What is, and is not, street photography?

<blockquote>

<p>"It seems dangerous to be a portrait artist... because everyone wants to be flattered, so they pose in such a way that there’s nothing left of truth." HCB</p>

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<p>Love the guy's work. Rarely has more silliness been uttered. He shows little understanding of portraits or truth. Inspiring photographer, though. Significant one as well.</p>

<p>Fred,</p>

<p>But, he said it with a really cool French accent.</p>

 

<p>Richard, of course. Now I get it! :-)</p>

 

John, thank you very much for your kind words about our project. Travis and I really appreciate it!

<blockquote>

<p>"It seems dangerous to be a portrait artist... because everyone wants to be flattered, so they pose in such a way that there’s nothing left of truth." HCB<br>

Love the guy's work. Rarely has more silliness been uttered. He shows little understanding of portraits or truth. Inspiring photographer, though. Significant one as well.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I don't think it's silly at all. I think you just don't get it. He shows a great understanding of portraiture with that comment since everyone <em>does</em> want to be flattered when they know they are being photographed. A good portrait photographer is one who can manage to capture the truth of the subject despite their efforts to "pose" away who they really are. They manage to engage the subject in such a way as to get something real. One of the endearing things about child portraiture is that they haven't yet learned to "pose", to put on their social masks.</p>

<p>I think he also hit the nail on the head as far as street photography goes. As soon as people know you're photographing them the mask goes on and the truth of the situation, the innocence or rawness or realness of it, leaves. I've seen it happen too many times where you're photographing someone, they look up and see you, and everything about them changes...the face, the body posture, the energy they project.</p>

<blockquote>

<p> everyone <em>does</em> want to be flattered when they know they are being photographed. </p>

</blockquote>

<p>This is a pretty strong statement, and I don't think it's true. Many of the people I photograph know they will not be flattered by some of the photos I take. They are more interested in what I will show than whether it's flattering. Example, he liked this despite its total lack of flattery...<br>

<center><img src="http://spirer.com/images/blakewilliam.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="525" /></center></p>

<p></P>

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<p>As soon as people know you're photographing them the mask goes on and the truth of the situation, the innocence or rawness or realness of it, leaves</p>

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<p>Same for this statement. If people accept you as part of the environment, the photography becomes irrelevant. This was taken after five minutes or so standing in front of them on the street with my camera.</p>

<p><center><img src="http://spirer.com/images/healing.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="467" /></center></p>

<p>It's all about the photographer, the photographer's patience, and the photographer's self-presentation.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>everyone <em>does</em> want to be flattered when they know they are being photographed</p>

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<p>Christine, perhaps at the Walmart level of portrait photography that's true. Check out Avedon's non-fashion stuff sometime. Ask yourself if those subjects wanted to be or thought they would be flattered.</p>

<p>A good portrait photographer can work with pose not to distract their subject from posing the truth away but in order to get their posing to wring the truth out of them, somewhat the same significant kind of truth that actors, with very deliberate gestures and body movements, achieve.</p>

<p>I'm certainly not hear to argue with you whether I get it or not. </p>

<p><strong>Christine Mitchell - "...</strong>everyone <em>does</em> want to be flattered when they know they are being photographed."</p>

<p>My experience is parallel to Jeff's. A lot of people grasp the truth of the situation, and accept it. Or, they are genuinely flattered in a very different way to have been chosen by the photographer. With an intuitive understanding of what is going on, they participate in the making of the portrait.</p>

<p>The mask is not energy-efficient to sustain. If a photographer is incapable of sidestepping it (which demands some intuitive human engineering), the best way is to hang in there and eat up time. Eventually, the subjects tire and let go of the mask. They kind of go through a series of stages (similar to those of grieving, but in a very short cycle).</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Masks have great truth to them. Photographing the masks can be an end in itself. The mask needn't be sidestepped, though it certainly can be sidestepped to great effect and truth.</p>

<p>The fact is, we DO wear masks all the time. Photographs that either portray or confront those masks, as masks, have as much truth as photos that strip them away.</p>

<p>Well, yes, I meant sidestepped to another mask/different/other aspect truth if you don't want that which is being presented. Frankly, if there's time, I explore them instead of moving past them, but one doesn't always have time. A little directorial effort can go a long way towards either shifting masks, or getting the subject to a particular place. And I was specifically speaking of the mask of self-flattery, though that can be a very revealing one. I love the transitions between masks, or the micro-expressions that leak out as the efforts to sustain a particular mask waver, but those require both anticipation and speed of the photographer.</p>

<p>Luis, I knew you knew what you were talking about. My response was more to address some of the simplifications I was hearing.</p>

<p>Good portraits are about a lot more than some futile debate about which is more true, candidness or pose, or a kind of one-dimensional vision of masks as somehow a hiding of truth.</p>

<p>If someone looks up at a street photographer and everything about the subject changes and the photographer isn't able to get a meaningful photograph out of that, then the photographer may need to see better and learn more. Sure, it could ruin the shot. But it doesn't have to most of the time. What's happening in most of those cases is that THE PHOTOGRAPHER has been exposed (the subjects have eyed you) and THE PHOTOGRAPHER can't handle it.</p>

