Street photography with M240: tips

[andybarton]

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Sorry Paul, but I just don't get shots like an old lady enjoying her lunch. What is this supposed to tell me? Old ladies each lunch? Sometimes on their own?

 

How do you know that she's lonely, for example? She might have just been with or about to meet a group of friends.  You don't know - you are projecting assumptions into the photograph.

 

I am strongly of the opinion that 99.99% of all "street photography" is just a record shot of people going about their business and of very little interest to anyone else. I have taken such shots in the past, indeed I took some in New York last weekend. They are just boring, because most people walking about the street are, in fact, just boring.

[Herr Barnack]

That's the challenge of street photography - to make images of people doing something or involved in an event that is of significance and interest to the viewer(s) of the image. 

In other words, to capture the decisive moment. 

A street photograph where a decisive moment is captured will be interesting, if only to the image maker - and in the absence of a paying client,  we should be photographing for ourselves first and foremost.  Photographing to garner the smiles and nods of other people is a pointless and shallow pursuit.  JMHO.

[lct]

Nothing against Paul's pics i like much but the decisive moment is (was?) supposed to say something, not that a grand mother can wince when she's shot by surprise IMHO. Not my way of loving photography anyway. YMMV.

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[Ko.Fe.]

1 hour ago, andybarton said:

Sorry Paul, but I just don't get shots like an old lady enjoying her lunch. What is this supposed to tell me? Old ladies each lunch? Sometimes on their own?

 

How do you know that she's lonely, for example? She might have just been with or about to meet a group of friends.  You don't know - you are projecting assumptions into the photograph.

 

I am strongly of the opinion that 99.99% of all "street photography" is just a record shot of people going about their business and of very little interest to anyone else. I have taken such shots in the past, indeed I took some in New York last weekend. They are just boring, because most people walking about the street are, in fact, just boring.

Exactly. She might just having rest from her eight grandchildren and finally eat what she wants.

Titling candids has no merit, IMO, just as titling one image threads in the street photography sub-forum. 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.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

1 hour ago, Herr Barnack said:

Photographing to garner the smiles and nods of other people is a pointless and shallow pursuit.  JMHO.

‘Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable’

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Garry Winogrand.

https://www.indiewire.com/2018/09/garry-winogrand-all-things-are-photographable-review-1202005324/

[Ko.Fe.]

4 minutes ago, paulmac said:

I would be horrified if you actually liked my work so no worries.

Ugh? I was not commenting at your pictures at all. Just on the presence of frames and titles. 

[Ko.Fe.]

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8 minutes ago, paulmac said:

Irrelevant - but you did comment on the pic and also say that you didn't like adding a title to the picture.

No problem with you commenting as you can't post a pic on social media and not expect comments good or bad BUT  to me I take images for myself and am not looking to please others who don't see photography as I do and that would be ridiculous.

Your style of photography is not of interest to me BUT I'm absolutely sure that that doesn't bother you one bit and long may it be so.

As always good to hear your comments and thank you for taking the trouble to post them - I am always interested in what you have to say.

Regards Paul Mac

 

 

Wowza!

I did not comment on the pic. I comment on frames and titles, in general. And I comment on the comment, not even yours. Then I say "grandma might be not lonely. but having escape from eight grandchildren" it is not about the picture, it is about narrative (title) under the picture. 

To me the pic is the image. Not frame and titles or interpretations. 

Comment like yours "Your style of photography is not of interest to me" is the somewhat comment on the images. I like it, it shows what you have seen them.

For those who aren't:

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Copy of it is in private collection (USA).

Original in private collection (Australia)

Original in private collection (USA).

Original is private collection (Belgium).

Thank you for finding single style in them, Paul!

Going back to narrative titles, I mostly do not title. But I do have series "Pictures of Canada with Canadian Leicas", "Moscow, Malkovich and New Canadian", "Hamilton as I know it" where I post stories and my ESL feeling among pictures, but no titles on pictures.

Cheers, Kostya Fedot. 

