Sean Reid on Street Photography: Meaning?

[larry]

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The Beardsley quote states that the emotion can come to a large degree from form. which is what I was saying. But I wish the form of the writing would reflect the simplicity of the idea!

 

—Mitch/Paris

 

Mitch,

 

No kidding! Although an interesting read, I was having painful flashbacks to the six semesters of art history I took in college.

 

Larry

[peterb]

Who's Findus?

 

I see a lot of commentary about something he wrote (in particular apparently some attack on Sean R who's writings I greatly admire) but I don't see it on my browser.

 

Were his remarks removed?

 

P

[sean_reid]

Who's Findus?

 

I see a lot of commentary about something he wrote (in particular apparently some attack on Sean R who's writings I greatly admire) but I don't see it on my browser.

 

Were his remarks removed?

 

P

 

Hi Peter,

 

Findus made a personal attack on me, my site and my article about the "Street Photography" despite having never read the article nor any other article on the site. In fact, she doesn't know the first thing about me or my site. She apparently was unhappy about this present thread as she has been about various M8 threads on the forum. I don't know if she's still here but her post in this thread was removed.

 

The moderators on this board are doing a good job of enforcing the rules. We knew what those rules were when we signed up. Anyone who can't abide by them doesn't need to be here. The old list had some really ugly troll invasions a few different times. On the new list, I don't think there's a high tolerance for that kind of B.S. Having once run a list myself, I say kudos for real moderation.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Well just to add I have reported Findus twice in the last couple days. Enough is enough. If you can't add any value to a discussion than really what is the point and this person has yet to say ANYTHING worthwhile.

[Guest malland]

Sean:

 

Perhaps we can now get the thread back to what we were discussing, and hope you will address the point of emotion and form.

 

—Mitch/Paris

[smokysun]

beardsley, the short form.

 

Fusion theory: in the best works form and content react chemically, creating an explosive experience.

 

Are they in tune with each other? Do they back each other up?

 

People fight over which is more important: form or content?

[sfage]

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What a wonderful thread!

 

It is difficult to find a balance between speaking "to" an audience, rather than speaking "at" an audience. I find so much of that in art these days. I think the most important thing is to create a context... and within the context, is a story.

 

That is where the art is.

 

We can discuss tools and grammar ad infinitum. It becomes pointless and storyless. That is the antithesis of what the tool was designed for.

 

Paint brushes do not paint paintings. A paint brush is a stick with some hair on it.

[hyper67]

To be significant an activity must be “expressive of meaning”; to have consequence it

must have an “effect or result”.

 

Street photography is like any other art form - an expression of the artist's vision. What distinguishes this particular area of practice from most of the classic art mediums IMHO is the ease in which one can claim to have produced a final work of art. (In fact it is one of the reasons why I have been drawn to this particular area in photography; having worked as a graphic/multimedia designer for a number of years the idea that you can attempt to create a picture worth a thousand words is both seemingly simple and at the same time so elusive – a great challenge).

 

The final result however should be judged under the same stringent parameters as to what constitutes an image as significant or consequential. Having said this however, seeing is a personal expression of the artist. A photograph represents this vision and it is up to the viewer to decipher the encrypted message according to his interpretation of the world.

 

Having a broad and open mind is key to allowing the viewer to see things and uncover things that he sometimes takes for granted in his everyday life.

 

A personal best for me is the work of Magnum photographer Trent Parke...

[Guest malland]

It seems to me that it's good to discuss specifics. In my original posting I wrote:

 

I then started thinking about my own photographs. After getting my Ricoh GR-D in July I've been shooting more and more street photographs because this camera lends itself to a loosening of style that I find particularly useful for street photography. Looking at all the pictures that I've shot that I like with this camera — there are 98 of them now — at http://www.flickr.com/photos/10268776@N00/ I think the meaning comes mainly from the form.

 

But of these pictures there are 55 that in the Bangkok Series set at:

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/1026877...7594271568487/

 

From these I intend to select about 40 to add to 52 other photographs that I have taken with the M6 for a book called Bangkok Hysteria © and to me, therefore, these pictures have another layer of meaning that comes form the structure of the book.

 

Any reactions?

 

So, do you have any reactions in the context of the discussion?

 

—Mitch/Paris

[Guest stnami]

Any reactions?

