Is street photography dead in the Western world?

[NB23]

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Soo Bill you are really suggesting entering all contests.?

 

+1 there is no such thing as a un-biased professional editor, they all have their sweet-spot and price. Not saying contests is not good fun and brings out great photography, just agreeing that surely there is some personal weighting. (im ok with that its part of life).

 

"The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot

learn, feel, change, grow or love. "

 

.

 

Of course there's always a degree of subjectivity. That's the prime nature of human beings. No disagreement there.

[NB23]

Bill, funny attempts at sarcastically insulting me. You could be more original, though. 'tis getting quite old the thing where you disagree with me, therefore mirroring your personal issues onto me.

[bill]

Bless you Ned, hardly.

 

But you see I have a long memory and I recall your behaviour on RFF and why you were evicted from there. From your recent posts in this and a couple of other threads it seems you have learned nothing from that experience.

 

I shall watch with interest.

 

Regards,

 

Bill

[giordano]

Judges are trained to see very differently and to discern efficiently because of their Professional Editing Background, teaching or professionally shooting.

 

One simply acquires expertize by being around, and working with, pro photographers and Editors.

 

Which is it? Special training, or just hanging round?

[yanidel]

Bless you Ned, hardly.

 

But you see I have a long memory and I recall your behaviour on RFF and why you were evicted from there. From your recent posts in this and a couple of other threads it seems you have learned nothing from that experience.

 

I shall watch with interest.

 

Regards,

 

Bill

Well Bill, at least Ned had constructive opinions to bring to this thread, unlike you that just came to start a fight, and .... got it, congratulations.

 

I find your comments on his RFF eviction foul play and classless.

[bill]

You have an singular definition of ''constuctive'', Yanidel. I would remind you that I was the third respondent to your thread - that was before it was taken down a rabbit hole.

 

Best to you.

 

Regards,

 

Bill

[yanidel]

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You have an singular definition of ''constuctive'', Yanidel. I would remind you that I was the third respondent to your thread - that was before it was taken down a rabbit hole.

 

Best to you.

 

Regards,

 

Bill

I remind it. But you said "it was not a representative sample" ... with no further explanation on why you thought so.

Ned did explain several of his opinions in detail, I find that "constructive" to the thread.

 

Anyways, no big deal really, please let's get back to the subject.

[NB23]

LOL!

Let's say i didn't necessarily want to be a part of a group of people openly shilling for voigtlander (Gandy and friends), and so on.

You seem to give a high importance to internet forums defining your life.

I give a high importance to my own integrity and my own balls, which is what makes my life extremely succesful.

Bill, my follower, my dearest fan. I like you too.

[bill]

I give a high importance to my own integrity and my own balls, which is what makes my life extremely succesful.

 

 

Says it all, really. Good stab at rewriting history too. Laku noć, Ned.

[Bo_Lorentzen]

Will Y'all just knock it off.! here is a perfectly good thread and 3 guys whose opinions I happen to enjoy reading are all bickering over something other than the selected topic.

 

The mooneshine must be sitting bad with people after the game day. Today 3 customers have yelled at me and y'll are making noise over this stuff.

 

The real issue is what is happening to street photography, and I happen to care quite a lot about that issue. So. lets get back to the important stuff. (man when i worked for compuserve in a different century I would have cleaned this thread to keep the good stuff and given everybody a weeks time-out) darn it.

 

Personally I do think we all have seen European city street photography, and that very little of it is worth awarding (random shots of strangers slightly out of focus), but there are some really good stuff also, which both is serious and demanding photography, but also is capturing our world just as it is right now, and capturing that world in a more interesting way than a million cellphone snaps.!

 

The problem with street photography "may" be that it is a bit of a acquired taste, it is not as easily recognizable as a "wolf jumping over a fence" on 120 film, because it IS what we live everyday, Im from Denmark and honestly I never looked close at girls with blue eyes, maybe the same thing applies to photography.? for European or western judges it is simply more interesting to see people cook lunch on the street in Hyderabad than the same thing in Frankfurt.? So possible the interesting factor scores over the known, even for seasoned judges.

[NB23]

Says it all, really. Good stab at rewriting history too. Laku noć, Ned.

 

Your subjectivity, most probably.

Laku noć, dear internet police.

[bill]

Bo, what you are referring to is "habituation" - not "seeing" that which is familiar to you. It's why your shutter finger itches when you travel, but not when you are walking the streets of your home town. So it is with viewing images. The European palate is jaded; images of European street scenes do not inspire Europeans. Images of streets far away engage our attention far more, and vice versa.

 

Regards,

 

Bill

[Jager]

Bo, what you are referring to is "habituation" - not "seeing" that which is familiar to you. It's why your shutter finger itches when you travel, but not when you are walking the streets of your home town. So it is with viewing images. The European palate is jaded; images of European street scenes do not inspire Europeans. Images of streets far away engage our attention far more, and vice versa.

