Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

The question "Is this image really Street Photography?" has elicited considerable discussion since this section was opened for business.

On a strictly personal basis I have come up with a scale of evaluation of posted images as to where, in my personal opinion, they fit on a coward, either-or scale between "Bystander Liberal Street" on the one hand , and "Authentic Traditional Street" on the other hand....also designated the BLS -ATS SCALE

Those falling into the BLS range are those admitted to the realm of " Street" by the liberal criteria offered in the book "Bystander" which some accept as THE source of the gospel on Street Photography. On the other hand, those images which, IMO, are admitted to the designation of ATS are indisputably consonant with the image and spirit of Authentic Traditional "Street" as found in the bodies of work by the greats of the history of Street photography. These are readily accessed by Googling the names of such as Louis Hein, Cartier-Bresson, Brassai, Dorothea Lange, Garry Winogrand, and many others.

It's not a system of fine divisions; it is simply based on Either-Or.
Should some better system of differentiating what many of us consider to be authentic in image and spirit of style with Traditional "Street" photography as clearly evident through remarkable uniformity in the works of the legion of greats of street photography from the variety of images that clearly differ from that image and spirit of traditional "Street", I certainly would consider using it.

I mention this solely to explain the manner in which I shall be addressing my classification and evaluation of images posted to this section. I have, since being introduced to what is now called "Street" in the early 1960s, very much enjoyed and admired Traditional "Street". I am, however, neither a street photographer nor an authority on the genre beyond holding strong and consistent opinions what is traditional and what isn't.
So, when you see reference to "BLS" and "ATS" , you'll at least have some idea what it's about.

From my perspective the best definition of what is traditional "street" is not read in a supposedly authoritative book, it is read in the images of the undisputed masters of the genre, keeping in mind that every serious wildlife photographer shoots the occasional landscape, the professional portraitist shoots the occasional family picnic, the serious .... ..well, you get the idea; keep it in mind.

If any others among participants in this section wish to use this means of stating opinion, feel free to do so.

Dave

RichardTaylor Loc: Sydney, Australia

I will go with the "traditional" version.
Some of the other stuff I will save for the "road" and not the street.

Macronaut Loc: Redondo Beach,Ca.

I think your suggested system will be very useful to help limit confusion.

Thanks!

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

You are more than welcome. it makes sense to me, and I'm gratified that some others may find it of use.
The key seems to be letting the best examples of the genre shoulder the burden of defining it.

Dave.

Voss

Dave, I took your suggestion and googled some of the greats you mention. I didn't study each photo, but skimmed everything that came up, to try to get a feel for the nature and theme of each photographer. Here's my impression:

Louis Hine: Mostly informal portraits of poor people in black and white. They are generally aware of the photographer and are often posed. There may even be a street in the photo.

Dorothea Lang: Work consists almost entirely of B&W portraits of laboring-type people. As often as not, the people are aware that they are being photographed. Many photos are in rural settings. There are very few streets.

Brassai: A very large number of portraits of better-off people in B&W. A number of photos are obviously taken indoors. And several have no people or anything resembling a street. On the other hand, there are some photos of buildings and streets, but not with people in them.

Cartier-Bresson: Generally B&W pictures of people, mostly casual portraits, but some are informally posed. There are more photos of people doing things than some of the other photographers show. A "street" is generally a minor feature, if one is present.

What most of these photographers' photos have in common are a B&W medium, and a predominance of portraiture, both formal and informal. The presence of a street of some kind seems more accidental than deliberate.

So, Dave, I'm confused. Is Authentic Traditional Street photography basically just black and white portraiture of generally-working-class people? Or is it that most of these photos were taken at a time when most people were working-class, and B&W film was cheap and plentiful? Could you perhaps list those characteristics that define Authentic Traditional Street? I really would like to know.

PAR4DCR Loc: A Sunny Place

With your permission Dave, may I post an image in this thread to see where it falls in your scale?

Don

blackest Loc: Ireland

It's a little tickly with some people posting pictures in threads they have started I'm fairly sure dave isn't one of them but how about posting your image in a new thread where it can be seen and discussed in it's own right and then when permission is granted it can be linked to within this thread There are [ img] tags (see on the left when you post a reply) which let an image be brought to a page from anywhere on the internet or just from another page on the hog.

With time zone differences and people having lives permission can be delayed. But a new thread can keep the conversation going while some members sleep work ect. Ok perhaps i'm being a little selfish and not wanting to wait. I think the one basic ground rule is that you can post what you want within reason within your own thread. If it doesn't engage it will wither and die naturally...

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

"Authentic Traditional Street" is an invalid title to attempt describing one particular style of Street Photography. It comes as no surprise that confusion results...

