[Leica] Be a photographer

[George Lottermoser]

I don't have any dogs in this fracas.

Though, due to the volume of books, museum and gallery exhibits, and online and offline use of the term "street photography," it has come to mean something quite more specific than reportage, documentary, or photo journalism — to me.

For me the term is far more specific and refers to a genre which actually does specifically focus on pedestrian, urban, street life. And in my mind actually does have a look of its own; distinct from "travel" photography; or even documentary work which include photographs made in streets. I don't confuse "urban warfare photography" with what is and has been called "street photography."

Reportage, documentary photography, photo journalism, all are terms which cover virtually any sort of story telling which can take place in deserts, streets, farm fields, wilderness, outer or inner space — anywhere there's a story to tell with pictures.

Street photography, as we've come to know it, is a smaller and more specific sub genre within those broader categories — for me — YMMV

a note off the iPad, George

On May 6, 2015, at 9:52 AM, Mark Rabiner <mark at rabinergroup.com> wrote:

> So I for one think this abandoning of the word  "reportage"  or documentary
> for "street" is a bit arbitrarily inane. Its part of a smug mindset of
> vagueness which is going on now. To pretend to communicate when the opposite
> is really going on.
> Documentary photography and journalism is a thing which goes way back. Why
> forget about it and turn it into some hip buzzword?