 

[Steve Ricoh]

3 hours ago, Ko.Fe. said:

Wowza!

I did not comment on the pic. I comment on frames and titles, in general. And I comment on the comment, not even yours. Then I say "grandma might be not lonely. but having escape from eight grandchildren" it is not about the picture, it is about narrative (title) under the picture. 

To me the pic is the image. Not frame and titles or interpretations. 

Comment like yours "Your style of photography is not of interest to me" is the somewhat comment on the images. I like it, it shows what you have seen them.

For those who aren't:

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

Copy of it is in private collection (USA).

Original in private collection (Australia)

Original in private collection (USA).

Original is private collection (Belgium).

Thank you for finding single style in them, Paul!

Going back to narrative titles, I mostly do not title. But I do have series "Pictures of Canada with Canadian Leicas", "Moscow, Malkovich and New Canadian", "Hamilton as I know it" where I post stories and my ESL feeling among pictures, but no titles on pictures.

Cheers, Kostya Fedot. 

 

I love these photos of yours, Ko. Fe., particularly #2, 3 and 4. I understand you don't approve of captions, but I would be obliged if you would fill-in the background detail to these, including equipment used. As Paulmac said, we can and should learn from others, and I'm eager to do so.

Steve

[Ko.Fe.]

4 hours ago, Steve Ricoh said:

I love these photos of yours, Ko. Fe., particularly #2, 3 and 4. I understand you don't approve of captions, but I would be obliged if you would fill-in the background detail to these, including equipment used. As Paulmac said, we can and should learn from others, and I'm eager to do so.

Steve

Thank you, Steve.

Each photo is the link. Just click on it. It will show you all of the technical details.

#2 was taken on very foggy day.

#3 is on less foggy morning. I went on cookie cutters developing site and took last picture of giant oak which was killed by developers.

#4 is regular tourists spot where I'm

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Ko.

[Herr Barnack]

18 hours ago, Ko.Fe. said:

‘Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable’

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

Garry Winogrand.

https://www.indiewire.com/2018/09/garry-winogrand-all-things-are-photographable-review-1202005324/

Looks like a decisive moment to me...

[andybarton]

18 hours ago, paulmac said:

Why not post some of your New York  images up Andy - what is boring to you may not be to others who weren't  there.

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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[Ko.Fe.]

4 hours ago, Herr Barnack said:

Looks like a decisive moment to me...

Russian army anecdote:

"Major are crocodiles flying?

Are you nuts, of course not.

But General told they are.

Well... crocodiles fly, but very low."

 

Quote

Photographing to garner the smiles and nods of other people is a pointless and shallow pursuit.  JMHO. 

BTW, "decisive moment" is smoke in the mirror from old fox. HCB was pumping film through his Leica just as Winogrand did.  Just look at his contact sheets or read how much film he gunned through on trips like India. The only decisive moment for him was to look at ten frames in the sequence and decide which one will be best for sale.

[Steve Ricoh]

1 hour ago, 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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Having done a fair bit of Street Photography in the past, I became aware that I have close to zero skill in the genre with almost most of the images thoroughly boring - apart from a small handful of lucky shots. I changed avenue, as it were, and concentrated on urban landscapes. But like all things, after a while that too becomes repetitive, and boring. I'm turning my thoughts back to Street photography, but I'm several years older and can't run that fast. 

One of the key observations of Ralph Gibson: 'Don't copy other photographers, not even yourself.'

Sometimes I got lucky (MFT, Panny Leica 25mm 1:1.4 25mm lens)

Edited October 26, 2019 by Steve Ricoh

[lct]

1 hour ago, Ko.Fe. said:

BTW, "decisive moment" is smoke in the mirror from old fox. HCB was pumping film through his Leica just as Winogrand did.  Just look at his contact sheets or read how much film he gunned through on trips like India. The only decisive moment for him was to look at ten frames in the sequence and decide which one will be best for sale.

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

 

Edited October 26, 2019 by lct

[Steve Ricoh]

26 minutes 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

 

I read somewhere that HCB wasn't shy of cropping negs at print stage (he had someone print for him).

