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IMO, street photography is a low art form. It's walking around without a plan, snapping random snapshots of people and expect some meaning to come out on its ow
by ngokevin 5y ago
IMO, street photography is a low art form. It's walking around without a plan, snapping random snapshots of people and expect some meaning to come out on its own. The creation process is regulated to pressing a button and some minor processing.
Perhaps similar to throwing buckets of paint at a canvas and seeing what comes out.
It's usually derivative. Someone alone looking sad because that's their resting face. A black and white high contrast photo of an old person. A homeless person. Political street art (that someone else created).
Some exceptions of course, like Humans of NY where arguably the main part is the backstory and writing behind the people they capture with permission, but that's more portrait photography than street.
- bigdubs 5y agoYou're obviously allowed to feel what you feel but if you've ever seen a "good" body of work taken on the street, and a "bad" body of work taken on the street, the skill of the photographer matters, and it expresses art. The low vs. high debate is old as time, with sculptors looking down on painters, with painters looking down on photographers. The camera is a canvas and the photographer paints with what they put in front of the lens and when they close the shutter. Street photography takes it an extra step further and removes a ton of control over what you're photographing and leaves you creating art out of what is happening before you.
- kolanos 5y agoPublic photography (at least in the U.S.) isn't just constitutionally protected because it is a form of expression (art), but also because it is an exercise in free press. In the U.S., anyone can be free press, and as such can document any goings on in public, including photography.
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- todd8 5y agoI respectively disagree. I think people are attractive, in general, and in particular I like looking at people. For me, seeing a photo that captures a memorable or unusual moment in sports, in a performance, or even in a park or on the sidewalk is worth viewing. I agree with the original article that there is a creepiness to voyeuristic photos, and in the case of the woman on the bus photo I would be more comfortable with it if she had agreed to its use, but I do think it's a "good" photo. When at a museum we frequently look at pictures or sculptures of people. Our viewing of these works of art are totally outside the context of the original subject's goal for the artwork. Is it inappropriate to look at these works of art? I agree that there are too many black and white photos of the old, sad, and homeless. These don't usually speak to me as art. If I was a photographer that wanted to do street photography, I would take advantage of the capabilities that new cameras have and show the resulting photos to the subjects and ask for their permission to use the photos. One could even offer to send them a copy of the photos by giving them business card with an annotation of the frame numbers so that they could request them via email.
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- igornadj 5y agoThere's so many hack street photographers, it's crazy. The classic homeless beggar in front of a high end jewlery store. Visual puns. Bold and outrageous clothing. But I still like street photography, because the ones that can manage to tell an interesting story really stand out.
- bellyfullofbac 5y agoFeh, HONY... http://warscapes.com/opinion/sentimentality-critique-humans-new-york http://warscapes.com/opinion/sentimentality-critique-humans-... > HONY presents photographs derived from this tradition but divorced from its vast potential for social import. Its brand of “humanity” requires no scrutiny, for it is designed to do what photography’s critics have accused the medium of doing at its worst: to capture, to possess, and to provoke in the viewer unprocessable, useless emotion.