Street Photography
Introduction
The street photography book from Westerbeck and Meyerowitz called street photography as the spontaneous and arty motivated photography at public places
which is influenced by issues which can be assigned since the beginning of photography. Further abstracts are given by:
- Joel Meyerowitz explains his (and also my) sympathy on street photography in this video
Everybody Street
- Seconds2real Member Guido Steenkamp in this (german language) interview
Guidos Interview @ kwerfeldein
- and The London Street Photography Festival as "what-is-street-photography"
Characteristics
The difficult but profoundly interesting process of street photography is to concentrate the emotional impression of very short-lived candid
moments by the help of aesthetics, symbolism, contrast and composition. It is also the "surreal" aspect to catch harmonious, mad, absurd, ironic, contradicting, cynical etc.
relations and moments in the normal, everyday and therefore "real" world of human life.
Therefore street photography has the concept of the genuine instant (like the impressionism) but is also Dada in terms
that the intuitive one chance process plays a major role.
Alfred Stieglitz said that he was acting as an amateur, this approach is also important for many effective street photographers.
Capturing the real human life as an educated academic art form seems to be
contradicting itself.
Street photography is mostly driven by the following characteristics:
| un-staged | not posed nor planed or staged |
| public | people and their surroundings within the public domain |
| commonplace | the daily human life in its everyday oddness |
| candid | candid moments of a split-second |
| emotional | from tragic to humorous |
| mixed subjects | Portrait, Architecture, Landscape and Reportage |
Robert Doisneau - Paris, Baiser de l'Hotel de Ville 1950
Yes, we know, this one was staged.
Robert Doisneau made this photograph as a contract work for the US-Magazine Life.
Nevertheless, it is a good street photograph in terms of its characteristics.
P.S the young woman on the photograph sold here vintage print for 184000 Euro.
P.P.S you will find only a few more good staged street photographs.
Street Photography Styles
Street Photography is realized very differently and the art style is mostly (always?) a mixture of history and up-to-date elements. Some influential styles as examples:
Surreality
André Kertész - Meudon - 1928
A train is passing the viaduct from right to left. In the foreground a man with a black hat is passing the street from left to right. In the background some people are moving in different directions. Nothing in this photograph is exceptional itself. There is no special incidence. This photograph does not declare something. The visual attraction is based on the contradictions. The massive, great viaduct is looking like a toy train, the well-dressed man in this poor environment? What does he carry in his arm? This photograph is reality, but it is also surreality, like a dream, painting or film scene - it is the surreality of real life.
André Kertész (1894-1985) was a Hungarian-born photographer with ground- breaking contributions to the photographic composition and the photo essay.
The Decisive Moment and Geometric Composition
Henri Cartier-Bresson - Italy - 1951
Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) was a French painter and photographer with a big influence on
real life reportage and candid photography. In 1947, Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, David Seymour and George Rodger
founded the Magnum photographic agency. In 1952, Cartier-Bresson published his book "The Decisive Moment" which
gets a trend-setting on many photographers:
"It is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise
organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression."
- Henri Cartier-Bresson -
Symbolism and Iconography
Robert Frank - New York - 1955
Robert Frank (born 1924 in Zürich, Switzerland) is an important figure in street photography.
There are few single works of art that have changed the direction of their medium, his photographic book "The Americans",
(some data on this series)
published in 1958 summed up the American life-style in a way that no one had
covered befored and the book was heavily influential on the style of many photographers. Robert Frank often has combined
the everyday life with symbols, like the juke box, or the American flag
to a series of iconographs on the time and place.
"I saw this guy take photographs. I want to be a photographer.
I want to go out in the street and take photographs of life."
- Joel Meyerowitz - to his boss on quitting his job as advertising art director.
The raw, near nowness and essence of life
Garry Winogrand - Los Angeles - 1969
"When I'm photographing, I see life,"
"That's what I deal with. I don't have pictures in my head.
I don't worry about how the picture is going to look.
I let that take care of itself.
It's not about making a nice picture.
That anyone can do."
- Garry Winogrand -
Winogrand was continuously chasing after the eternal nowness of life itself in all its raw,
near, unmediated energy. Winogrand, Robert Frank and William Klein where focusing on the
real essence without any kind of formal rationality. This approach still remains as the hugely influential
figure on todays street photography.
Color Composition
Stephen Shore - Pennsylvania - 1974
Stephen Shore (born 1947 in New York City) began artistic photography at the age of fourteen, with 24 Shore became a solo exhibition at the MoMA. Shore is known for his composed colored images of banal scenes and objects.
Joel Meyerowitz
Joel Meyerowitz (born 1938 in New York City) began photographing in 1962 as a "street photographer" in the tradition of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank and Eugene Atget. In the mid 60´s, along with Stephen Shore and William Eggleston he was an early advocate of color photography. His work has appeared in over 350 exhibitions and he is the author of 15 books, including "Bystander: The History of Street Photography".
The Photographic Essay
Bruce Davidson - NYC, East Harlem - 1967
In 1966 Bruce Davidson started a two-year project in East Harlem, NYC. He visited East Harlem daily,
getting to know and takes contact to its inhabitants and photographing their lives.
This photographic essay was published in a book titled "East 100th Street".
"Like the people who live on the block, I love and hate it and I keep going back."
- Bruce Davidson -
Andreas Herzau - Istanbul - 2010
Andreas Herzau (born 1962 in Mainz, Germany) is a German photographer working on Reportage, Essay and Portrait photography. He is documenting the many facets of human life as composed essays.
Other Classifications
Please have a look at the interesting The Phyla of Street Photography by Michael David Murphy.
