Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment

[LKaven]

However, here's a recent shot I took just a few days ago, which might more correctly be termed a 'restaurant' shot, but I think it broadly fits into your 'street shot' category.

To me, this is not an example of street photography in the style being discussed.

[Isaac]

Do you in-fact crop your photos?

I have on occasion, as did HCB occasionally. But it's not how I prefer to work.

Let's consider the occasions when Cartier-Bresson's photo's were cropped.

In both examples mentioned so-far, Cartier-Bresson could not see through the view finder to frame the photo when the exposure was made -- it was not possible to frame the photo.

So:

• If you only crop when you could not see through the view finder to frame the photo when the exposure was made, then I'm quite willing to accept that approach is similar to Cartier-Bresson's.
  
  
• If you could see through the view finder to frame the photo and you additionally crop that photo, then you're just doing what people ordinarily do.

[RSL]

You can believe that if you want to, Isaac, and since you don't actually practice what you're preaching about I suspect you can, as the duke said, believe anything. But here are a couple things HCB had to say about the subject. Seems appropriate considering the title of this thread:

"To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression."
 
"… For me, content cannot be separated from form. By form, I mean a rigorous organization of the interplay of surfaces, lines, and values. It is in this organization alone that our conceptions and emotions become concrete and communicable. In photography, visual organization can stem only from a developed instinct."

Both of these statements demand composition within the viewfinder, which he practiced, to my mind excessively, since I'm sure he missed pictures he otherwise could have captured. The two exceptions don't demonstrate anything other than that there were exceptions under unusual conditions.

[jjj]

Okay, if it bothers you, let's drop "banging away," and just say, holding the camera to your eye for any length of time.

Russ, when did you last go to a camera shop, the 1990s?  
Modern cameras with silent shutters, screens that flip up so you can use them at waist level or and turn 90 degrees sideways make it easier than ever to be discreet. If that is indeed your goal.

What's absolutely essential in street photography is for the photographer to be so non-threatening that though his subjects may know he's there, he's so much in the background, so unobtrusive, that his subjects aren't really aware of him. Holding a camera to your eye for more than a second at a time isn't the way to be unobtrusive and non-threatening.

Funny as that's exactly how I do it at times. I will hide in plain sight often by pretending to be a gormless tourist. All the shots below were done exactly as you say you shouldn't do it.
The problem with you and street photography is that you are dogmatic about what it is and how it should be done. There are many kinds of street photography and even more ways of shooting it. Some like Bruce Gilden are literally and obnoxiously in your face.

In short, I'm not convinced that you can shoot street effectively with a camera in movie mode.

Of course you can if you know what you are doing. It may be a lazy way getting the decisive moment, but it can be done.

[jjj]

Except that his images are well-known for their composition despite the fact he almost never cropped in post.

Do you have any examples of HCB images that would benefit from cropping? Citation, please.

You do realise that the HCB images you tend to see are the good ones. The duff shots don't get shown/printed/published.
Here's a contact sheet of his work and just like most photographers and counter to the myth he didn't take just the one perfect and definitive shot.

[LKaven]

The problem with you and street photography is that you are dogmatic about what it is and how it should be done. There are many kinds of street photography and even more ways of shooting it. Some like Bruce Gilden are literally and obnoxiously in your face.

Gilden is very directly engaged with his subjects (to say the very least), and is very much in the Magnum tradition of photojournalism.  I suspect Russ will actually agree. 

What I think we're responding to is the idea of using technology to capture a subject more mechanically in the mistaken notion that harvesting from a hundred frames will actually help us get "the moment" (since we've got so many).  I'm sure there are better and worse ways of using burst mode.  But as I suggested upthread, the "moment desired" has to do with the photographer desiring it as such, and especially in the instant itself.

[LKaven]

You do realise that the HCB images you tend to see are the good ones. The duff shots don't get shown/printed/published.
Here's a contact sheet of his work and just like most photographers and counter to the myth he didn't take just the one perfect and definitive shot.

Those are all good shots.  Remember, the "decisive moment" is the moment when you decide to press the shutter in the simultaneous recognition of a convergence of events and forms.  There will be more than one.  Some will be more remarkable than others.  But it is an ongoing process of engagement with one's subject.

[jjj]

Those are all good shots.

Really?    How can you even tell from such a poor quality copy of a contact sheet.
As it happens enough, I came across an article which talked about this set of shots and comments that in their opinion after the first few shots, there is nothing very interesting in the contact sheet, because the subjects were too aware of the photographer.

Remember, the "decisive moment" is the moment when you decide to press the shutter in the simultaneous recognition of a convergence of events and forms.  There will be more than one.  Some will be more remarkable than others.  But it is an ongoing process of engagement with one's subject.

So do you think taking lots of photos then of the same subject/scene is still hitting 'the decisive moment'? People usually refer to that as machine gun shooting these days.  
You seem to be tying yourself in knots here with regard to what the the decisive moment is and certainly do not seem to want to admit that HCB photos weren't all wonderful. I've seen work by him that wasn't that interesting/good, just like all photographer's work.

[amolitor]

There is no myth to the effect that HCB only ever took the good ones. That is a straw man.