In his day there was no Leica forum, no Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram etc., so his subject would not worry about an image of themselves being plastered world-wide. In today's world, you take an image, you get caught and many will know what you're going to do with it. Naturally they feel uncomfortable. I've been caught many times and on a few occasions it turned rather nasty with verbal abuse. That aspect of street photography makes me reluctant to return.

[lct]

3 minutes ago, Steve Ricoh said:

I read somewhere that HCB wasn't shy of cropping negs at print stage

Did it once for his famous Gare St-Lazare image AFAIK. He was behind a fence he explained and he could not aim with the viewfinder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYYwqo8HKbw

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[Steve Ricoh]

I did one similar to HC-B with my Rollei 35. The resulting image was posted in the 'I like film' thread.

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Puddle Jumper by -Steve Ricoh-

Edited October 26, 2019 by Steve Ricoh

[adan]

I don't do a lot of street photography. Mostly because I'm not that interested in people as anonymous objects - I prefer to get to know them and their individual stories.

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.

Nevertheless, I do take unposed, candid photographs of people in "street-like" settings now and then. Usually event-crowds, because 1) people who join an event likely have an expectation (even an anticipation) of being photographed, and 2) there is more opportunity for human interactions (going up roughly exponentially with the number of people) - the whole is more than the sum of the parts. It can be argued that any populated street is an "unpurposed crowd," but one has to explore it that way, and not kid oneself.

My tips (some already mentioned or phrased differently) would be:

Add value - what, about the photograph you are taking, puts it above a random frame fired by a chimpanzee, or a selfie by your subject, or taken from the increasingly-ubiquitous video-surveillance cameras in cities? Anyone can shoot fish in a barrel, many can hunt deer, but capturing a unicorn is rare and special. The great street photographs are often 2-3 moments that all come together in one instant.

(On the decisive moment - it gets misinterpreted. It is not one thing happening. It is several (or many) different things out of a swirl of activity that all align cosmically at the moment the shutter is open. That is the unicorn.)

Work hard - if you don't need a nap after 4 hours of taking pictures (well maybe 8 if you're under 30 ), you weren't working your eye and brain hard enough. There is taking pictures to relax, and taking good (or great) pictures - with practically zero overlap between them. But on the flip side of that - don't expect credit for working hard. Either you get a great picture or you don't, and  no-one else is going to care how much work it took, just the result.

Corollary 1 - Work the subject. You get "a" moment - keep looking for a better moment. Shoot scared - there almost always exists a better picture and a better moment, even with the same subject.

Corollary 2 - be self-critical. ko.fe mentions that HC-B shot a lot and edited after the fact. Nonetheless, he had the eye to see which pictures were so-so, and which one stood out. Good picture editors run their loupe down a strip of film (all 36 exposures) in 10 seconds - unless and until they see a frame that yells "STOP!" Again, that's the unicorn. Not all rolls produce a unicorn - not all days produce a unicorn.

Think about what's in front of the lens right now - not a picture you already saw. If Cartier-Bresson or Ansel Adams or Bruce Davidson already did it - what do we need you for? Cartier-Bresson's puddle-jumper was fresh and new and unique in the 1930s - today it is old-hat. The human race has "been there, done that."

One of my college instructors warned us against "learned photographs" - getting a picture stuck in your head of some famous photo, and only looking for pictures that matched the "learned" photograph (in technique, subject matter, etc.). If you are in your first year of photography, it can be a useful way of learning (like art students copying Masters at the Louvre) - but a sure way of remaining a pointless beginner for your whole life, if you don't outgrow it.

"Yes, but I took it," only works at the age of 8, for Mom's refrigerator door.

(That does not mean there isn't also a place for parody and satire - see Steve Ricoh's image above - but that's a different genre than street photography. Street photography is about things that can never actually be replicated)

Do learn - from your own pictures. Again, a part of being self-critical. Why does this picture work better than that one? What are the weaknesses of each frame, not just the strengths. How can I do better next time?

