What do we photograph on the streets?

[stephan54]

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On 8/8/2020 at 7:35 PM, Ken Abrahams said:

Frontline Police Horses  -  M10M with 35 Summicron 

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Nice protection for the face.  Here, Antifa has been breaking bottles over horses noses, causing significant injuries.

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[otto.f]

10 hours ago, andyturk said:

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Please tell a bit about it.

[andyturk]

10 hours ago, otto.f said:

Please tell a bit about it.

I was on my way back from buying coffee that morning. I had a 1lb bag of beans under my arm and a hot cup of coffee in one hand. My M10 was in the other--not easy to focus. This scene was happening at one of the main intersections in downtown Oakland where four police cars were stopped at various angles. When I got close enough to start photographing, the elderly gentleman in the cowboy hat was standing quietly with his hands behind his back. A few steps away, a small crowd gathered to watch and one member was particularly loud, yelling at the police.

Apparently, the police were looking for a "light skinned black male in a cowboy hat" who had just attacked someone with a knife. This guy, probably in his 60s, was close enough to that description that the police detained him. The woman on the phone appeared to be in charge and was quite frustrated by the lack of any other identifying information and the possibility that she might end up on the evening news because of the angry crowd.

The officers decided that he wasn't the knife slasher they were looking for and let him go after about 20 minutes. The old guy was super cooperative the whole time. I think I've seen him around before and he's always been dressed like he's going to church. It was a shame for him to go through that, IMO.

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[colint544]

Going through old folders on lockdown, I came across this image. I shot it in 2013, when my M Monochrom was still quite new. I used my 28mm Summicron ASPH for this shot. It was in Partick, Glasgow, where I lived at the time. I didn't know this woman, and she wasn't aware I took the picture. I got very caught up with trying to get a figure in the frame at the same time a train went across the bridge. But it's really just a snap of a passer-by. I liked the light on the street that night, because it was dusk. 

I think the culture is changing. I'm less comfortable taking pictures like this now. I'm thinking maybe a picture has to say something a bit more. Perhaps in 50 years, shots like this will be interesting. Or maybe people in the future will be horrified that this was even a style of photography.

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Edited August 19, 2020 by colint544

[farnz]

14 minutes ago, colint544 said:

I think the culture is changing. I'm less comfortable taking pictures like this now. I'm thinking maybe a picture has to say something a bit more. Perhaps in 50 years, shots like this will be interesting. Or maybe people in the future will be horrified that this was even a style of photography.

Hi Colin,

I think you may be overthinking this.  It's perfectly acceptable in law to take such a picture because the subject is in a public street and you can have no idea what her reaction might be - for all you know she might have felt honoured to have been included in the picture.  

We're all being wrongly put under pressure by a culture where people complain because they think someone else might be offended, probably because it plays to their own feelings of self-importance.  These people have no way of knowing if 'the someone else' would actually be offended and therefore their opinion is baseless and should be ignored as irrelevant at best or manipulative at worst.  Someone cannot take offence on behalf of someone else.

Please don't let these people make you doubt what your doing and stop you from taking your wonderful pictures.

Pete.

[colint544]

1 hour ago, farnz said:

Hi Colin,

I think you may be overthinking this.  It's perfectly acceptable in law to take such a picture because the subject is in a public street and you can have no idea what her reaction might be - for all you know she might have felt honoured to have been included in the picture.  

We're all being wrongly put under pressure by a culture where people complain because they think someone else might be offended, probably because it plays to their own feelings of self-importance.  These people have no way of knowing if 'the someone else' would actually be offended and therefore their opinion is baseless and should be ignored as irrelevant at best or manipulative at worst.  Someone cannot take offence on behalf of someone else.

Please don't let these people make you doubt what your doing and stop you from taking your wonderful pictures.

Pete.

Hi, Pete,

Thanks very much, I very much appreciate that. I think, ultimately, with the passage of time, it's usually best that someone took the picture. But I do feel a shift in public opinion, and it gets more difficult.