 

Regards,

 

Bill

 

That's the most cogent explanation yet on the discrepancy in non-western images referenced above.

 

And I agree with Bo on the other...

[yanidel]

Bo, what you are referring to is "habituation" - not "seeing" that which is familiar to you. It's why your shutter finger itches when you travel, but not when you are walking the streets of your home town. So it is with viewing images. The European palate is jaded; images of European street scenes do not inspire Europeans. Images of streets far away engage our attention far more, and vice versa.

 

Regards,

 

Bill

There could be some of that, but I find it strange that a jury of photography experts (assuming they are) would fall in that easy trap. As a general rule, I find all mainstream photography magazines in France to publish a lot of "exotic pictures", but it is not the case of the more specialized press which still shows a lot of Western photography and not only Cuban trips. So either the jury was not made of experts, or they did not receive a lot of submission because of rights of image issues.

 

Back to the term of "habituation', it is interesting and I'll experiment in one of my next trip, that is asking locals what they would shoot in their hometown, apart from monuments. I remember a trip in Argentina when a local came to me and told me he would like to see my pictures. He said "I would like to see how you perceive us" as most of the time people looked at me like a fool with my camera taking weird pictures in a small town

[bill]

Back to the term of "habituation', it is interesting and I'll experiment in one of my next trip, that is asking locals what they would shoot in their hometown, apart from monuments. I remember a trip in Argentina when a local came to me and told me he would like to see my pictures. He said "I would like to see how you perceive us" as most of the time people looked at me like a fool with my camera taking weird pictures in a small town

 

That would indeed be an interesting experiment. So often, when we are in familiar surroundings, we look but we do not see. We only notice when something is different - out of place. When out of our "normal" environment, everything is "new" - we are more aware of our surroundings. This concept is familiar to those who have to deal with speeding offences - many speeders are caught on roads that are familiar to them. On unfamiliar roads we tend to look, and take more care.

 

Regards,

 

Bill

[Guest stnami]

.

I find all mainstream photography magazines publish a lot of "erotic pictures"

[marioalessi]

I think as people get older, most become lost in nostalgia.

 

Longing for a simpler time, or a time where things are perceived to be more exciting, or wanting todays accomplishments to have the lasting effects of the accomplishments of those we admire from the past.

 

Many will never know the "lasting value" of their work will they are alive.

 

After New Orleans was hit with Hurricane Katrina, many people here professed that it should "be built back like it was" Suddenly I was confronted with what did they mean, vs what were they saying, what time period did they want?

 

After all New Orleans was inhabited by pirates, trappers, slaves, etc..

 

So while lots of here in Louisiana think that New Orleans was somehow better and it doesn't offer the character it used to, that "Character" is only relevant to what exists today.

 

As our society approaches THX 1138 our contests may turn out to be who can actually find anything at all to photograph.

 

You guys here really take incredible photographs, so much so that the bar has been raised to a pretty high level.

 

Sometimes I think having instant access to so many styles for photography that it makes is difficult to develop a style.

[cheewai_m6]

i was in melbourne australia this past weekend to watch the formula 1, it was indeed a spectacular spectacle. nice choice of words there. anyway, i'm from brisbane australia where street photography never lived, let along has died. but in melbourne, i had my leica with me and just walking through the city and the fringes of the city, i saw a lot of people carry cameras, i saw 1 other rangefinder user, but it wasn't a leica. however, i was taking photos in kiosks, on the street of people, and provided you're not in their face, they don't really care. melbourne is a great place for street and definintely not dead there.

 

i'm a local of brisbane, i know how people think here. if anyone says to me they've been to brisbane (goodness knows why you'd ever come to this place) and done street and haven't felt hostility, then i'm afraid you're not perceptive and you don't know what people here are thinking.

 

i have a feeling that street photography depends a lot on the mentality and culture of the city, no doubt. it ALSO depends on the residence of the city and how ignorant or naive they are to cultures of other countries. obviously a city like london is very cultured, but seems to be on high alert of potential terrorism etc. a place like my city brisbane, is a small city thinking they are ducks nuts, but really it's just full of sheltered ignorance. just my personal observations.

[gwelland]

I'm sure that there's probably an element of it being easier to photograph a 'foreign' location than your own home town. It's a psychological thing as I'm sure that visitors to Brisbane would find it easier to shoot there perhaps than you do.

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[yanidel]

I'm sure that there's probably an element of it being easier to photograph a 'foreign' location than your own home town. It's a psychological thing as I'm sure that visitors to Brisbane would find it easier to shoot there perhaps than you do.

This is a bit weird, but I think you are right. Would I be in Brisbane taking shots, I guess a status of tourist from Europe would lift any questions on why am I taking pictures. I would probably say "Just taking shots of Aussies so I can remember them" when I go back home

Funnily, I sometimes use that tactic in Paris. I play the tourist, do a huge innocent and dumb smile and people don't question anymore. I get a kick when they tell me in an horrible English "no pictchure".