[Leica] "I'm gong out to shoot some street."

[Ted Grant]

Mark my  long long time old buddy! :-) 

You are beginning to sound like a mad old man! :-) 
Now don't turn on the angry words! :-) Your mad enough by the sound of it?
:-( 
Quite simply because, "I agree with you whole heartedly!" :-) 
The Photo magazine stories of the day about "STREET PHOTOGRAPHY" and the
"Street photographers of the past and present of that time?:-) And still do!
Created a false image in their description about street photographers &
photography! I didn't have a clue what it meant? 
But the description "Street Photography?" Me, in my "KISS" life? I figured
it meant? "READY?" 
When those words became the "photog description" of the day for the many
documentary/fine art photogs whomever? Cartier Bresson etc? 
I thought it meant photos of "NEAT LOOKING SREETS OF EUROPE?" Or other
street locations about the planet?   SO? Me? Not to bright? :-)
I was on assignment in Los Angeles, later Seattle. So "street photography"
came to mind and I began shooting what I thought to be??? 
The "interesting streets of both cities" during down time from the paying
assignments I was there for.
Truly, after a bit of this "street photography" nonsense. I stopped, as I
thought it an utter waste of film & money, plus souping time! It truly was
only because "I was such a dumb-ass!" Not realizing that it was merely a New
York photo magazine writer's words!
It's still a stupid description! No I don't have an answer for it? WHY? 
Well, I'm a photographer who has photographed the world from "BIRTH to
DEATH!"  And almost everything/anything in between! And have done so since
17 September 1951, my first ever published news photograph front page,
OTTAWA CITIZEN newspaper in Canada's capital.
So if "street photographer" really has a true meaning? "WHAT THE HECK AM I?"

Where would I fit in as I've taken thousands upon thousands of thousands of
exposures of human beings on every ground surface/location about the planet
you could imagine?
There that feels better! :-) See Mark, I agree with you old buddy! :-) :-)
Dr. Ted Grant CM. ORDER of CANADA.






-----Original Message-----
From: LUG [mailto:lug-bounces+tedgrant=shaw.ca at leica-users.org] On Behalf Of
Mark Rabiner
Sent: September-18-16 9:21 AM
To: Leica Users Group
Subject: [Leica] "I'm gong out to shoot some street."

I'm been shooting on the streets since 1965 when I got my Voigtländer with f
stops and shutter speeds but perhaps you could count the almost ten years
before than when I was shooting with Kodak Brownies as some of those shots
people see. I never said like is said now "I'm going out to shoot street"
because that annoying hipster term had not been invented yet. It came out a
decade later and I didn't ever hear it I don't think till well into the 80's
by the 90's the term was in the titles of published books.

I'm finding it frustrating as Wiki seems have an ongoing concern to revolve
everything they write about any photographer  or photographic issue around
this term.
I just sent them an angry "edit" which I doubt will ever be seen by the
people I want to see it.
I brought this up on the LUG a year ago but its bugging me more now and its
getting much worse

I'd written this:
Ok I fixed it up.

We need to not have the language of photography be controlled by computer
programmers.
The great art or documentary photographers of the human condition, Atget to
Cartier- Bresson are all being called street photographers now if we look
them up on Wiki and now other sources.  Wiki being nowadays step two to
after Binging or Goggling to looking up just about anything for anybody.
" Street photography" would be  term most of these photographers would find
quizzical to absurd a term  most of them never once in their lives ever
heard and would certainly not care to have  applied to them.
Street and documentary photography are redundant terms whose discrepancies
are artificial,  conflicting and ever changing.  It depends on who you ask
and when. They are both the photography of the human condition and it has
gone on not long after photography was invented 177 years ago.. The term
"street"  is only 40 years old give or take coming about in the mid to late
1970s used by a couple of photographers shooting artsy shots of the
inhabitants of midtown Manhattan. When asked what it meant they replied "its
a state of mind". The fact that its taking over Wiki making everything
revolve around it is an embarrassment.
Cartier- Bresson did live to 2004 but was known in France as "That Paris
Match photographer" in Wiki first sentence he is a "master of candid
photography" which gets hem into him  being the father of street
photography. Here its more about the art gallery scene.
Its seeming like you have a few people with an artificial agenda control the
whole photography  thing on Wikipedia.

I think much of the issue is that documentary photography and fine art
photography has a big overlap. And they become one and the same.

Henri Cartier-Bresson hit deadlines for newspapers and magazines and did
shows in galleries and made books and started Magnum.
He was not a "candid photographer" that is absurd.








-- 
Mark William Rabiner
Photographer
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/lugalrabs/



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