood. No longer, I'm afraid.

So here's the question: is this picture effective street photography? If so, why. If not, why not?

-Russ Lewis

[Rajan Parrikar]

It is an effective Street image because it raises some questions in my mind.

PS: I prefer to stick to LuLa and Fred Miranda (not that I have anything against PhotoPXL). Photography forums in the era of social media have turned into ghost towns. There is not the enthusiasm anymore we had in the earliest days of digital.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

LuLa is easier for me to use because I can get a list of unread topics with one mouse click, while on PhotoPXL it takes a lot of maneuvering to get to unread posts.

I would classify this image as "Street," because it is a spontaneous view of a human being  and, as Rajan said, it raises questions without offering answers.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

It is an environmental portrait.

[KLaban]

So here's the question: is this picture effective street photography? If so, why. If not, why not?

You want me to comment on whether your image warrants being placed in what you've implied on a number of occasions is a piss poor descriptor?

[Chris Kern]

You want me to comment on whether your image warrants being placed in what you've implied on a number of occasions is a piss poor descriptor?

"Street photography" is a poor label for the genre.  The concept isn't particularly difficult to understand, and has been discussed here at length many times before.

[KLaban]

"Street photography" is a poor label for the genre.  The concept isn't particularly difficult to understand, and has been discussed here at length many times before.

I'm au fait with the concept and the photographer's work that Russ refers to here, but I loathe the descriptor and the confusion it causes here and elsewhere.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

I'm au fait with the concept and the photographer's work that Russ refers to here, but I loathe the descriptor and the confusion it causes here and elsewhere.

OK, so how about:

"It's a photograph."     

[RSL]

Okay. Looks as if I’m getting what I was after, but (there’s always a but):

First, Rajan’s right that the picture raises some questions. It should raise questions in anyone’s mind, but I suspect it doesn’t always. And I agree that PXL is awkward at best. Anything based on WordPress is awkward at best. But it’s there and it’s at least marginally usable.

And Eric, yes, it would be impossible to have this kind of exchange on PXL.

No, Slobodan, it’s not an environmental portrait. A guy in a loincloth, sitting on the floor and staring at the camera is an environmental portrait. The difference, as Tod Papageorge pointed out in Core Curriculum is that good street photography is poetry.

In that vein, when I think about street photography my mind often jumps back to THIS early HCB picture (this was the only link I could find. It’s not a good one). Henri shot the thing through a window. There’s nothing there except a guy sitting at a table in a restaurant before WW II. But it’s pure poetry – the kind of thing that grabs you for no reason you can put your finger on.

And Keith’s absolutely right, I’ve often pointed out the difficulty with the genre’s name. Chris pointed that out too. But that’s the name the genre got. I suspect it got it because when Henri and his contemporaries were shooting the pictures that defined the genre, film and lenses were slow enough that you pretty much had to be on the street to succeed. Trying to change the name would be like trying to change the genre name “landscape.” Ain’t gonna happen.

I’d love to see more street photography on LuLa – or on any site for that matter, but between the misunderstanding caused by the name and the evident inability of today’s photographers to shoot street I don’t think I’ll see that happen.

[rabanito]

Glad to see you around again, Russ

[RSL]

Thanks, Rab. I may be here off and on -- at least in Street Showcase. I think LuLa has made a serious mistake to drop Jeremy as a moderator, but PhotoPXL is very hard to work with.

[Chris Kern]

In that vein, when I think about street photography my mind often jumps back to THIS early HCB picture (this was the only link I could find. It’s not a good one).

Here's a link to a larger version.

[Chris Kern]

I’ve often pointed out the difficulty with the genre’s name. . . . But that’s the name the genre got. I suspect it got it because when Henri and his contemporaries were shooting the pictures that defined the genre, film and lenses were slow enough that you pretty much had to be on the street to succeed.

I think the symbiosis between the technology and the classic venue may have been even greater than that.  The advent of the 35mm "miniature camera," with its ability to shoot multiple frames on a roll of motion picture film and offering fast rangefinder focusing, may arguably have been what inspired the interest of Cartier-Bresson et alia in capturing ephemeral aspects of human activity that previously were either beyond the reach of, or at least resistant to, earlier photographic technology—and where better to find that kind of subject matter than "on the street?"

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... No, Slobodan, it’s not an environmental portrait. A guy in a loincloth, sitting on the floor and staring at the camera is an environmental portrait...

Ok, Russ, you have a point.

But why color in your photograph? Adds nothing, distracts a lot.

[RSL]

Damn good point, Slobodan. I can't even believe I didn't make the conversion. I used to do it all the time for street. Duh, Russell. Try this.

[Rajan Parrikar]

Thanks, Rab. I may be here off and on -- at least in Street Showcase. I think LuLa has made a serious mistake to drop Jeremy as a moderator, but PhotoPXL is very hard to work with.

Yes, Jeremy should never have been asked to leave.

[KLaban]

Russ, I much prefer your image as a B&W conversion.

[RSL]

Thanks, Keith. I much prefer it too. For some crazy reason I didn't check it as a B&W, something I very often do with my street shots. Slobodan to the rescue.