Street photography with M240: tips

[andybarton]

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15 hours ago, adan said:

Nor do I like treating people as anonymous objects (except where a wide crowd scene becomes its own story) - treating other people as objects that exist only for our use and entertainment is the first step on the road to slavery. And at best makes one a self-centered arse.

+1

[Steve Ricoh]

Like many I suppose I find the whole process of photography therapeutic, from the contemplation before pressing the trigger, through to the deliverable output. Someone said, but I can't remember who it was, he (or she) would get enjoyment from 'taking' pictures even if the camera wasn't loaded with film (or memory card to bring it up to date). 

Because humans have evolved to be social animals - probably through necessity to survive - I can see why there's a tendency to take pictures of people. This possibly explains why I'm drawn to 'people' photographs, more than I am to pictures of 'things'. 

So, if you don't like Street, what do you photograph? I'm interested to hear what others have to say.

[andybarton]

Gilden is the absolute prime example of that. 

[andybarton]

The big difference here, Paul, is that you are making a record of an event and the participants in it. This is photo-journalism 

 

You are not just taking photographs of random people on the street, either by assaulting them, as Gilden does, or just by taking their photograph for the sake of it. 

[Steve Ricoh]

Two further examples to demonstrate how street photography can be done well: Look to Colin Jones and his marvellous collection of photographs contained in his book 'Grafters' cataloging (mainly) the working class. It's a chronicle of life endured by the hard working class in the '60's (mainly) showing how stoic they were; individuals with character and dignity sometimes lacking today. Without such work visual memories such as this would be lost to humanity. Recommended viewing, released by Phaidon.

Another, but entirely diferent style, is a humerous take on human interaction without in any way demeaning individuals or poking fun at them: 'All that life can afford' by Matt Stuart. Again an excellent compilation of street photography, much in the style of Joel Meyerowitz, that's not so much about isolated actors, but that of the unintentional interaction between individuals within the photographer's frame of reference (a plus for rangefinders where it's possible to see outside the frame, and to compose appropriately).

[Ko.Fe.]

22 hours ago, lct said:

HCB did not sell his pictures as far as i recall. Was Magnum's job IINW. Interesting to read a bit of his "smoke" BTW:
« We photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished, there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again. We cannot develop and print a memory. The writer has time to reflect. He can accept and reject, accept again; and before committing his thoughts to paper he is able to tie the several relevant elements together. There is also a period when his brain "forgets", and his subconscious works on classifying his thoughts. But for photographers, what has gone, has gone forever. From that fact stem the anxieties and strength of our profession. We cannot do our story over again, once we've got back to the hotel. Our task is to perceive reality, almost simultaneously recording it in the sketchbook which is our camera. We must neither try to manipulate reality while we are shooting, nor must we manipulate the results in a darkroom. These tricks are patently discernible to those who have eyes to see. »
Henri Cartier-Bresson
The Decisive Moment
Foreword, page 5
July 22, 1952

 

Remind me who was the founder of Magnum and why it was created... Well, you don't have to remind me, but maybe check it for yourself.

As for manipulation in the darkroom check on this:

https://ca.phaidon.com/agenda/photography/articles/2013/may/28/magnum-and-the-dying-art-of-darkroom-printing/

https://petapixel.com/2013/09/12/marked-photographs-show-iconic-prints-edited-darkroom/

Magnums prints were heavily processed. 

I read HCB books and books about him. I have some of them at home. Some of them might be rare if at all in English.

If here is event or something happening just go where and forget all of these talks about "you have to ask permission from every person in the frame".  This is not what humanity was for him.  HCB first real job was hunting. He translated some of it to photography. This is where decisive moment is - where and why are you going, why are you taking peoples pictures and then. Of course it is not fare to impose something fake on your pictures after it was taken.

But Magnum prints went through huge amount of dodging, burning, masking and else. By the printer.

Magnum was created to monetize most effectively on pictures taken. To make sure all of the territories, big events are covered and  to have dedicated printer. 

I do print by myself and after while I realize what big print is often chosen not just because it is cool to have it big, but simply because large paper size allows easier manipulations. Dodging, burning, masking and else what is shown in the links I provided.    

Edited October 27, 2019 by Ko.Fe.

[adan]

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Paul, I'm sorry my remarks struck you as personal. If you remember your other post on your projects (in Barnack's), I like them very much.

In the Don McCullin video you posted, one of the significant features of his picture-process is that he engages with his subjects almost every time. They instantly cease to be anonymous, even if we don't always learn their names.

I apologize that the pix below are not Leica (albeit rangefinder, Mamiya 6, made a couple of weeks ago) - Like McCullin, I shoot film in medium-format these days, and that is what I was using on this day. (By very odd coincidence, this series was taken about 30 meters from my previous-page 2007 PrideFest series).