Lewis Hine (not Louis Hein as has been stated here several times) is not widely thought of by modern Street Photographers as one of the founders of Street, but Westerbeck and Meyerowitz, in Bystanders, repeatedly states he is positioned firmly along side Atget, Evans, and Cartier-Bresson as part of the group most influential in the 1930's (even though Atget died in 1927) in forming what later became known as Street Photography. Note that Hine and Evan were known as very independent and hard to work with. The Farm Security Administration (the folks that let Evans, Lange, and others loose on the world) would not hire Hine, even though Roy Stryker pointedly said that Hine and Evans were the most influential in guiding the photographic vision of the FSA. (Evans did get hired, and is famous for images he made for the FSA, but Stryker also fired him for the same reasons he would not even hire Lewis Hine.)

The point really though, has to be that Atget, Hine, Evans, Cartier-Bresson, and Lange (all mentioned here but the group also includes several others) all did what today is called Street Photography in the 1920's through the 1940's. They sometimes did Street that had no people and often did Street that had no roads and nothing urban.

It was actually that group, and that period, in which the genre of Street Photography was formed. The idea that it was urban photography of people only came into being in the 1960's and 1970's, and was due to the massive availability of great subject matter on the urban streets of New York City. But that also caused many to see "Street" as literally meaning it had to be on the street and was in fact defined as being on urban streets. Cartier-Bresson was extremely annoyed at that. Garry Winogrand, whose work became as much the reason for it as anyone, also detested the idea.

Joel Meyerwitz, who like Winogrand was the cause of these ideas, has been even today less adamant in blunt language to disabuse the idea, but does it with fine subtlety. "I didn't want copies of object. I wanted the ephemeral connection between unrelated things to vibrate." He has listed "impending", "tacit" and "unspoken" relationships. But not people, and not streets...

The reason Winogrand and Cartier-Bresson didn't like the name was because people then saw the streets and people but missed the subject of the photographs! They were photographing life, not streets.

When you scan images to find or grade ones you do find as Street, don't look for streets. That is not what Street Photography photographs are. Look for an image that shows life, in the sense of the relationships between people and their surroundings. That is Street Photography.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Some people are "tickly" about others posting images in a thread they start. That is valid in some sections too. In the Photo Gallery Section it is.

It isn't valid in the Street Photography section. Thread drift can be expected, as part of an open discussion, both in terms of text and imagery; and discussion appropriately can relate as much to all of the previously posted information in a given thread, and it need not be restricted specifically to the original post or to the intent of the person who originated the thread.

Do not take that to mean totally off topic distractions are acceptable. Pictures that demonstrate a point that is being discussed are what is acceptable. A picture that demonstrates only that someone other than the OP can take a pretty picture is not acceptable.

Even then I do agree that before posting it might be well to consider if it would be better to start a new thread. If it definitely would lead a charge in a different direction, start a new thread! But if a new thread would just lose all the significance, post in the existing thread.

Use judgment, and consider how the discussion will develop.


I don't view a thread as being owned by the person that starts it. This is an open forum. What you post, either as the OP in a new thread or as an addition to an existing thread, becomes part of an open discussion. It should not be considered between any two people, and it should not be considered property of an individual.

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

Hi, Don,sorry to late back to the party.

As far as I'm concerned you can post an image where you please. My opinion of it may or may not agree with anyone else's, but I'm hoping to get feed back on how much agreement there might be on the simple "Bystander Liberal Street" versus "Authentic Traditional Street" proposition.

Why not post it as a new item, ask for responses, and see what you get. Either way, I'll be glad to give you mine.

Dave

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

I've been asked by PM what I have against the book "Bystander".

Nothing, really. It simply reflects an attitude about a genre of photography that is permissive/descriptive as opposed to prescriptive. I prefer prescriptive.

I see it very much like the difference between the two sorts of dictionaries: descriptive versus prescriptive.

Descriptive dictionaries keep track of daily use of a language and adopt the most current usage of a word that can be found, whereas a prescriptive dictionary attempts to maintain a reliable constancy of meaning.

It is thanks to the descriptive/permissive dictionaries that, for example,
"insure" and "ensure" are considered synonyms.

As regards "Street photography" the "Bystander book" strikes me as leaning definitely toward the descriptive/ permissive persuasion. I simply prefer the more conservative prescriptive approach and see it as a means of preventing a distinct dilution, weakening, softening, bastardizing effect of "anything goes" upon the genre of "Street" that I believe to be the style intended and pursued by the most serious street photographers of the past and present.

Just one photographer's opinion.

Dave

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

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Voss,
Just a warning, this likely will not be short.

