Does street photography need a 'street'

Does street photography necessitate the presence of a street or even the urban environment? No - according to the all knowing Wikipedia.

 

If not then why call it 'street' photography?

 

I realise this question has been argued many times in many places including here on Photo.net. So why bring it up again? Why not?

 

We have a forum called Street and Documentary (joining theses 2 genres into one is another issue to be explored at a later date).

 

If you google "famous street photographers" you come up with one site that lists the names : Henri Cartier-Bresson, Garry Winogrand, Vivian Maier, Josef Koudelka, Robert Doisneau, Jill Freedman, Walker Evans, Susan Meiselas, Elliott Erwitt, Eugene Smith, Gianni Berengo Gardin, William Klein, Lee Friedlander, Helen Levitt and Saul Leiter. Some of these didn't identify with the term 'street photographer and I'm sure there are many more to add to the list.

 

However, if you look at the images they reference on this site they are all on street or in urban environments.

 

This, I think, is a reasonable benchmark.

 

Others (Eric Kim, PetaPixel) shy away from definitions saying we should just be happy making images. If so why not just have a generic photography forum for everything.

 

Your thoughts .........

 

One taken today:

 

IMO, street photography is not limited by location. It is more a sensibility than a geographical cage. What makes a particular beach scene more street than landscape? See Martin Parr. [And it's not just the people, IMO.]

 

The borders of genres can be porous and the same photo can be seen as exhibiting traits of several genres, rather than fitting into only one.

 

The joining of Street and Documentary is merely an arbitrary PN decision that I see as having no ramifications beyond the walls of these rooms.

 

Some of the photographers mentioned resisted the label street photographer because they don't like to be boxed into theoretical categories. Others will happily embrace such identifications. "Chocolate, meet vanilla."

 

Many websites are not the best places to get more than a superficial or popularized look at your question. I'd go to some photography books, particularly survey-of-photography books, to get a more in-depth picture of genre usage, or at least assess with some care the ideas given on a random website shown in an initial google search.

 

There's no reason one can't think about such things sometimes and also be happy making pictures, so I'd take Kim with a grain of salt. If he were here, I'd ask him if he can walk and chew gum at the same time.

 

As with most things, you will get tight, restrictive answers to this question and loose, more inclusive ones. Then you can decide if you think a final decision is necessary and if one particular way of looking at it suits you.

 

Benchmarks serve at least two purposes. They help clarify things and provide a grounding while also offering something many important photographers surpassed or redefined. If a particular benchmark is reasonable, someone with vision and guts will dare to be unreasonable about accepting it as such.

Edited July 22, 2017 by Norma Desmond

I don't care for the labels "street photography" and "street photographer." They're over-worn and cliched, usually by people who don't engage in the activity.

 

With respect to there needing to be a street, no, at least not for my photography. Personally, I don't have a check list of criteria, but if someone were to ask what my photography is about, my ten second answer would be something like, "I make photographs of people, or the evidence of people, in their environment."

 

Photographers who live on the coast get a special dispensation and are allowed to incorporate the waterfront into their street photography.

Think of it as Al Fresco -- though not necessarily outdoors.

If so why not just have a generic photography forum for everything.

Thats what I've been advocating for, a "No Words" forum that allows a few comments.

Edited July 22, 2017 by Sanford

I doubt the street / urban environment to be total essential for street photography. Grass or dirt between 3 tents or gypsy wagons would serve splendidly as a substitute. Street seems to be about strangers in public, wherever that is?

Never been to keen on the words" street photography "it gives a boxed in feeling.

I've rarely seen a street photo collection without an umbrella.

Only just visited this forum for the first time today, as, like others, I had assumed human presence to be an integral part. Having seen some images that, although obviously having street connotations, eschew the portrayal of humans, I may well contribute when I feel I have something to post.

 

Most of my images deliberately exclude people or more modern artefacts showing their existence - classic architecture and other attractive (to me) evidence of their earlier influence is not unacceptable, however.

IMO, street photography is not limited by location. It is more a sensibility than a geographical cage. What makes a particular beach scene more street than landscape? See Martin Parr. [And it's not just the people, IMO.]

 

The borders of genres can be porous and the same photo can be seen as exhibiting traits of several genres, rather than fitting into only one.

 

The joining of Street and Documentary is merely an arbitrary PN decision that I see as having no ramifications beyond the walls of these rooms.

 

Some of the photographers mentioned resisted the label street photographer because they don't like to be boxed into theoretical categories. Others will happily embrace such identifications. "Chocolate, meet vanilla."

 

Many websites are not the best places to get more than a superficial or popularized look at your question. I'd go to some photography books, particularly survey-of-photography books, to get a more in-depth picture of genre usage, or at least assess with some care the ideas given on a random website shown in an initial google search.

 

There's no reason one can't think about such things sometimes and also be happy making pictures, so I'd take Kim with a grain of salt. If he were here, I'd ask him if he can walk and chew gum at the same time.

 

As with most things, you will get tight, restrictive answers to this question and loose, more inclusive ones. Then you can decide if you think a final decision is necessary and if one particular way of looking at it suits you.

 

Benchmarks serve at least two purposes. They help clarify things and provide a grounding while also offering something many important photographers surpassed or redefined. If a particular benchmark is reasonable, someone with vision and guts will dare to be unreasonable about accepting it as such.

 

Fred, I understand much of what you are saying - porous borders within and between genres, restrictive vs inclusive thinking, and the need so some to be 'unreasonable' in order to extend thinking. I don't think of myself as needing to be constrained by categories or labels but there are points when a landscape is a landscape, a portrait is a portrait, sports is sports and nature is nature.

It seems that 'street' is a more nebulous term in the context of photography than it is in a dictionary definition

"A public road in a city, town, or village, typically with houses and buildings on one or both sides." Oxford online (sorry not a book)

The cross over of street into other genres seems to be more regular than the opposite way around - street portrait, street abstract, street architecture, street fashion, street travel, etc

All these are valid as long as they are on a 'street'.

Otherwise what is the point of using this term at all. And maybe that's the answer - there is no such thing as 'street photography' Maybe this forum should be called "Culture (or public) and Documentary"

Street photography as a sensibility rather than a label - does this concept of sensibility equally apply to other photography genres - landscape, nature, architecture, portrait (probably - see the results of the 2017 Olive Cotton prize for portraiture), sports

Personally I still like the term - as a sub genre of culture photography. I believe there is still scope to be 'unreasonable' within this sub genre - to push boundaries of how you show the street but a street is a street

 

Ian, I didn't say it was a sensibility INSTEAD of a genre. I said I understood the genre as being more about a certain sensibility than a particular location. I gave the example of Martin Parr in order to illustrate how a photo can have a street sensibility without being on the street. Can't think of much more to say. I do think street is a bit different from other genres, though other genres aren't always easy to define by absolutely strict limits. I think street has more looseness to it in terms of definitions than many other genres. I think that's ok. I'm not proselytizing or trying to convince anyone. You asked for thoughts and I happily gave them.

 

My voice doesn't count all that much. The voices that will most matter in the long run will be curators and librarians who are in the business of categorizing and get to make decisions for the public. Of course, photographers aren't bound by what categorizers may determine.

I use the word for unstaged shooting while I am on the streets. It does not mean you have to produce evidence of a street in the result.

 

 

 

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