Also like McCullin, I try to engage with my subjects. I spent 10 minutes sitting on the sidewalk talking with Brandy face-to-face, learning how she came to be in Denver, what her life has been like, found out she was an activist fighting aganst Denver's "urban camping ban" (a bureaucratic attempt to drive the homeless off the streets at night). But I'll let her tell some of it in her own words (see below pictures).

In the case of a project, the occasional anonymous picture absorbs context from the rest of the project. We learn something about the faceless person outside the Arndale Centre because you photographed him(?), and because (s)he is included in your project on the dispossesed (otherwise, frankly, (s)he could be a hung-over college student).

It was famously said that the difference between Cartier-Bresson's pictures and Gene Smith's pictures was that in C-B's pictures we learn a lot about "the human condition at large" while in Smith's we learn a lot about the actual person in the picture. As with most such generalizations, that's wrong about half the time, but it still illustrates a certain dichotomy in reportage work.

Personally, I like to break the class stereotype of "the masses" precisely by forcing the viewer to encounter each one as a complete individual with a story, not as just a symbol. It's harder to ignore a three-dimensional person than it is to ignore a faceless "them."

Meeting Brandy, the McCullin video, this thread in general, and your own projects have all combined to make me think about how I can expand her story into a more complete project (or several). So many subjects, so little time....

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"No, I can't play this (ukelele). I'm trying to learn though. It was given to me by the wife of a friend of mine - he got killed when he was pushed off a freight car in a fight. It reminds me of him, so I keep it. We knew each other for years on the roads. I grew up in Florida - I've been in Denver a couple of years. Mostly I stay with friends I make - I don't like the shelters. I'd rather do my own thing. I like the streets; there's more freedom, but with this camping ban, it makes it hard to be free. That's why I'm helping fight it. The worst thing on the streets is the drugs - the fentanyl, the amphetamines. I've have lost maybe thirty friends to drugs - thirty people (long pause) thirty people, I can't believe it sometimes! I just can't believe it....

My name? Brandy....."

Edited October 27, 2019 by adan

[lct]

1 hour ago, Ko.Fe. said:

Remind me who was the founder of Magnum and why it was created... Well, you don't have to remind me, but maybe check it for yourself.

As for manipulation in the darkroom check on this:

https://ca.phaidon.com/agenda/photography/articles/2013/may/28/magnum-and-the-dying-art-of-darkroom-printing/

https://petapixel.com/2013/09/12/marked-photographs-show-iconic-prints-edited-darkroom/

Magnums prints were heavily processed. 

Not the same era. Mr Inirio you're quoting to was born in 1961, i.e. 9 years after HCB's Decisive Moment and he joined Magnum in 1992 while HCB photos published in his book were shot between 1932 and 1950. 

[Steve Ricoh]

2 hours ago, paulmac said:

One Saturday afternoon outside the Arndale Centre, Manchester, UK.

Indeed a random picture taken in the street. 

Is this stealing an image and being self-centered? 

What is it????

I am questioning everything I once thought that I knew - did I change or did society. Is this and images like it a legitimate picture or is it virtue signalling crap?

Leica M2 and an old 50mm Elmar F3.5 M lens wide open. 

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You're depicting the sad reality of our times; homelessness maybe, a street dweller perhaps, I'm not too sure. The persons identity is hidden to most, perhaps only those who know him would be able to offer an identify to the faceless person.

It's what you do with the image that really matters. If you're producing this as part of a collection to make a point to those who have the power for change, then it becomes a worthwhile cause. I get the feeling that you're not the sort of person to make this image to garner 'likes' on social media!

Its a powerful image, the low key processing adding to the feeling it induces.

[ianman]

On 10/25/2019 at 5:41 PM, Ko.Fe. said:

This is why I post in "What we photograph on the street" and never do frames and titles on my pictures. I see zero reason in narrowing of viewers interpretations.

I agree that viewers interpretations should not be narrowed. But why should that prevent the photographer from expressing what she/he felt when the image was taken?

[Herr Barnack]

8 hours ago, andybarton said:

The big difference here, Paul, is that you are making a record of an event and the participants in it. This is photo-journalism 

 

You are not just taking photographs of random people on the street, either by assaulting them, as Gilden does, or just by taking their photograph for the sake of it. 

That's one way of looking at it.  It also happens to be a personal opinion that I am 100% at odds with. 

Making photographs of other people is most decidedly not a form of assault - it is simply a form of photography.  Assault involves components of violence, physical contact and bodily harm.  None of those components are present when a person makes a photograph.

Did Winogrand "assault" hundreds of thousands of people in his career as a photographer by the simple act of pointing his lens at them and pressing the shutter button?  No.

Making photographs just for the sake of making photographs is not unethical, immoral, obnoxious, unjust, abusive or exploitative.  Having a person in the photograph rather than a rock or a tree does not suddenly change that.