Thank you, Voss, for you observations and your statement of confusion.

First, yes, practically all their images are B&W. That is merely testimony to the fact that they all shot large numbers of exposures and,whether they processed their own images of left it to assistants, they wanted proofs to review ASAP. Color was too expensive and too slow from the processing point of view.
Today, with digital color,

You statement about the preponderance of portraits surprised me , so I did a quick skim of the Google portfolios of each of the four you examined and have to agree with you. But there are portraits, then there are portraits. Let's disregard the very few formal portraits that all these photographers did occasionally make. The rest fall under the rubric of either informal portraits or, loosely, "environmental,portraits" I suggest that the latter group deserve much closer attention. I question the term "posed". Few, if any, are "posed" as one poses for a formal portrait. Many, however, are obviously patiently...or impatiently... permitted. The portraits are generally of individuals encountered without attention to makeup, coiffure, and in their usual habitage, their daily dress and work clothes...sometime, often justifiably dirty. Such "portraits" would have been displayed mixed in with wider shots of the crowd amongst whom they were found or the place where, and the equipment with which they were working when Hine, C-B, Lange, or Brassai showed up with their respective cameras.

When we concentrate attention on the "non-portrait" images , in most cases we get more than a hint of significant aspects of their surroundings and associations,...and their reactions and responses to them. It may be the tired acceptance of a twelve-year old girl of her duty to keep full spindles stocked in a continually running industrial loom, a harried, frazzled waitress working eight tables at the noon rush, bored street walkers waiting at a corner for the evening influx of "johns", two suited, necktied fellows with briefcases rushing for the sam cab, or a group of teenage toughs each with a cigarette pack rolled up in his t-shirt sleeve staring sullenly at the guy with the lens. The images that show people in the midst of their lives ...lives likely different from, or similar to .....those of the ultimate viewer of the image...and which will be appreciated in those terms by the viewer...these are the images these four photographers were trying to make.

I suggest that when skimming these Google portfolios of up to about 250 images, concentrate first on the broad, long shots and last upon the portraits. to my mind, they fall into a more reasonable relationship that way. Why? Because that's how they were noticed and approached by the photographer.

I had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of a photographer who was shooting "Street" before it was known as "Street" and even was, a few times, the subject of his lens, though I've no idea if those latent images on Tri-X rated astronomically were ever developed. He carried a Leica with a short lens and a shoulder bag of film and burned through a roll of film faster than I've ever seen done before or since. I came to greatly admire his results, and to understand his drive to practice his art as he did, but knew I could never be that kind of photographer. Interestingly, to me at least, he made no effort to conceal his actions from his subjects, and often purposefully engaged them in a naturally friendly, open manner.

Some exceptional street photographers are known as well or even better known for their work as photojournalists, combat photographers (W. Eugène Smith) documentary photographers (Dorothea Lange, Lewis Hine) or travel/landscape (Graham Smith), so you have to seek their "Street" images more carefully among examples of their other styles.

I suggest you examine those portfolios more slowly and contemplatively...I think they grow on one. Street is, however, an acquired taste, and obviously, from discussions here, favored in differing flavored by different folk.

And by the bye, I've heard the comments that the portfolios of H C-B, Friedlander, Kline, and Winogrand include the occasional bucolic or pastoral landscape. Well, I photograph animal and wildlife. Does the inclusion of images from my grandson's wedding in my hard drive mean that animal/wildlife photography now includes wedding images? ....and no, the wedding was not a wild affair!

best regards, Voss,
I hope you enjoy the journey, if you decide to continue on it by whatever path,

Dave

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Studying what the book actually does say would demonstrate the fallacy of that description. Westerbeck and Meyerowitz cataloged a history, from Atget to the time it was published. They showed when the genre formed, and indicated causes. They showed when the genre evolved, and again showed causes. Since they did their work in the early 1990's, and Street had been dynamic from 1960 through 1980 and a bit static since then, that is where their history basically stopped.

The strange thing about your rejection of the book is that it is very much aligned with having a "modern definition" of exactly what you want to say is the entire history and only valid definition of Street.

Could it be that what you learned from 1960 to 1980 is just hard to get around, and seeing what came before you, as well as what has come since your first grasp of the subject, is just difficult to deal with? (That is a very common human trait. Often it is the cause of Luddism.)

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

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On the other hand, what we are facing now in the case of the definition of street photography is re-definition for re-definition's sake, Not for the encouragement of practicing good street photography.

And so, all an image must do is illustrate "a slice of life" ( your words, not mine...) to be, a priori an example of street photography?

Again, get real!

Dave

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

You could just cease defining and redefining what Street is...