Anyone who's even slightly interested knows he shot lots of duds, and lots of near misses. It's not a secret.

[RSL]

Russ, when did you last go to a camera shop, the 1990s?

Hi Jeremy, Yeah, I'm really out of touch. My D800 is an antique, and so I'm totally ignorant of the latest equipment. Fact is, I still prefer my D3, D800 and Olympus EP-1 with its 50mm equivalent Summilux and Leica bright-line finder. I'd go for a D4s except I want neither the extra weight nor the extra complexity of its movie capability. If I could get rid of the movie crap in the D800 I'd do it in a heartbeat.

You make it sound as if the point is that you can be as furtive with a film clip as you can be with a single shot, though you then admit that being furtive isn't what gets the job done. I like all three of your street shots, but you didn't really tell me whether or not you shot them in movie mode.

Regarding HCB's contact sheet: I have that book too. I've never said, and HCB's never said he always shoots a single shot and walks away. In fact in one of his essays he talks about moving around the subject, shooting, and moving in toward the central picture. HCB isn't the only photographer who's shown "only his good ones." As Joe McNally points out in one of his half-day lectures on the road, the best of every famous photographer boils down to thirty or forty frames, and behind those are thousands and thousands of outtakes. If you think that page of HCB's outtakes is revealing, go grab a copy of the book, Magnum Contact Sheets, or a copy of Looking In, Robert Frank's The Americans, which shows the contact sheets from each of the pictures in The Americans. Your remarks about Bruce Gilden, by the way, make it clear you haven't read the two articles I wrote, and to which I gave links earlier in this thread -- at least I think it was in this thread. If  you read them you'll find that in the end, I agree with you about Gilden.

Strangely enough, it sounds as if we're in fairly close agreement about all this, though I'll stay away from add-in movie capabilities. Unfortunately, for the time being I'm pretty much pinned down arranging for a new and final retirement home and there's no way I can get to places like St. Augustine to do street, so for now none of this matters much.

[Iluvmycam]

You seem to have completely misunderstood my point, Russ. I wasn't referring to the use of a dedicated movie camera, but one of the new, rather compact mirror-less cameras, such as the Samsung NX1 with much improved video capability and the facility to extract any single 8.8mp frame from a 4k video sequence.

There's no reason why shooting in video mode should be any more intrusive, or awkward, or time-consuming than waiting for an anticipated moment to press the shutter for a single shot. If you anticipate that something interesting might be about to occur, you can put the NX1 in video mode and. with eye to viewfinder, start shooting. At 24 or 30 fps, you're sure to capture the precise moment, if what you anticipate might occur does in fact occur.

In video mode, the NX1 effectively gives one a faster continuous frame rate but without the risk of the buffer filling up. If 8.8mp is too much of a resolution sacrifice, then the full resolution (28mp) continuous mode is still very impressive at 15fps for about 70 consecutive shots.

Of course, we should all understand that aesthetics is a different issue. Capturing the 'desired' moment is a factual issue. You either captured it or you didn't. Whether or not that captured moment is interesting and/or meaningful to others is in the realm of opinion.

As a matter of fact, all photos are 'captures of the moment'. That's what the camera does, in accordance with its shutter speed. The issues are, did you capture the moment you wanted to capture, or did you press the shutter too soon or too late.

Shooting street shots with a  movie cam...GD what with the camera fondlers think of next? Why not pay someone to shoot for you or buy stock shots?

Yes, you can make movies for street photos. I don't. I got enough frames too look though. No time for zillions of frames. Also I don't see a movie providing great image IQ with the type of work I do.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/98/Bikers%27_Mardi_Gras_no._36_Copyright_2014_Daniel_D._Teoli_Jr..jpg/1024px-Bikers%27_Mardi_Gras_no._36_Copyright_2014_Daniel_D._Teoli_Jr..jpg

Shot at ISO 4000. Just doable with Fuji X

If you want to do street shots with movies go ahead. Lets see em. But it is my view that movies is not holding you back, majority of forum photogs shoot low end street stuff and single or a hundred frames that is not their problem. They will just get 1 frame of crap or 100 frames of crap.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/05/The_Plane_Worshipers_vers_1_Copyright_2014_Daniel_D._Teoli_Jr..jpg/1040px-The_Plane_Worshipers_vers_1_Copyright_2014_Daniel_D._Teoli_Jr..jpg

Just barley useable with 24 mp Leica.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fe/Pole_Dance_Selfie_%40_Bikers%27_Mardi_Gras_Copyright_2014_Daniel_D._Teoli_Jr..jpg/490px-Pole_Dance_Selfie_%40_Bikers%27_Mardi_Gras_Copyright_2014_Daniel_D._Teoli_Jr..jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/be/%27The_Lost_Princess%27_Copyright_2013_Daniel_D._Teoli_Jr-mr.jpg/491px-%27The_Lost_Princess%27_Copyright_2013_Daniel_D._Teoli_Jr-mr.jpg

Same with Fuji.

