Photography is about being in touch with the world, life, death, everything at the precise second of exposure. Street is just your area of operation. Your are of OBSERVATION. It's where you choose to be with a camera.
and
I know I alway come off heavy when it comes to photography. Guilty as charged. I LIVE photography. It is the single most important thing in my life.
So, if I sound heavy, it's because that's how important it is. I hope you share that passion also....
I completely understand and I totally share that passion. I don't know how to explain it, but when it comes to photography, I have this insane drive to capture life (and/or death), to capture emotion and to make photos which touch people and make them feel. To me 'street' photography should try and incorporate this aspect. It should capture a special moment, which reflects people and society so that people can associate with it.
The past few months I've been guilty of of a lot of candid street photos. But there is one 'street' photo which I missed (although not strictly street because it wasnt on the street), but will always be captured in my mind, its of my grandma when she was in hospital recovering from a stroke. At the time she was pretty much paralysed and unable to walk, she could only move her left hand. In hospital there was an elderly lady who was terminally ill with cancer. Although she was frail, she made a big effort to walk across the ward to visit my grandma and keep her company. The beautiful thing was, my grandma is chinese and doesn't know a single word of english. Yet they both understood that they both cared for each other. Anyway the day came for my grandma to leave hospital, and on that day the other lady found out how long she had left. So one day i went to the hospital and my grandma was in tears next at that ladies bedside (sitting in a wheel chair), trying to spend time with her. They couldnt speak to each other, yet they they cared for one another - it was so moving how intensely they were holding each others hands. I guess that was another photo i missed. The main photo I wanted to capture was my grandma crying intensely, whilst being pushed away from her frail friend, and being wheel-chaired back to her room. Somehow that moment seemed to last forever to and for some reason I envisioned it in black and white.
I guess thats quite a long winded way to illustrate what I think street photography should capture, and quite an intense, emotional example too. Needless to say I've learned my lesson to always carry a camera. Don said he may come off a little heavy when it comes to photography, I guess I come off a little deep lol
Great how this thread highlights everyones different interpretations and how everyone has a different style to photography, be it street or any other genre. I'm quite lucky to have went to a boarding school filled with diverse individuals, people of many different faiths and from all over the world. I've had many memorable conversations about the meanings of things in different cultures and how people interpret things differently, I find it fascinating. In my opinion,I think we should all accept and embrace our different styles of photography. (Feeling the urge to try and say something clever, I'm going to concluded that
with this in mind, I guess non of us can ever really be right or wrong as to what street photography really is, and whats more confusing is that definitions are always changing ;-)
(Really hope this all makes sense, guess I'm not thinking too straight as its 430am!!)