Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2019/09/18

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: [Leica] IMG: Waiters, Bath 1997 - Lluis (my thoughts)
From: gerry.walden at icloud.com (Gerry Walden)
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2019 12:17:14 +0100
References: <29359D2D-901A-4989-B9DA-D24EFF6012A6@me.com> <918C06C6-F43A-4494-A8F4-D17C1F06EC02@gmail.com>

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
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Leica Users Group.
>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information



In reply to: Message from gwpics at me.com (Gerry Walden) ([Leica] IMG: Waiters, Bath 1997)
Message from lluisripollphotography at gmail.com (Lluis Ripoll) ([Leica] IMG: Waiters, Bath 1997)