Street - right or trite?

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Wow, that's both cool and, to me, very interesting. To veer TOTALLY OT, I always viewed Oscar and Monk as at opposite extremes of jazz pianists and always sort of wondered what they'd have thought of each other. Glad to know Oscar liked and respected Monk as much as he clearly did from this video. But its a little disconcerting to hear him play Monk's work because he's SOOOO smooth, so facile, such an incredible virtuoso, whereas Monk was a far more limited player, kind of a jazz primitive, who's style is sort of defined by his technical limitations yet thoroughly transcends them. Monk was sort of funk before there was funk. Peterson was the absolute antithesis of funk - sort of a predecessor of smooth jazz, but with actual substance. Sort of like comparing Neil Young and Jeff Beck as guitarists. Beck could play rings around Neil, but Neil developed such an amazing distinctive and musical style all his own, limitations and all. Anyway, I love both of them but they couldn't be less similar and its cool to hear Oscar play some Monk. Round Midnight was not typical of Monk, though - it became a standard while most of his stuff was a bit farther off the beaten track... I'd like to have heard Oscar take a shot at Bemsha Swing or some of his other funkier stuff:


OK, sorry for the OT, but it's not that far off. Just makes the point that there's a TON of latitude in terms of what works and doesn't even within a particular genre and rules were meant to be broken...

-Ray
 
I agree with Ray about the serious need for a laxative and with Luke about "random people walking."

A lot of street photography is seriously deficient in composition and often lacks anything of real interest.

I disagree with (from the original essay): "posters and other artwork used as a background, especially large faces."

Ray -- our Ray -- has a shot with a couple walking in front of a picture of a couple walking that I think is flatly terrific. It's a photo that makes me look, look again, and just admire it's composition. So it CAN be done; you just have to do it right.

My hero in this regard is Henri Cartier Bresson. I have tried to read as much as I can about his working technique, and I get the feeling that at least some of the time he would find and interesting spot, plant himself there, and wait for the decisive moment to happen.

I guess the cliche I see most in "street" is the lack of decisive moments. I have a hunch that the best street shooters are hunters at heart.

Cheers, Jock
 
Well said, Jack! I burst out laughing at the beginning... I've read everyone's posts but didn't remember the "laxative" comment that Ray had made.

Well, Ray said some folks are full of . . . um . . . potential fertilizer, which implies the need for a laxative, no?

Cheers, Jock
 
A lot of street photography is seriously deficient in composition and often lacks anything of real interest.

True. Also true of EVERY OTHER TYPE OF PHOTOGRAPHY! I guess with people we figure they SHOULD be interesting and are disappointed if they're not...

I disagree with (from the original essay): "posters and other artwork used as a background, especially large faces."

Ray -- our Ray -- has a shot with a couple walking in front of a picture of a couple walking that I think is flatly terrific. It's a photo that makes me look, look again, and just admire it's composition. So it CAN be done; you just have to do it right.

Thanks so much Jock. I'm not offering to throw that one back just because it violates someone's rule... As with most street photography, there was a lot of luck involved in getting that shot just right, but the more you're out shooting, the more of those you're gonna catch...

My hero in this regard is Henri Cartier Bresson. I have tried to read as much as I can about his working technique, and I get the feeling that at least some of the time he would find and interesting spot, plant himself there, and wait for the decisive moment to happen.

I guess the cliche I see most in "street" is the lack of decisive moments. I have a hunch that the best street shooters are hunters at heart.

