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Author Topic: Street and signage  (Read 15401 times)

louoates

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Re: Street and signage
« Reply #20 on: September 20, 2014, 02:25:19 pm »

I particularly like the size progression of the people from right to left -- and the progression of their attention from straight ahead, then to the right, leading to the Nike guy. The prominent logos also play their part nicely.
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Street and signage
« Reply #21 on: September 20, 2014, 08:28:13 pm »

It's another good one, Stamper. Keep it up. I might add to Eric's evaluation that the guy leaning against the corner of the building looks somewhat menacing, which gives the picture a bit of extra punch.
Right. And that brings to my mind yet another possible interpretation. Now I hear each of the five figures in the photo quoting the sign, and each with a different tone of voice and inflection. The big guy on the right is saying it seriously. The guy to the left is repeating it back, but as a question. The guy on the corner has a menacing tone of voice. The woman is reciting it almost as sleepwalking, like a mantra, over and over. And I leave it to the rest of you to read something into the smallest figure on the far right.

To my mind, a good Street photo invites you to make up a story to fit it, but there is never just one "right answer." The next day you might read it differently.

I'm very comfortable shooting the landscapes that Russ abhors, but I've never been able to find and capture a good Street shot. But I do admire the genre, and I envy those of you who do have the knack and instinct.

Eric
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RSL

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Re: Street and signage
« Reply #22 on: September 22, 2014, 12:22:34 pm »

For some reason I started thinking again about Peter's statement that the best street photography doesn't rely on signs (he said "signage," and we'll come back to that in a moment). In my mind I ran back over Kertesz, HCB, Willy Ronis, Walker Evens, Elliott Erwitt, Marc Riboud, Helen Levitt, Robert Frank, Winogrand and a couple others -- in other words, classics from when street was taking shape as a genre, and I couldn't come up with an example that would make Peter even a little bit wrong. If I get out all my books and spend some time I suspect I can find one or two cases where signs were used, but one or two cases wouldn't be enough to refute the charge.

Then I started thinking about what Peter was objecting to, and found that he made that clear with the statement: "Once an image is dependent on the written word it is no longer universal." That's right. Unless you're familiar with French a French sign in one of HCB's pictures wouldn't add much to the meaning of the picture. But what about signs that don't depend on words? I remembered one I shot a couple years ago that depends very much on a sign. Here it is. Peter's still right about the written word, but I don't think you can damn all signs as not contributing to street photography. I'm pretty sure I posted this picture once before, but since it illustrates my point I'll post it again. Now I need to go back and see if I can find some other mute signs that contribute to street photography. I think the best place to look will be Helen Levitt.

About "signage." It's a terrible word that started popping up in the late seventies. If you close your mouth, pinch your nose, and inhale, you'll get "sinage." But "signage" needs to be expectorated.
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mezzoduomo

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Re: Street and signage
« Reply #23 on: September 23, 2014, 07:36:41 am »

She appeared to be....
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stamper

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Re: Street and signage
« Reply #24 on: September 23, 2014, 07:51:13 am »

I like it.

stamper

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Re: Street and signage
« Reply #25 on: September 23, 2014, 07:52:08 am »

Another one.

RSL

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Re: Street and signage
« Reply #26 on: September 23, 2014, 08:26:10 am »

Love it! But if you were Russian you'd never know she's available on the basement floor.
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Isaac

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Re: Street and signage
« Reply #27 on: September 24, 2014, 02:28:02 am »

The definition of "street" is broad and it should be.

Quote
Photographer Osborne Yellott appears to have been the first person to deploy the term "street photography," as the title of an essay he wrote in 1900 … he then divided the genre into two strains of photographic meaning, delineating street photographs based on attention to the specifics of location from those rooted in the scene the photographer discovers there. For the first category, the "pictorial treatment of locality," he argued that "an intimate acquaintance with the locality is essential to success." For the second category, the "record of scene or incident which may possess sentiment or merely human interest," the specific location of a photograph bears little importance. … one in which urban context is key, the other stressing poetic or fortuitous happenstance.

… I will use the term "street photograph" to delineate Yellott's first category from the "street photography" of Yellott's second category, with which the genre has for too long been exclusively equated.

Unfamiliar Streets: The Photographs of Richard Avedon, Charles Moore, Martha Rosler, and Philip-Lorca DiCorcia
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petermfiore

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Re: Street and signage
« Reply #28 on: September 24, 2014, 05:18:37 pm »

In the land of the Giants.

I shot this on Monday. once again on my way to class...

Peter

brianrybolt

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Re: Street and signage
« Reply #29 on: October 06, 2014, 09:19:27 am »

An another

stamper

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Re: Street and signage
« Reply #30 on: October 06, 2014, 10:19:41 am »

Yes. This works for me.
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