[Leica] Street Photography: a meme created on the internet

[Mark Rabiner]

I was just looking at the Wiki on "Street Photography."
At the top of it is a box with words in it which says:
"This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help
improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced
material may be challenged and removed. (December 2013)"
We see these a lot on Wiki it would seem to be a basic BS alert.
In other words caution; what you are about to read was made up off the top
of the head of the person writing it. It's meme making.
I started shooting Tri X in 1965 and doing and reading everything I could
get my hands on on photography and I'm trying to remember the first time I
ever heard the term "Street Photography." as it was sure as heck not in the
60's or 70's. And I'm not sure about the 80's or 90's either and my memory
is pretty good but I cant remember when I started thinking that.
The internet has gotten photo enthusiasts and photographers talking on a
level we could not imagine in the Shutterbug 80's. I think the internet hit
in the mid 90's. Was that when AOL bit it and we didn't have to pay by the
minute any more?
I think in the history of "Street Photography" most of the "Street
Photographers if you told them they were doing "Street Photography." would
look at you like you were nuts they had never heard the term.
I think the term came out in the late 90's with chat lists on the internet
but I'm looking for other peoples recollection on it. As mine is clouded
with decades of me being me.

I'd heard of Atget as being the Bach or Shakespeare or Einstein or Freud of
photographers in other words.... The Man. But just the other day I'd heard
of him as "the father of street photographers" and as he shot mainly
lifeless facades of buildings as I mainly do I found that both invigorating
and unnerving.
He is mentioned as such in the Wiki thing on so called street photography.
I think it may be about the time we draw back the certain on this so called
street photography thing (meme) and find out what's really going on. Is it
for real or not? Because I think its a classic case of people making up
stuff as they go along and calling it history or reality. I'd call it meme
making.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_photography
I think we need to get in touch with what scientists call their "Baloney
Detection kit". An idea I think put together by Carl Sagan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_photography
http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03/baloney-detection-kit-carl-sagan/


-- 
Mark William Rabiner
Photographer