I'm quite sure that's what Cartier Bresson did a lot. I've done it from time to time myself and I get some of my best street compositions that way, because I find and really compose a shot and probably shoot it 10 times with different combinations of people walking or stopping in the scene, and then pick the best one. With HCB's iconic image of the curving stairs going down to the street with the bicyclist passing through the little bit of street that's visible, I'd bet any amount of money that he was there and had many out-takes from that spot of various other people walking, riding, and/or driving through that little section of road. That was the best of the bunch, he had it printed and published, and it's become iconic. And if that guy hadn't come along on his bike, the composition is strong enough that I'd bet some OTHER version of that shot would have been just as well known today. I enjoy the results of that kind of shooting, but don't enjoy the shooting all that much. In line with your "hunters" comment, I like the shots that just come up and last a second or two and you have to just be in the right place and right time to catch the human moment involved. They're rarely profound and rarely great compositions, but if the humanity comes through in a shot, I'm gonna like it anyway. Here are two examples of "staged" shots, where I had the composition and just waited for the right people to enter the scene and two more of those "moment" shots that aren't as compositionally interesting, but the human moments are more compelling to me... When it comes down to it, I find people more interesting than shapes, so if I have to choose between composition and humanity, I'm going with humanity. I love those rare shots that have both, but they don't come along very often...

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-Ray
 
I guess I could start by saying that every type of photography has it's share of uninteresting, poorly composed, poorly exposed, poorly processed, out-of-focus images, although the processes involved in street photography means that it tends to have more than it's fair share. I think it is easily forgotten what the value of street photography is. If you think that looking at images of the same streets that you walk on are boring, look somewhere else. See what similar scenes look like on the other side of the world. See what your streets looked like 50 years ago. See what streets looked like on the other side of the world 50 years ago. Street photography is a record of fact of everyday life, each moment unique and not to be recreated. It is one form of photography that has the potential to be appreciated more with age. Having said that, I have plenty of my own particular dislikes about street photography, some of which I have seen in my own as well, so I make no attempt to absolve it completely of it's sins.
 
I guess I could start by saying that every type of photography has it's share of uninteresting, poorly composed, poorly exposed, poorly processed, out-of-focus images, although the processes involved in street photography means that it tends to have more than it's fair share. I think it is easily forgotten what the value of street photography is. If you think that looking at images of the same streets that you walk on are boring, look somewhere else. See what similar scenes look like on the other side of the world. See what your streets looked like 50 years ago. See what streets looked like on the other side of the world 50 years ago. Street photography is a record of fact of everyday life, each moment unique and not to be recreated. It is one form of photography that has the potential to be appreciated more with age. Having said that, I have plenty of my own particular dislikes about street photography, some of which I have seen in my own as well, so I make no attempt to absolve it completely of it's sins.
I agree with this whole post Nic. And in terms of seeing some of the worst sins of street photography in our own work, I dare say the best street photographers of all time took many more bad street photos than good ones. We just didn't get to see them. And part of what made them the best was probably their ruthless editing, which most of us are probably less good at. And if we're just doing it for fun, we probably should be less ruthless.

-Ray
 
I enjoy looking at some street photography, but I don't care much for doing it. It isn't my style. I never knew about rules though. IMHO, having rules about how something is done also means their are rules on how or what to enjoy about something.

It kinda reminds me of BBQ. One camp says it has to be dry, another puts sauce on it during the process and to each, the process is invalid. As someone who enjoys BBQ, why can't we have both? I like a good dry rubbed brisket as much as I like a brisket baked with a little sauce on it.
 
Think I'd agree with mot of this. Acceptable cliches are generally best avoided unless you're very very good, jut because they have been done so often. The only one I disagree with is the prohibition on homeless people. While in nearly every situation it is inappropriate to shoot homeless people there are images of them that are powerful and compelling and that say a lot about our society. Homeless people are an integral part of our urban environments - to me, it's not possible to consider yourself a photographer of urban reality and exclude a significant element of our urban reality.
 
The only one I disagree with is the prohibition on homeless people. While in nearly every situation it is inappropriate to shoot homeless people there are images of them that are powerful and compelling and that say a lot about our society.
Agreed Olli. However on the proviso that the resultant image is "powerful and compelling and [says] a lot about our society". If it's simply another of those cheap shots degrading the homeless or their situation then move on I say....maybe onto documenting street gang culture on their own turf....then let's see if the super-hero street photographer is still wearing their undies on the outside ;)
 
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