<p> Is there a <em>true</em> self? I agree that posed or un-posed or somewhere between a person is largely un-knowable. I agree with HBC. A portrait is an incomplete, asymmetrical collaboration based on available evidence and subject to every participant and every viewer's biases. Once before in a similar discussion I suggested that proof sheets could be more complete portraits. And over time the original frame choice, no matter how intimate or candid or posed, could be replaced with another. Also, over time all pictures tend to imprint themselves in mythologized recollections of people.</p>

<p>Alan, portraits don't have to be seen by viewers or the photographer as seeking a "truth" about the particular person being shot. Good portraits often transcend the individual (even as they may say something profound about the individual) and say something about all of us, about expression, about personhood. "Truth" is too complicated an issue to let it get in the way of a discussion about portraits. Let's call it, instead of "truth," "something meaningful."</p>

<p>.</p>

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<p>I agree with HBC. A portrait is an incomplete, asymmetrical collaboration based on available evidence and subject to every participant and every viewer's biases.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Well, OK. But substitute any other genre for "portrait" and the statement applies as much or as little. Try it. <em>A street photo is an incomplete, asymmetrical collaboration based on available evidence and subject to every participant and every viewer's biases.</em> If there are no human participants in the street photo, consider the street itself the participant.</p>

<p>Regarding HCB, the quote is taken out of any context, so who knows what he may have really meant and what he might have been talking about. But, as is, the mistake of the quote is the assumption that anyone who knows the camera is trained on them or who is posing wants to be flattered. I've worked with too many people who are the subjects of my photos who simply want to collaborate (good word) with me and be creative. They're not worried about their looks in the typical way "flattered" would connote. Sometimes, a certain kind of drama can be much more scary or evocative than flattering. As you know, the emotional range of portraits is grand. Flattery is but one goal for only a particular kind of portrait.</p>

<p>Well Fred, looks like we pretty much agree on everything! <br>

The HCB quote, like just about all of that sort of thing, should be a red flag saying the quoter really isn't confident in what they are trying to say. Poor HCB. I'd sure hate to be so famous that I was quoted out of context all the time. I was reading a collection of Minor White quotes. Some seemed to resonate with my feelings. Others seemed totally silly. </p>

With respect to portraiture, and specifically street portraiture of strangers (what I engage in), I've never

encountered anyone who was seeking flattery, the "truth," or any other predetermined outcome. I think

there's a lot of trust, and along with that an expectation the end result will be good. Some of that may come from how I approach people.

 

Also, I don't pay much attention to stand-alone quotes, without wider context, of past well-known photographers. I've yet to hear

anything insightful/helpful with respect to what I do. They do seem to be useful or popular though for posting on

internet forums; and some are pretty silly as pointed out above.

 

I do enjoy soaking in interviews of various photographers, such as Arnold Newman (one of the best) and

Bruce Gilden, for example, to learn about their approaches and views about photographs.

<p ><em><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=2361079">Fred G.</a> <a href="../member-status-icons"><img title="Subscriber" src="../v3graphics/member-status-icons/sub5.gif" alt="" /><img title="Frequent poster" src="../v3graphics/member-status-icons/3rolls.gif" alt="" /></a>, Aug 04, 2011; 04:15 p.m.</em></p>

 

 

<blockquote>

<p><em>"It seems dangerous to be a portrait artist... because everyone wants to be flattered, so they pose in such a way that there’s nothing left of truth." HCB</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p><em>Love the guy's work. Rarely has more silliness </em></p>

 

<p>Perhaps a consideration of the time period in which the statement was made. No doubt Walmart portrait studios didn't exist back then.....</p>

<p>Also this is most likely a translation from a statement made in French. My gut tells me that as with a lot of things misinterpreted online he was making a pretty general comment. Also he says portrait ARTIST and not photographer which makes me suspect he's talking about someone who is making a drawing of the subject and not a photographer although that doesn't really make sense either. Therefore going back a step who would be the cliental of said artist and what might their expectations be of the work that is produced......</p>

<p>In terms of the camera being a casual observer..... how do 'reality TV shows' fit into this model?</p>

<p>I think Christine makes some very valid points, to bad some of you characters blew her off so readily.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Kevin said:</p>

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<p>In terms of the camera being a casual observer . . . how do 'reality TV shows' fit into this model?</p>

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<p>I don't think they do. While some shows are more documentary in nature (e.g., MTV's <em>16 and Pregnant</em>), most, as you well know, are highly produced, artificially created "realities" (I've shot behind-the-scenes on a number of the major-network reality series, and garnered a lighting director credit for one show).</p>

I was reviewing this thread and came upon Dan's comment:

 

>>> Good point. I wouldn't avoid calling such photos "street photography." I'd just call them "bad street

photography." A good photograph has something special - a precious moment, an intriguing

perspective, an interesting lighting effect, a moving subject.

 

In many ways that hits it on the head. But for me, that distinction still separates photographs taken on

the street, with "street photography." The later pose questions, the former supply answers. The later

are well-crafted, evoke a feeling or emotion, and are weighted with a certain gravitas. While the former are usually literal depictions with

little consideration to the elements in the frame or intent to move a viewer. I could go on...

 

I mentioned Bruce Gilden up above. My views about how he shoots go back and forth, and isn't important. But his narrative in

this particular video really nails it with respect to what separates photographs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UC02bm7ZxM