A movie cam is going to do same IQ?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5b/Bikers%27_Mardi_Gras_no._6_Copyright_2012_Daniel_D._Teoli_Jr...jpg/575px-Bikers%27_Mardi_Gras_no._6_Copyright_2012_Daniel_D._Teoli_Jr...jpg

What about flash shots?

All these images are going to be deleted from wiki soon. They kinda banned me.

[LKaven]

Really?    How can you even tell from such a poor quality copy of a contact sheet.
As it happens enough, I came across an article which talked about this set of shots and comments that in their opinion after the first few shots, there is nothing very interesting in the contact sheet, because the subjects were too aware of the photographer.

I said "good"...meaning engaged...a long way from the final shot which was brilliant.  

So do you think taking lots of photos then of the same subject/scene is still hitting 'the decisive moment'? People usually refer to that as machine gun shooting these days.  

I'm saying (and have been arguing for several posts) that continuous shooting is NOT hitting the decisive moment.  I spoke earlier of the importance of desiring a moment at the instant it occurs.  

You seem to be tying yourself in knots here with regard to what the the decisive moment is and certainly do not seem to want to admit that HCB photos weren't all wonderful. I've seen work by him that wasn't that interesting/good, just like all photographer's work.

Perhaps a bit of imprecision in my wording is preventing you from connecting with its intended meaning.  I've never thought as you suggest.  I don't think all his work was brilliant.  

[amolitor]

jjj has some history of willfully misconstruing and of nitpicking, in order to, I think, "win" in some incomprehensible sense. Although to be fair I can only speculate on motivations.

[Jonathan Wienke]

You do realise that the HCB images you tend to see are the good ones. The duff shots don't get shown/printed/published.

Just like every other photographer. The really good images are less than 1% of total captures.

I've shot over 120,000 frames, and maybe 1/10 of 1% of those are worth publishing/exhibiting.

[RSL]

Evidently you regard your malicious speculations as fact.

Post some photographs, Isaac, and remove all doubt.

[jjj]

Just like every other photographer. The really good images are less than 1% of total captures.

My point exactly.

[jjj]

jjj has some history of willfully misconstruing and of nitpicking, in order to, I think, "win" in some incomprehensible sense. Although to be fair I can only speculate on motivations.

If you think this forum is a competition where there are winners and losers, well that's your problem.
Same if you take issue with facts, precision and accuracy that run counter your opinions, that's something that you have to live with as well.

[RSL]

Here are two of my favorite street shots from recent years. Neither one would have been possible in film-clip mode. I've posted them before.

[amolitor]

I could not have constructed a more perfect example had I tried. Observe: I never even remotely suggested that I thought it was about winning. And jjj smoothly attributes it to me.

Beware of engaging. He's here to fight, not to talk.

[jjj]

Hi Jeremy, Yeah, I'm really out of touch. My D800 is an antique, and so I'm totally ignorant of the latest equipment. Fact is, I still prefer my D3, D800 and Olympus EP-1 with its 50mm equivalent Summilux and Leica bright-line finder. I'd go for a D4s except I want neither the extra weight nor the extra complexity of its movie capability. If I could get rid of the movie crap in the D800 I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Being a bit literal there Russ. Of course you've been in a camera shop. But the point was there are new features on cameras that you are ignoring that facilitate shooting without having an eye to a viewfinder. Movie capability adds nothing to weight/complexity of modern cameras, unless a button with a red dot is complex/heavy.  Plus if you are not using a feature it has zero complexity anyway.

You make it sound as if the point is that you can be as furtive with a film clip as you can be with a single shot, though you then admit that being furtive isn't what gets the job done. I like all three of your street shots, but you didn't really tell me whether or not you shot them in movie mode.

No, I said there are lots of ways to do street photography and being furtive is most certainly not the only way. The examples I posted were examples of shooting exactly the way you said was wrong/unviable. i.e. I stood in front of subject with camera held to eye for as long as it took to get photo. They were not done in movie mode, but most certainly could have been had I wanted to/camera been capable. In fact I can't think of any of my street work that couldn't have been done in movie mode to be honest. Though scrolling through and choosing between the silly number of frames you would accrue to find the best shot would be horrendously painful.

Regarding HCB's contact sheet: I have that book too. I've never said, and HCB's never said he always shoots a single shot and walks away. In fact in one of his essays he talks about moving around the subject, shooting, and moving in toward the central picture. HCB isn't the only photographer who's shown "only his good ones." As Joe McNally points out in one of his half-day lectures on the road, the best of every famous photographer boils down to thirty or forty frames, and behind those are thousands and thousands of outtakes. If you think that page of HCB's outtakes is revealing, go grab a copy of the book, Magnum Contact Sheets, or a copy of Looking In, Robert Frank's The Americans, which shows the contact sheets from each of the pictures in The Americans.

Again, that was my point HCB is just like every other photographer and my remarks were not aimed at you specifically but the aura surrounding him and the decisive moment.

Your remarks about Bruce Gilden, by the way, make it clear you haven't read the two articles I wrote, and to which I gave links earlier in this thread -- at least I think it was in this thread. If  you read them you'll find that in the end, I agree with you about Gilden.

Whatever you wrote at some other point is not relevant, as my reply mentioning him was in context of the specific post I was replying to.