Quote

Definition of assault

 (Entry 1 of 2)

1

a : a violent physical or verbal attack

b : a military attack usually involving direct combat with enemy forces an assault on the enemy's air base

c : a concerted effort (as to reach a goal or defeat an adversary) an assault on drug trafficking

 

2

law

a : a threat or attempt to inflict offensive physical contact or bodily harm on a person (as by lifting a fist in a threatening manner) that puts the person in immediate danger of or in apprehension (see apprehension sense 1) of such harm or contact — compare battery sense 1b

b : rape entry 1 sense 1

Source:  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/assault

Edited October 27, 2019 by Herr Barnack

[andybarton]

13 minutes ago, Herr Barnack said:

Making photographs of other people is most decidedly not a form of assault - it is simply a form of photography.  Assault involves components of violence, physical contact and bodily harm.

Well, we will have to agree to disagree that what Gilden does constitutes assault. 

[Ko.Fe.]

4 hours ago, lct said:

Not the same era. Mr Inirio you're quoting to was born in 1961, i.e. 9 years after HCB's Decisive Moment and he joined Magnum in 1992 while HCB photos published in his book were shot between 1932 and 1950. 

It looks like you are unwilling to read why and by whom Magnum agency was created. 

So, believe it or not HCB is one of the heavily involved co-founders of Magnum and the only big reason for it was to  own the images, not taking pictures for media which will own the pictures copyrights. It about who get the money most.

HCB photos were heavily processed in the darkroom by the Magnum affiliated printer.

 

 

[Ko.Fe.]

9 minutes ago, andybarton said:

Well, we will have to agree to disagree that what Gilden does constitutes assault. 

Flashing people on the street is only one type of photography BG does. He is also photographing arranged photo sessions.

It is up to any individual to feel about his into the face flashing, I'm not bashing it as an assault. Yet, my light sensitive eyes will be in trouble after it. I don't like to use flash because of it on the dark streets this much. Someone else might be with the same eyes like me.

[lct]

27 minutes ago, Ko.Fe. said:

HCB photos were heavily processed in the darkroom by the Magnum affiliated printer.

I could not disagree more. Have you heard about Pierre Gassmann and Voja Mitrovic, the printers working for Magnum in Paris after WW2? Just curious.

[250swb]

I don't know about being 'heavily' processed, but for them to have the HCB style, and for them to look balanced, and for them to not have blown highlights or clogged shadows, then they are manipulated like any other film based image. Somebody chooses the paper grade and type (warm or cool), somebody burns and dodges, somebody throws failures in the bin, somebody makes a choice of which the one final print will be. And let us not forget a lot of HCB's contemporary images will have been chosen for publication by a picture editor and not necessarily the photographer.

[250swb]

16 hours ago, adan said:

 

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"No, I can't play this (ukelele). I'm trying to learn though. It was given to me by the wife of a friend of mine - he got killed when he was pushed off a freight car in a fight. It reminds me of him, so I keep it. We knew each other for years on the roads. I grew up in Florida - I've been in Denver a couple of years. Mostly I stay with friends I make - I don't like the shelters. I'd rather do my own thing. I like the streets; there's more freedom, but with this camping ban, it makes it hard to be free. That's why I'm helping fight it. The worst thing on the streets is the drugs - the fentanyl, the amphetamines. I've have lost maybe thirty friends to drugs - thirty people (long pause) thirty people, I can't believe it sometimes! I just can't believe it....

My name? Brandy....."

The photographer can add to reality or change reality in a split second. The point where reality changes is often very subtle and I think your caption points very much to positively adding to reality and the angst displayed by the subject. I say this because your 'contacts' shown alongside reminded me of Diane Arbus and the photo of the boy holding the toy hand grenade. Most people take it that the boy has been wound up by Arbus to the point of extreme frustration and anger by the expression on his face. But in her contact sheet the boy is playing happily and performing for Arbus and the image we see is actually a split second where he pulls an angry face. I think this is where photography changes reality because there is no context such as a caption. I'm not saying one is better or worse than the other, a changed reality can make you think as much as intensifying reality, the important thing generally is that the photographer takes responsibility by understanding which is which.

[evikne]

I think this guy has a lot of good tips about street photography:

http://www.yanidel.net/street-photography-articles/technique/

[Herr Barnack]

19 hours ago, andybarton said:

Well, we will have to agree to disagree that what Gilden does constitutes assault. 

I certainly do not endorse, advocate or defend his methods of doing street photography, no do I employ his techniques myself. 

IMHO Gilden's methods are inappropriate, inconsiderate, rude and leave the subject with a negative experience of being photographed.  That does no good for the rest of us who just want to do street photography without being harassed.  "A velvet hand, a hawk's eye - these we should all have" are the watch words of a street photographer, at least from where I stand.

Pushing the photographic envelope is usually a good thing, but it is possible to have too much of a good thing.

Edited October 28, 2019 by Herr Barnack

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[frame-it]

On 10/26/2019 at 11:05 PM, andybarton said:

Here's one.

Some people, standing on a kerb, waiting to cross the street. LIke about 4Bn people do every day of the week, everywhere around the world.

This is why I don't do "street photography"

 

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nice shot...cool ecosystem