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What do we photograph on the streets?

colint544

By colint544
in Street Photography

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Posted by jaapv,

This thread is suffering from overposting by a few members; I have hidden some posts. It is a an unwritten convention that we leave space for other participants. The reason is twofold: Overposting drowns out the other posts and, as important, if one floods a thread, the viewers lose interest and won't even look at those posts any more. It is equivalent to hogging a conversation. So: Please don't make endless posts with a large number of images, they are deadly boring, and don't po
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Chimichurri

Chimichurri

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47 minutes ago, Ken Abrahams said:

It means different things to different people.

Yes and this is the issue I have personally with the term Street Photography. It seems it can be anything.

And if something can be anything, then it’s nothing at all.

Nobody has any problems telling you what a portrait is or what a landscape is. It’s all pretty straightforward.

You know the surest way to know you’re involved in a scam? If you can’t explain it so a 5 year old can understand it. 

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colint544
colint544

I wander around my home city of Glasgow a fair bit. I always have either my Leica M Monochrom mk1, or an analogue M loaded with black and white film with me. I think that finding interesting photograp

colint544
colint544

A couple more. Cheers, guys.

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colint544
colint544

Glasgow - Leica M Monochrom mk1, 50mm Summilux ASPH

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Ken Abrahams

Ken Abrahams

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1 hour ago, Chimichurri said:

Yes and this is the issue I have personally with the term Street Photography. It seems it can be anything.

And if something can be anything, then it’s nothing at all.

Nobody has any problems telling you what a portrait is or what a landscape is. It’s all pretty straightforward.

You know the surest way to know you’re involved in a scam? If you can’t explain it so a 5 year old can understand it. 

Street Photography for me has a certain structure which at the very least includes people in the image. The Street Photograph incorporates candidness and supports a documentary style where either the environment or subject or both tells a story. Usually something quirky, spontaneous and opportunistic is a great way to represent Street photography. I think we can get overwhelmed with images these days and eventually "shadowy person in the light" becomes a kind of stereotypical repetitiveness. However not to Street Photographers who know what it takes to capture such a contrasty images. There is always something new out on the street, there are many ways to be creative with light on the street. The photographer develops a relationship to the Street, a style, an identity and way of expressing themselves through Street Photography.    

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colint544

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20 hours ago, Chimichurri said:

 


Thanks for asking. I’ve been discussing this with some people who call themselves “street photographers” lately.

I think Kevin Carter taking photos of kids in the Sudan documenting the terrible famine there, images so terrible it drove him to suicide, that that’s probably the hardest… or getting shot at in a war zone.

Regarding the so called “street photography”…

Personally I can’t stand the term “street Photography”, it describes nothing. I find most photography described this way is all style over substance. And most of it is really bad. It’s very rare to find a good “street” photo.  

Most “street photography” I see is mediocre derivative work that is basically people just going out and looking to fit a style.

All photography is hard if done well. 

That’s what I think..

Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer - and often the supreme disappointment…

- Ansel Adams. 

All I asked was do other people find it difficult to get good pictures when they're walking the streets where they live. I deliberately avoided the term 'street photography' because I don't really like the term either. I asked the question five years ago, and things have changed since then.

Everything has already been done. But that's not a reason to give up on photography. Photography is a wonderful thing, and almost all of us now have access to it. 

And Kevin Carter, yes. The child, the vulture, the backlash, and Carter's suicide. It's a memorable story, and often retold with a good dollop of schadenfreude. But I don't see what that has to do with the term 'street photography'

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Ken Abrahams

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Bus Stop Series - Candid Humans 

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PeterGA

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My daily walk isnt city streets so I make photos of people along the Queenscliff to Manly to Shelley Beach foreshore in Sydney ...everything does change over time and I enjoy looking back at photographs I took 10/20/30 years ago which achieve documentary signficance for me if no one else - everythign changes.

 

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tuna

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M11

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tuna

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Q2M

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tuna

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Street photo

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Ernest

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Hanapepe Main Street
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colint544

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I saw this fire from the motorway on Sunday week. Took the slip road for a closer look, and shot a few pictures. Fortunately nobody was injured. We get these fires all the time in Glasgow. Always on the weekend, and it's usually one of those 'inconvenient' historic listed buildings, which have lain unused for years.

I happened to have both my Leica M4, and Rcoh GR3 with me. I liked the pictures I got on the GR3, but I only today scanned this image from the M4. The file holds a lot more dynamic range than the file from the GR3. I was surprised how well this negative scanned.

Leica M4, 35mm Summaron 2.8, Kodak Portra 400

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Ernest

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Pelican & Two Birds
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tuna

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Q2M

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Ernest

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3 hours ago, tuna said:

Q2M

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You really have a handle on the solitary figure traversing urban terrain, a metaphor for the resiliency of the human spirit. Cheers, Rog

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tuna

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1 hour ago, Ernest said:

You really have a handle on the solitary figure traversing urban terrain, a metaphor for the resiliency of the human spirit. Cheers, Rog

Thanks Rog - yes, I tend to lean toward isolating the individual in my street shots - editing in that vein both as I shoot as well as later in choosing what is a “keeper”…

Tuna

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ruskkyle

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Setting up shop, Florence

CL + 23/2 TL

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Louis

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CL + 35mm TL

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Lumix S5; Sigma 28-70mm

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ruskkyle

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Street photography, Florence

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