There are too many images to get a focused view on what you are trying to do,say, show etc,When the audience is confronted with this amount it creates a sameness and the individual image/content is lost, competition becomes fierce. It all looks like it is done over a short time span, there is a repetition in tonal values, no low key images thus a constant pace. A lack of real image contrast not enough subtle caress of the subject, Other than that a great start but not resoved enough to make a captivating book

 

Monroe C. Beardsley stars to trip over himself as he loses touch with a simple action that he over theorises

 

....a general shift towards a depiction of the civilian suffering.

Sells better than blood, Salgato used this technique to great success when he did some work for the big coffee makers showing how they cared not exploited their workers unfortunately that is far from the truth.

 

Having a broad and open mind...

sadly a luxury for the very few

[Guest malland]

There are too many images to get a focused view on what you are trying to do,say, show etc,When the audience is confronted with this amount it creates a sameness and the individual image/content is lost, competition becomes fierce. It all looks like it is done over a short time span, there is a repetition in tonal values, no low key images thus a constant pace. A lack of real image contrast not enough subtle caress of the subject, Other than that a great start but not resoved enough to make a captivating book.

 

Thanks for the comments, which I find interesting and about which I have to think a bit.

 

There would be some 40 pictures from Bangkok Series for the book, and there are 58 other ones shot with the M6 that aren't shown here: many of the latter have quite different values (tones) and somewhat different image content — and, of course, Idon't have the structure of the book here.

 

What do you mean by "low key images"?

 

—Mitch/Paris

[Guest stnami]

Tonal value describes the relationship of tone between one part of a photo and another, These days some photographic circles use a simplified version refer to low key as contrasting( less tonal values from B to W) basically what a lot of your images are. A high key as an image that contains no true blacks but divided in to many more tones.

I learnt mine via Soviet style drawing classes which is the opposite to what happened in the west and more akin to music and had such things as low major low minor etc, a throwback to .."Whatever you do in the West we will do the opposite days"

 

So to cut this long tale short there are too many contrastng images

[msr]

 

So to cut this long tale short there are too many contrastng images

 

I am going to wade in here. The strong contrast of light & dark in Mitch's photos is known as chiaroscura in painterly terms and has been used effectively by many artists, particularly Rembrandt. I took the time to go through Mitch's portfolio and was impressed enough to then research the camera that he was using.

 

I liked the graphic quality of the images and didn't think that there were too many of them but rather that the portfolio needed to be a little more rigorous as to what it was about, which brings us back, full circle, to that thorny issue of the harmonisation of form and content. And believe me, as a professional artist (http://www.malcolmrains.com/), this is the major problem that every artist has to reconcile in one's work. And sometimes that search can take a lifetime.

 

A great book, full of images, that every creative person would do well to look at is John Pawson's MINIMUM. He addresses this very issue of the amalgamation of form & content in its most essential terms.

[sean_reid]

It seems to me that it's good to discuss specifics. In my original posting I wrote:

 

I then started thinking about my own photographs. After getting my Ricoh GR-D in July I've been shooting more and more street photographs because this camera lends itself to a loosening of style that I find particularly useful for street photography. Looking at all the pictures that I've shot that I like with this camera — there are 98 of them now — at Flickr: Photos from Mitch Alland I think the meaning comes mainly from the form.

 

But of these pictures there are 55 that in the Bangkok Series set at:

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/1026877...7594271568487/

 

From these I intend to select about 40 to add to 52 other photographs that I have taken with the M6 for a book called Bangkok Hysteria © and to me, therefore, these pictures have another layer of meaning that comes form the structure of the book.

 

Any reactions?

 

So, do you have any reactions in the context of the discussion?

 

—Mitch/Paris

 

I will try to look at them soon and comment with respect to the discussion. I need to be mentally sharp to do that and I am not right now - need more sleep - was up very late working on pictures for a client. I don't dare try to talk about something as important as pictures without having a clear head.

 

Cheers,

 

 

Sean

[Guest malland]

I liked the graphic quality of the images and didn't think that there were too many of them but rather that the portfolio needed to be a little more rigorous as to what it was about, which brings us back, full circle, to that thorny issue of the harmonisation of form and content.

 

Thanks. I assume that you understand that only pictures from the "Bangkok Series" are for the book and that I'll select some 40 of them to add to some other ones that I have.

 

I took a quick look at your website and found your work very interesting. Unfortunately, I have to rush off to the airport but shall have another look tomorrow afternoon after I arrive in Bangkok — if I manage to fight off jet-lag.

 

I'll also look at the book that you recommend.

 

—Mitch/Paris

[smokysun]

hi mitch,

 

your inquiry has brought up so many interesting thoughts from people it's hard to know where to begin.