I take my hat off to someone like Bruce Gilden, who simply carries on regardless. He's coming under a lot of fire these days. Sure, he's obnoxious, difficult, and confrontational. But he's also frequently brilliant. And art should never be safe or easy.

Cheers,

Colin

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[Likaleica]

On 8/19/2020 at 6:25 AM, colint544 said:

Going through old folders on lockdown, I came across this image. I shot it in 2013, when my M Monochrom was still quite new. I used my 28mm Summicron ASPH for this shot. It was in Partick, Glasgow, where I lived at the time. I didn't know this woman, and she wasn't aware I took the picture. I got very caught up with trying to get a figure in the frame at the same time a train went across the bridge. But it's really just a snap of a passer-by. I liked the light on the street that night, because it was dusk. 

I think the culture is changing. I'm less comfortable taking pictures like this now. I'm thinking maybe a picture has to say something a bit more. Perhaps in 50 years, shots like this will be interesting. Or maybe people in the future will be horrified that this was even a style of photography.

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I worry that Colin is right.  I just listened to a photojournalism podcast where 4 working photojournalists concluded that David Alan Harvey's 1979 photographs of child prostitutes in Thailand were just too offensive (even though none of the 4 had actually seen the pictures) and that they should not have even been made in the first place.  They concluded that it would be ok to write about it or talk about it, but not make pictures of it, even though he was trying to bring attention to it in order to eradicate it.  And they judged something he did 41 years ago – on assignment to investigate child trafficking – by today's "standards." 

Pretty soon this woke, politically-correct, cancel-culture, hyper-paranoid, judgmental, safe-place, scared society that we are becoming will be just like the Victorian era, where such evils will not even be discussed and will flourish in the darkness.  That's an environment that evil prefers.  It will become impolite and offensive to photograph practically anything, including street photography.  Street photography will be considered an "act of violence," just as speech is becoming an act of violence.  People today actually claim PTSD for hearing something with which they disagree.  Who is to say that will not happen with photography?

Street photography is such an important genre.  It shows up who we are.  More importantly, it will show people in the future who we were.  

[erl]

On 8/20/2020 at 12:33 AM, colint544 said:

Hi, Pete,

Thanks very much, I very much appreciate that. I think, ultimately, with the passage of time, it's usually best that someone took the picture. But I do feel a shift in public opinion, and it gets more difficult.

I take my hat off to someone like Bruce Gilden, who simply carries on regardless. He's coming under a lot of fire these days. Sure, he's obnoxious, difficult, and confrontational. But he's also frequently brilliant. And art should never be safe or easy.

Cheers,

Colin

Colin, let me start by saying I admire much of your photography. I often 'like' your images but I rarely write comments on any pics on the forum, for reasons I won't go into here.

Regarding Street Photography, I have fairly fixed personal views. eg. I maintain that "if nobody has been offended, then no harm has been done". I stick pretty close to that mantra. What it means, in part, is that I must devise means and ways to make my images such that mostly I am unobserved before the image is captured. Also important for the spontaneity of the image. If the subject becomes aware afterwards, I deal with it as the immediate situation may demand. It is incumbent on me to pr-empt the reaction if any and behave appropriately before making of the image. For this reason I am not a fan of Bruce Gilden, because IMO he frequently offends his subjects, based on their recorded reaction. Also, I don't believe with that style he is capturing a true representation of 'life', but rather a reactionary one. Maybe that is what he wants. I have to ask why?

Allow me to illustrate one of my images that could be considered exploitative by some, but justified by my reaction at the time. It is an image I made in Cairo some years ago. The lady in question reached out to me. In return I photographed her as you see, but then I rewarded her by giving her money. Fair exchange? I believe so. Others may not. At that period in my life I spent a fair bit of my time photographing 'locals' with a view to documenting their lifestyles as compared to what I am familiar with. I still use one such picture each year as my Xmas card to friends to point out that others are having a different Xmas from them. One year I actually invited a homeless person (local) to my house for Xmas lunch. I remain friends with that person.

Here is the pic I referred to earlier.

 

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