jburlinson Loc: Austin, TX

Couldn't the truck photo just as aptly be called "portrait photography", since it's a portrait of a truck? Or, "sports photography", if it's a shot of a truck race? Or maybe it's "wedding photography", if the bride and groom are in the cab (aren't those tin cans tied to the back?) If the lens had a macro setting on it, couldn't it be "macro photography"? If that black blob at the right edge is a buffalo, wouldn't it be "wildlife photography"? Or, maybe it could be what it really is -- "landscape photography".

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

You could view it as a landscape. The other ideas are pure nonsense of course, but more obviously than the landscape concept.

It actually is simply and technically a bit of Street Photography.

A Street shot without a person seems to be a theoretical concept that is difficult. Of course HCB didn't do that, as has been noted to no significance at all. The actual "father" of Street did no people images quite often. Eugene Atget was famous for images without people in then.

But it also happens that a nice example was just posted in the Street Photography Section here on UHH.

http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-541441-1.html#9182865

shelty Loc: Medford, OR

Knock it off will you!

travelwp Loc: New Jersey

Since you could not provide a couple of names of those who agreed with you, you forced me to search the internet for Apaflo. I found this response to your truck photo very interesting:

"Information has come to me from various sources, from former contributors here, about your activity on the net, to whit Your calling this shot of yours an example of street photography:

Here's an interesting bit of Street Photography. No
people, no pavement, no city. An empty truck parked on
an unmaintained gravel "road". The nearest concrete
sidewalk is 500 miles south. A paradise to some, while
others say it is desolation.

I know of no street photographer who would not call this statement delusional.
Your saying Ansel Adams moonrise photo is street photography
I know of no street photographer who would not also call this statement delusional.

Your uncalled-for personal attacks ..........
Your very strange inability to hear what anyone else is saying to you in any forum.

Others can do as they wish, but I've put you on my ignore list.
Good bye."

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

Nobody called them street photography. Atget had been dead for decades before the term "street photography" was coined.

The mainstream definition of street photography is closer to candid photography - the subject is unaware of the photographer. It's unlikely that a building or a truck parked on the tundra are in any way aware of the photographer. It's a takes a flight of fantasy to refer to pictures of things as "street" but some people have a lot of time on their hands to dream up excuses.

Getting back to the original question, if you are an HCB wanabee, you should use a Leica film camera like he did or at least a digital with a rangefinder so you can see what is about to come into the frame. With any other type of camera you can only see what is already in the frame unless you aren't looking through the viewfinder or staring at the LCD.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

He will never live that down. If he had any good sense he would just ignore any reminders of his embarrassments. But then, we all know what we are dealing with.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Atget is today known as the "father of Street Photography". He took many images without a visible person in the picture. Those images are the original basis for what we call Street Photography today.

There is also no reason to require a rangefinder camera for Street. It is inappropriate to paraphrase an advanced level of discussion by Joel Meyerowitz on using a rangefinder, leaving out the significant details and an attribution. Meyerowitz has a good point for advanced photographers, but what he said does not apply to the questions posed by the OP.

See http://www.phaidon.com/agenda/photography/articles/2012/november/27/joel-meyerowitz-what-you-put-in-the-frame-determines-the-photograph-new-video-interview/

There is no validity in discussions directed at excluding any given photograph, or given style, through demonstrating illogical connections to negative aspects (such as that HCB never did it, or that inanimate objects cannot be aware of the photographer) of an isolated and non-universal characteristic of Street Photography.

The accepted definitions of Street Photography from the first publication by Colin Westerbeck and Joel Meyerowitz of "Bystander: A History of Street Photography" up to this day all accept that Street need not include even one person, nor does it need to be urban, nor does it require a roadway. It need not be a pretty picture, be either color or BW, or any of many other unique characteristics that are commonly seen in that genre.

Both selmslie and travelwp are illogical with their totally naive presentations of sophistry.

The more they rail against my photography in general and specifically about that one exsmple of Street the clearer it is how far out in left field they roam for the sake of vailed Ad Hominem to massage their insecurities.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

If you google "father of Street Photography" the overwhelming response is Henri Cartier-Bresson, no surprise there. I could find only a single attribution to Atget in A BRIEF HISTORY OF STREET PHOTOGRAPHY and the opinion that, "... it is usually accepted that Eugene Atget is the rightful father of the genre..." is easily debatable.

The notion is quite contrarian - intended to start an argument. Grandfather, maybe. I'm afraid your source is as much of a revisionist as you are.

But Jacob Riis would be a better choice for grandfather and Alfred Stieglitz did a lot more to promote all forms of photography as art.

A quote from Berenice Abbott says about Atget, "He will be remembered as an urbanist historian, a genuine romanticist, a lover of Paris, a Balzac of the camera, from whose work we can weave a large tapestry of French civilization." She doesn't mention street photography in connection to Atget despite being intimately acquainted with all of his work. Neither does Nancy Newhall in anything that I recall. Both of those ladies have more credibility than either you or your source.

But it really does not matter since you are willing to bend and twist your definition of street photography to fit anything you want including the truck on the tundra and Moonrise, Hernandez. Very little of your own is true street stuff, mostly portraits and very little candid.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Again you are arguing just to argue, are not concerned with any level of accuracy or significance in what you say, not to mention that you are trying to hijack this thread by never once being relevant to what the OP asked.

If you found only one reference to Atget as the Father of Street you are a poor or non caring researcher. Atget was doing Street before HCB was born! There is no competition between them except for the shallow exposure of the gloss found on Google!

Atget has many contemporaries and a couple of them preceeded his work, but he became the Father of Street Photography based on his popularity at the time.

https://streetphotography.com/a-brief-history-of-street-photography/

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

Really? That's exactly the same and the one and only link I provided that credits Atget. I guess you just skimmed my post and the article. The author did not really make a big deal about it.

But you could go back even further - to just about every photographer of the 19th century - and pick any one of them and make the same claim. They all took photographs of similar subjects and, because of the slow film available at the time, they hardly ever contained candid photography of people - mostly places, urban and country, that stood still or people who were posing.

So nobody really cares how you define street photography. That's just your opinion. You only get one vote and you are outnumbered, out in the cold.

The subject has been beat to death and we are done with your "arguing just to argue." It doesn't make you seem smarter, just more contrary.

So you can stamp your feet and hold your breath 'till you are blue in the face. We don't care. Like everyone else, I am un-watching.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

You spin up your own different personal opinion of how to define Street Photography for every post. I have always left that definition to professional, and authoritative, recognized historians by repeatedly references to Colin Westerbeck and Joel Meyerowitz, authors of "Bystander: A history of Street Photograph".

You should sit down in a library and read it carefully.

And stop trying to hijack this thread with nonsense and non sequitur.

tdekany Loc: Oregon

I’ll get to your reply to me later on, but if you think that your photo is such a superior street photography shot, how many contests has is won? It should clearly win just about any competition according to you.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

It would be nice if you could pay attention just one time!

Nobody ever said it was superior in any way that should ever win a contest. It is merely a good teaching tool. Not that it can help you, but...

jburlinson Loc: Austin, TX

If I understand you correctly, any image that contains an artifact of "humanity" would qualify as street photography. This is why the truck photo qualifies, since a truck is man-made -- or at least since it represents the intrusion of a human product into the surroundings.

I wonder if you would consider this an example of street photography. To me it shows "the relationship between 'the human condition' and the surroundings."

tdekany Loc: Oregon

No matter how much noise you make, your work is sub par