[Leica] IMG: Waiters, Bath 1997 - Lluis (my thoughts)

[Gerry Walden]

Lluis

Firstly, thank you for your email and kind comments.

I am not sure I agree 100% with your comments. When the “classic photographers” were working the phrase “street photographer” had not even been invented. They were just photographing everything around them, daily life. Daily life is still happening all around us in just the same way, but maybe we have become jaded, tired of looking at the same thing over and over again with a “been there, done that” kind of mind set. You are of course right, the classic images of Doisneau, Ronis etc. are never to be repeated - the slums have been cleared, poverty is different now etc. etc. - but the newer generations will look back on our work and say exactly the same things as you are saying now.

I am of the opinion that the new school of so-called street photography are adding little to the genre, they are shooting anything and everything and calling it “street photography”. It isn’t, it is photography in the streets. There are very few genuine street photographers working in my opinion. I am also of the opinion that the best work which is being done is in black and white, I have seldom seen examples of the genre in colour that actually works.

Maybe it is time we stopped calling ourselves “street photographers” and just went back to being photographers like our predecessors such as HCB, Ronis etc. were. Then maybe we could just go out and shoot without giving our images false labels, they are just daily life!

Kindest regards,

Gerry

Gerry Walden
023 8046 3076
0797 287 7932

> On 17 Sep 2019, at 23:18, Lluis Ripoll via LUG <lug at leica-users.org> wrote:
> 
> Gerry,
> 
> I really like this one, in my opinion it contains all the elements to make a good street photo, the moment, the composition, it’s fun, it shows some particular scene.
> 
> Seeing it I come back again to some of my thoughts of the actual street photography, maybe it is finished in the terms that the classic photographers we see, If it is not dead, what I do think is that it is languished a lot. I see my archives from the 90’s, like yours, plenty of particular charachteristic images, but actually I find much more difficult to find the originality and images with a special charachter like it was in the past, today many of the wonderful pictures from i.e. Doisneau would not have been possible. The World has become globalized and our societies more uniform everywhere. At least is what I think and found on my everyday life. 
> 
> Cheers
> Lluis
> 
>> El 17 set 2019, a les 8:25, Gerry Walden via LUG <lug at leica-users.org> va escriure:
>> 
>> I have been trolling the archives again:
>> 
>> https://gerrywalden.smugmug.com/B-W-Street-Images/i-Vc2spvr/A <https://gerrywalden.smugmug.com/B-W-Street-Images/i-Vc2spvr/A>
>> 
>> Leica M3 + 50mm Summicron f2 and Tri-X film
>> 
>> Gerry
>> 
>> Gerry Walden
>> www.gwpics.com
>> +44 (0)23 8046 3076 or
>> +44 (0)797 287 7932
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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