 

but i think this idea of a discussing a book rather than an indiividual photos absolutely excellent. it usually takes a series to tell a story. (and i was raised on life magazine.)

 

first: theme. looking at your pictures you've got a lot of women (not surprising). what's unusual is you've focused on the 'good' girls of thailand and not the sex workers. you show the other side. that might be worthy of a book.

 

as to high contrast, i think once you have your theme you'll decide what's appropriate. in a book, one pic at a time, it's a lot different than seeing all your thumbnails together.

 

say you pick the theme 'good' girls, does the darkness display what you feel about them?

 

shane brought up a good point: speaking at the audience or to them. for me this means: are you drawing the audience in or coming at them. either is valid. for the past hundred years people have been trained in assembling a whole from fragments. (the attraction of ruins.) many of your pictures caught out of the corner of your eye. these stimulate the audience's imagination.

 

leave something for the audience to do. take a look at the work of kratochvil. he displays a world in glimpses.

 

i'm sure people will come up with many good points. the final choice, of course, will be yours.

 

wayne

 

ps. just tried something similar. high contrast pics taken in the woods, etc., in an attempt to get the audience to see 'the figures in the carpet.'

creatures in the landscape Photo Gallery by wayne pease at pbase.com.

[sfage]

I think one of the problems is the definition of a single motive... and an opposing or "dissonant" gesture to surround it with. That, for me, is the difficulty. It is a sort of excercise in excise... to take out that which does not need to be there.... and augment what "does" need to be there.

 

I would imagine that is one of the hardest things to do in street photography.

[smokysun]

hi shane,

 

i agree with you. i just went thru all of mitch's pics of bangkok and confirmed: the one theme is women - old, young, students, businesswomen, etc. they are in about 80% of the pictures. so i think he has no choice. and i would recommend he eliminate all the others, go back and find more pictures of women he hasn't shown and build a complete repertoire.

 

hi mitch,

 

you can see my feelings above. as for printing, high contrast stuff doesn't find much favor on this form (edward weston more the standard). but today at the library i looked at bill brandt again. high contrast. very strong forms. and he does it by making sure the highlights stand out of the darkness.

 

and you might try cropping these photos in all kinds of ways, maybe only showing shoes and a handbag in one, etc. i think you have all the material you need to do this theme.

 

wayne

 

ps. two photo ops i missed in bangkok: fortune-tellers setting up after dark on the grass around a park, lit by candles. and a street-corner during the day where all these little bands performed every kind of music - all the musicians blind.

[Guest malland]

Please keep in mind that you're looking at 55 pictures in the Bangkok set, from which I shall choose about 40 to add to 52 pictures that I already have that aren't shown on the flickr site. The theme of the book is about living in a large, chaotic city like Bangkok, and this is the reason for the Bangkok Hysteria © title.

 

The book has a structure that I would call "poetic", with four chapters, each of which starts with a similar picture (close-up shots of fish in a market), but which in each case reflects the theme of the particular chapter; and each chapter ends with a nude followed with a picture of palm leaves that in some way (light or form) echoes the preceding nude. I made up a dummy with the original 52 picture and saw that the this structure needed more pictures, otherwise the repetition of having the same type of picture as the first and last of each chapter became to "insistent." With the addition of 40 pictures, for a total of 92, this structure I feel now works. I also think that the tonality of the pictures also works well for the theme and meaning.

 

I should also clarify that I wasn't trying to get you to look at the Bangkok pictures to find the theme. Rather, my original question was whether meaning in these type of pictures — street photography if you will, although I don't really think of them as street photography -- can come from the form (and also content) of the pictures themselves. In other words, are such pictures, or these pictures, meaningless or does the meaning emerge at different levels and in different ways for different people in the way meaning emerges from a poem.

 

—Mitch/Bangkok

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[John Maio]

Sean,

 

Please take a break from these addictive forums and finish Part Two of your series

 

I sign in to your site every few days looking for more. I'm very interested in some of the more practical aspects of this art form. For example, when is it necessary to obtain model releases (for people and property) and how do you approach that? What about photographing in non-tourist settings without being questioned by security authorities? How do you approach photographing kids without raising suspicions about intent?

 

We've all read about incidents involving issues like these on various forums and I'm curious about your approach to this. I realize that cultural attitudes and laws vary across the world, but "invasion of privacy", ironicaly even in public, seems to be a popular issue these days, and I'm not just talking about the work of "celebrity photographers" (that's the kind and gentle term)

 

Will you be covering some of these issues?