Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/09/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Jim Brick wrote: > > But those of you that "sneak" photographs of other people, or photograph > other people's children at a playground... what is it that you do with > these photographs? You cannot publish them, you would neither want to hang > them on your wall, nor have a slide show. Or would you? > There is a style of photography that is called `street photography'. I don't know its correct historical background, but I imagine that it stemmed out of the earlier styles of photojournalism and photodocumentation which aimed at capturing some aspect of life at a given point in time. I'm going to ignore the connotations of illicit behaviour in `sneaking' pictures for the moment and try to explain what, IMO, makes this a worthwhile pursuit. Assuming for a moment that we are not talking about `stalking' people with a 400mm lens, but more the style of photography one could expect to be able to perform with an M-style camera, I would argue that a great many of those pictures that stir the hearts of people on this list would fit into the `street' category. Many people shots by photographers such as our beloved HCB and Eisenstadt, to mention but two, fit into the `street photography' category. It is not about spying on people, it is about fascination with human diversity and with documenting the world of today around us. It isn't going to exist forever. 1999 will look *very* different from 2039, 2049 or 2059. And it is interesting to take pictures of other than family members, or those by whom you've been commissioned to take pictures. I certainly would not mind hanging well-talken street pictures on my wall. I'd love to exhibit such pictures and make a name for myself as a competent street photographer (which, btw, is *far* into the future, if at all). I'd be happy to design web galleries around some theme, area, group, or what not with these pictures, which I guess constitutes publishing in some manner. Indeed, I would go so far as to argue that it is the single most important style of photography for Leica rangefinders, in so far as it would be all but impossible with cameras such as the big, modern SLRs. M. - -- Martin Howard | Yeah, I'm pretty outnumbered there, Visiting Scholar at MIT Media Lab | Dave..., eh, Jay... email: mvh@media.mit.edu | - Bruce Willis (on The Tonight Show) www: http://mvhoward.i.am/ +---------------------------------------