History of Street Photography
The following history abstract is not to be understood as an academic chronology.
Its just an overview to combine the influences out of time
period, technique and art to the development of street photography.
The thematic birthplace of street photography is Paris in the middle of the last century in terms of street = real life
outside from the studio.
The term "Street Photography" itself where allocated by some New York photographers in the mid 60s in form of a non-commercial
photography of the urban life.
| Period | Technique | Art and Street Photography |
|---|---|---|
| 1820 | Niepce,Talbot first long-lasting picture |
|
| 1837 | Daguerre, Salt as fixer | |
| 1850 | 50kg wet plate cameras | Realism, the real world in art. First photographs outside. |
| 1870 | Gelatine-Film fast shutter speed |
Impressionism, pleinair and sur-le-motif. First moving objects and Journals. |
| 1880 | Celluloid Kodak camera for $22.00 |
Pictorialism. Alfred Stieglitz, Camera Work |
| 1910 | Safety Film | artistic photogr. @ University. Documentary. Arnold Genthe - Chinatown |
| 1920 | Film 24x36 by Oskar Barnack | Bauhaus. Surrealism. New vision. Eugen Atget, Streets of Paris |
| 1925 | Leica I 1000 sold fast Ermanox |
Sociocritical aspects |
| 1930 | Rangefinder Contax Zeiss Leica II. 100000 Leica´s |
New Realism. Straight photography. Life Magazine |
| 1935 | SLR Cameras. Color reversal film. |
Brassai, Paris de nuit. Walker Evans, American Photographs |
| 1950 | Leica M1 1951, M3 1954 M2 1957, Hasselblad 6x6. Tri-X 35mm |
Cartier-Bresson, The decisive Moment |
| 1960 | TTL Autofocus Leica M4 1967 |
Robert Frank, The Americans Joseph Koudelka, Invasion Prague Shore,Levitt,Meyerowitz,Eggleston, color photographs Garry Winogrand, break with formal rationality |
| 1970 | Kodak, C41 Process | Minimalism. Neo-Expressionism. Elliot Erwitt, ironic daily life |
| 1980 | Leica M6 1984 SLR with Microprocessor |
Photorealism. Awareness of life |
| 1990 | Digital Cameras Internet 1993.. |
Sebastião Salgado workers (1993-) Martin Parr, innovative imagery |
| 2000 | Nikon F6 SLR Canon DSLR 24x36 |
see Links |
for street photographs from the history please observe the selection of Rumelo Amor
Selected Street Photographer
Please note: This is my subjective selection.
| photographer | born | performance |
|---|---|---|
| Eugene Atget | 1857 | aesthetic view on the streets of Paris |
| Alfred Stieglitz | 1864 | pioneer: photography as art |
| Paul Strand | 1890 | pioneer: photography as art |
| André Kertész | 1894 | "Whatever we have done, Kertesz did it first" HCB |
| J. Henri Lartigue | 1894 | first in candid moments |
| László Moholy-Nagy | 1895 | teacher @ Bauhaus - innovative designer & photographer |
| Dorothea Lange | 1895 | co-founder of documentary |
| Alfred Eisenstaedt | 1898 | spontaneous moments, LIFE photographer in 1935 |
| Brassaï | 1899 | "Paris de nuit" |
| Walker Evans | 1903 | "American Photographs" 1938 |
| H. Cartier-Bresson | 1908 | "The decisive Moment" co-founder Magnum |
| Willy Ronis | 1910 | humanistic photography |
| Robert Doisneau | 1912 | street culture of Paris |
| Helen Levitt | 1913 | pioneer of colored street photography |
| W. Eugene Smith | 1918 | Member of Magnum - photo essays |
| Robert Frank | 1924 | "The Americans" (1959) |
| Elliott Erwitt | 1928 | Member of Magnum - ironic, absurd situations |
| Garry Winogrand | 1928 | raw, near street photographs |
| William Klein | 1928 | high-grain film, wide angles, against the established order |
| Leonard Freed | 1929 | Member of Magnum - classic photo essays |
| Fred Herzog | 1933 | Pioneer of Colored Street Photography |
| Bruce Davidson | 1933 | Member of Magnum - Projects like "East 100th Street" |
| Lee Friedlander | 1934 | urban life, new elements |
| Joseph Koudelka | 1938 | Member of Magnum, "Invasion Prague, 1968" |
| Joel Meyerowitz | 1938 | artistic color photography - book author |
| William Eggleston | 1939 | pioneer of daily motives as colored photographs |
| Raghubir Singh | 1942 | pioneer of color photography |
| Sebastião Salgado | 1944 | Projects India, Guatemala, Brazil, "Workers" (1993) |
| Stephen Shore | 1947 | pioneer of color photography |
| P.L. diCorcia | 1951 | arranged documentary with fantasy elements |
| Martin Parr | 1952 | Member of Magnum - innovative imagery |
| Alex Webb | 1952 | Member of Magnum - color street photography |
| Andreas Herzau | 1962 | photography essays |
| Nikki S. Lee | 1970 | mixing street photography and performance art |
| Matt Stuart | 1974 | british street humor |
Bibliography
"Street Photography From Atget to Cartier-Bresson"
by Clive Scott - 2007
This book describes the complex relationship with parallel literary trends
as well as its more evident affinity with impressionist art.
"Bystander: A History of Street Photography"
by Joel Meyerowitz and Colin Westerbeck - 1994
The history of street photography described in both text and photographs.
"OPEN CITY. Street Photographs since 1950"
by Russell Ferguson and Kerry Brougher and the Museum of Modern Art Oxford
A good supplementation on the Bystander.
Times Article by Nick Turpin