Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2019/09/24
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Methinks thou doth protest too much. SonC On Tue, Sep 24, 2019 at 9:12 AM Mark Rabiner <mark at rabinergroup.com> wrote: > Obviously if you were walking down the street taking pictures of the > street life in an urban area (city) you might informally call what you're > doing street photography. The phase has certainly been used more than once > as it's just the obvious thing to come out of ones mouth. > But what the people who are getting much mileage, click bate, dollars out > of the term now are doing are making it all encompassing mystical. > "anything you want it to be in your imagination" in other words refusing to > define it. At first they just thought of ways it was not photojournalism. > "No deadline". > It seemed to be anything which was not your kids opening their birthday > presents. It was anything other than posed pictures of smiling people. > I picked up a magazine and there was a fish which had washed up under a > dock and they were calling it street photo of the month. It's click bate > you will get more hits if you use the term "Street photography" in your > thing. If you look in the table of contents or glossary of the various > classic histories of photography it's marked by its non-presence. It's not > there the reason being it was never a thing. I went to Strand and looked. > Not in any books. > A minor turn of phrase. Certainly not a job description. I have less > problem with it used as an informal photo genre for people who for some > reason prefer to be not in any way involved with the obvious > photojournalism and fine art reason to be taking pictures on urban streets. > And it?s the same people who are just going through cameras trying to come > up with a reason for that. > Though there is a long vaulted history of photography used to capture the > human condition and these people never called themselves street > photographers. They called themselves as I said before photojournalists or > art photographers. Or just Photographers as the human condition has always > been the default serious photography. > As of late when you look it up they just started saying it's another word > for "candid photography". Quite a step down from the "anything in your > imagination" BS they were pulling before. They were starting to look bad > and they knew it. Some people are just now starting to call themselves > "Street Photographers". But on wiki they are backing off referring to > people as such. They are starting to say a person is "doing street-style > photography". To me sounding way less ridiculous. So the jig is up. > > > -- > > Mark William Rabiner > Photographer > > ?On 9/24/19, 9:26 AM, "LUG on behalf of Philippe via LUG" > <lug-bounces+mark=rabinergroup.com at leica-users.org on behalf of > lug at leica-users.org> wrote: > > Doisneau : ? photographe ind?pendant ? (from his oficial site). > HCB? ? photographe ? , period (from the site of his foundation) > > Blah-blah you?re right. > > Amities > > Philippe > > > > > Le 24 sept. 2019 ? 15:02, Douglas Barry <imra at iol.ie> a ?crit : > > > > What a lot of guff is swilling around about this term. Pulling a > book down from my shelf, I see "What distinguishes Doisneau's street > photography of the 1940s and 1950s is a capacity for narrative" blah, blah. > This comes from the 1997 Phaidon "The Photo Book". So that puts it at least > 22 years old. I rather suspect the term may be a lot older, but who cares. > English is an embracing and mutable tongue, and who can count the number of > photography terms and movements out there? > > > > Douglas > > > > > > On 24/09/2019 06:33, Mark Rabiner wrote: > >> My two cents if the "Street Photography" term using phenomenon just > admitted what it was instead of insinuating that it's been this ongoing > longtime thing that everyone has always known about it but you were not > paying attention it would not be so bad. I have nothing much against > sometimes using a buzz word of the moment or click bait or weasel words > which pretend to mean something but which are just messing with you. > >> But the "Street" thing doesn't own up to it. I think many of them > just want to feel a connect with the college kids who are just flipping off > knowing anything about the art world or journalism and just want to walk > around taking pictures and somehow be meaningful... rebellious. > >> > >> But I think there are two main categories in photography which > overlap a lot: > >> Job titles and genres. > >> The Job titles describe you and the genres describe your > photographs. > >> If you are showing somebody a landscape it's a Landscape. That?s > the Genre your image is part of. > >> If it?s a big part of what you always do you can say you are a > Landscape photographer and have it on your business card.. And when people > see your images they might believe you. > >> The Yellow Pages had two categories for photography. Doctors only > got one and Lawyers only got one. > >> Commercial and Portrait. > >> If you were a landscape photographer I think that fit into neither > Commercial nor Portrait.. > >> Landscape it think is a sub category of Art Photography. The > Gallery market. Art Collectors. > >> And you could not even look those up Art Photography in the Yellow > Pages. > >> > >> > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Leica Users Group. > > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information