Since we should practice what we preach - an example of mine, with the "contact sheet" leading to the moment - M8, 2007, Denver PrideFest, 15mm CV (speaking of scale-focusing).

I'll leave it to the readers to deicde what things "come together" in only one instant.

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

 

[ECohen]

40 minutes ago, adan said:

I don't do a lot of street photography. Mostly because I'm not that interested in people as anonymous objects - I prefer to get to know them and their individual stories.

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.

Nevertheless, I do take unposed, candid photographs of people in "street-like" settings now and then. Usually event-crowds, because 1) people who join an event likely have an expectation (even an anticipation) of being photographed, and 2) there is more opportunity for human interactions (going up roughly exponentially with the number of people) - the whole is more than the sum of the parts. It can be argued that any populated street is an "unpurposed crowd," but one has to explore it that way, and not kid oneself.

My tips (some already mentioned or phrased differently) would be:

Add value - what, about the photograph you are taking, puts it above a random frame fired by a chimpanzee, or a selfie by your subject, or taken from the increasingly-ubiquitous video-surveillance cameras in cities? Anyone can shoot fish in a barrel, many can hunt deer, but capturing a unicorn is rare and special. The great street photographs are often 2-3 moments that all come together in one instant.

(On the decisive moment - it gets misinterpreted. It is not one thing happening. It is several (or many) different things out of a swirl of activity that all align cosmically at the moment the shutter is open. That is the unicorn.)

Work hard - if you don't need a nap after 4 hours of taking pictures (well maybe 8 if you're under 30 ), you weren't working your eye and brain hard enough. There is taking pictures to relax, and taking good (or great) pictures - with practically zero overlap between them. But on the flip side of that - don't expect credit for working hard. Either you get a great picture or you don't, and  no-one else is going to care how much work it took, just the result.

Corollary 1 - Work the subject. You get "a" moment - keep looking for a better moment. Shoot scared - there almost always exists a better picture and a better moment, even with the same subject.

Corollary 2 - be self-critical. ko.fe mentions that HC-B shot a lot and edited after the fact. Nonetheless, he had the eye to see which pictures were so-so, and which one stood out. Good picture editors run their loupe down a strip of film (all 36 exposures) in 10 seconds - unless and until they see a frame that yells "STOP!" Again, that's the unicorn. Not all rolls produce a unicorn - not all days produce a unicorn.

Think about what's in front of the lens right now - not a picture you already saw. If Cartier-Bresson or Ansel Adams or Bruce Davidson already did it - what do we need you for? Cartier-Bresson's puddle-jumper was fresh and new and unique in the 1930s - today it is old-hat. The human race has "been there, done that."

One of my college instructors warned us against "learned photographs" - getting a picture stuck in your head of some famous photo, and only looking for pictures that matched the "learned" photograph (in technique, subject matter, etc.). If you are in your first year of photography, it can be a useful way of learning (like art students copying Masters at the Louvre) - but a sure way of remaining a pointless beginner for your whole life, if you don't outgrow it.

"Yes, but I took it," only works at the age of 8, for Mom's refrigerator door.

(That does not mean there isn't also a place for parody and satire - see Steve Ricoh's image above - but that's a different genre than street photography. Street photography is about things that can never actually be replicated)

Do learn - from your own pictures. Again, a part of being self-critical. Why does this picture work better than that one? What are the weaknesses of each frame, not just the strengths. How can I do better next time?

Since we should practice what we preach - an example of mine, with the "contact sheet" leading to the moment - M8, 2007, Denver PrideFest, 15mm CV (speaking of scale-focusing).

I'll leave it to the readers to deicde what things "come together" in only one instant.

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

 

 

Outstanding advice,  You are the reason I'm on this forum !!!

THANK YOU!

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[Guest]

Thank you for the video Paul Mac!

Very impressed by his work life today at 82. (If vanity adds to it - why not  no spectacles while working at his age, that would make Mick Jagger envious).

Here‘s another super-grand daddy at 89!