Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/11/02
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]> Maybe I'm just not in tune but I find the "hostile environment" comment > interesting. Everyday newspaper and magazine photographers document the lives > of very rough characters in very rough environments. I've seen published > photo stories on homeless people, drug addicts, gang members, you name it, > it's been done -- just look at the Pictures of the Year annual. They do this > with full knowledge and participation of the subjects and still make telling, > honest photos. So is the idea of so-called street photography that one must > make pictures without the subject's permission? Why is this? Please don't > tell me it's because of camera awareness -- like I say, look at the Pictures > of the Year annual . . . On a crowded street you will discover it is impossible to stop and ask the three people who are passing you by permission to take their photograph in the millisecond during which they form an interesting configuration. Street photography and photojournalism and documentary photography are three entirely different disciplines. Photographing 'tough' subjects like addiction etc certainly requires that you get on side with the people you photograph. Photographing the instantaneous fleeting moments of life in the ordinary world requires an openness and hair-trigger readiness which 'asking permission' entirely negates. Half the time I don't even have time to get the camera to my eye, never mind enter a conversation. - -- Johnny Deadman "The happiest time in any man's life is when he is in red-hot pursuit of a dollar with a reasonable prospect of overtaking it" - Josh Billings