Understanding street photography

it just feels like I'm admitting defeat.

 

I get that, but ultimately that is you putting the brakes on yourself.

 

There is a lot of street photography I like a lot, also here on PN; yes it may take some time to "get it" compared to more obvious photography like famous places, impressive landscapes etc. but it is very rewarding.

Obviously for ages it made me want to get better at it, and each time I went out and try, I came home with completely different photos. Just because that had caught my eye as a nice potential, rather than the street scenes (that probably presented plenty oppurtunity too). In the end, all I can conclude is that I'm not a street photographer, not likely to become one and that's fine. While there still is merit in pushing oneself to seriously try something and do something that maybe goes against your instincts, there is also the point of staying true to yourself. Finding your voice, your visual dialect, expressing your point of view. That's not defeat, but rather jumping a hurdle.

Somehow I doubt that's a simple thing to do, Phil - but I'll give it a go!

 

And yes. I think I get how elements of an image contribute to the whole, and how the decisive moment is the coming together of these components. I just don't really see those components in that particular image. Maybe it's okay for me to accept that others do without seeing it myself. There is, after all, enough interesting in this world without FOMO. I'm just sad to leave a stone unturned.

I'm just sad to leave a stone unturned.

I think a possible way to turn over the stone and uncover some fertile ground is to a) read some books by and/or about some of the street photographers named in this thread and b) go to some museum exhibitions of the street photographers named here, reading the intros and labels provided by the museum.

 

I tend to combine my “feelings” and my “understanding” in varying amounts at different points in time. Understanding is not limited to critique. It goes into making and viewing/appreciating photos as well, even if it isn’t necessarily predominant when you’re actually shooting or viewing. You may do, as I do, some of your best understanding when thinking about things as you’re falling asleep or taking a shower. That can certainly affect your viewing and shooting.

 

Though you’ve been offered some good points here, I think an extended good text about or by individual photographers might provide you with both some deeper understanding and some new feelings to experience. Sometimes, deeper understanding can inspire richer feelings. Especially since the “understanding” part is important to you, I think a couple of well-written and insightful books could help immensely.

Thanks, Norma. You may well be right; I'll rummage on Amazon or in a decent book store and see what I can find.

 

And thanks again, everyone, for your guidance on this thread. I hope your collective wisdom rubs off on me. :-)

Phil, you forgot to mention there are a total of 2^(wxh-1) polygons in the pic :)

None of such readings are necessary to appreciate the image on a more instant pre-recognition level of seeing when first encountering

Definitely, and I sometimes think this post-capture analysis is a little ambitious and wonder if HCB was aware of the all those readings when he took the photo. Not that really matters.

Thanks, Norma. You may well be right; I'll rummage on Amazon or in a decent book store and see what I can find

Andrew, you could save yourself some time by writing down what things in photography generally please you. Thinking about high level things like

 

1. content

2. composition

2. exposure

 

will help narrow things down.

 

As an example a friend of mine shot professionally but for his personal stuff he had two golden rules

 

1.it must have a great composition and

2. it must have a good range of tonal separation (b&w)

 

Consequently, he hated the HCB photo. Just like he hated colour photos, digital photos, most “voyeuristic” street photography.

 

SP is huge. You won’t like it all but don’t let that stop you finding what you do like.

Ha! Just found this discussion of HCB puddle from the archives. It may be useful

 

HCB. Please, explain...

you could save yourself some time by writing down what things in photography generally please you.

 

Norman,

while sure one could save oneself some time by drilling down to the elements in photography that please, and review with those things in mind, it also creates the risk of boxing yourself in and sticking to your comfort zone. And I see this thread as starting from a sense of leaving the comfort zone, and trying to understand better what "is and is not" about SP. So, whatever one's current esthetic preferences are, it may actually be worth it to leave that behind (as far as possible anyway), and look again. Sure you won't save time, but you might gain more insight.

 

Books may not be the answers to all of that, but they can help. It's not necessarily the analysis of images, but understanding a bit more about an artist - youth, influences, interactions with other artists etc. - can help a lot. It may not make you appreciate something you didn't like before, but it may help you understand why the artist did what he did. It sharpens the abilities to analyse an image for yourself (just your own internal process as you view and study an image and try to understand what it's trying to tell you).

Also in the same way, seeing more of the body of work from an artist helps putting an individual work in context - so photobooks sure can help too. HCB's puddle image is somehow the default example of HCB's work, but in my view the image gains (a lot) when seen together with other HCB works. That image alone and in itself maybe gives pointers to HCBs visual language, but seeing more works sure helps reading that language and understanding more of it.

I don't think he was. Like no photographer could be in such an instantaneous moment of instinct and intuition when pressing the shutter.

Phil, just out of interest, if you had shot 20+ frames with a modern film/ digital camera that could’ve captured the leap from start to finish which image would you have selected in post?

And I see this thread as starting from a sense of leaving the comfort zone, and trying to understand better what "is and is not" about

 

Wouter, fair enough, but this thread evolved into photo book recommendations. Even so, I see Andrew’s posts as fairly naive. He talks about liking every photo in a genre even though he’s an experienced photographer and must know that’s not possible, he mentions FOMO and generally seems lost wrt SP. Therefore, I see no problem with trying to direct him, in the first instance, to something he is familiar with.

 

(Sorry, Andrew, for talking about you in the third person)

Fair enough too :-) I guess all in all it's about finding one's own way, and there are a lot of ways to achieve just that.

Nothing draws me into a photograph like anticipation....

No offence taken, Norman. All input is appreciated, and thanks for the link to the other thread. To be clear, I was never expecting to like every street photography photo. Of the ones I do understand (I think), there are many I don't particularly like; the same is true of every other genre. And "like" is on a continuum. The problem that triggered this thread is photos for which I couldn't form an opinion - where they had no impact on me, positive or negative, and (with no instinctive response) an analytical response was also failing me. My FOMO comment was a little tongue in cheek, but I'm of an inquisitive persuasion, and I like understanding things. As Wouter says, it would be easier to find my own path, and this discussion doesn't mean I'm not planning to do so, but any street photography is an attempt at personal growth for me - and I'm not going to achieve that by limiting myself. I do appreciate the guidance to work on one chunk at a time, but there's plenty of street photography that I do "get"; I may be unreasonable in hoping that the rest could be grouped into a manageable set to attack.

 

Phil: Thank you for your analysis. Your observations make sense, but I think this tips me into just not liking the photograph. :-) The man is mirrored, but imperfectly (due to the background cutting through him); I also see a big enough difference from the dancer image pose that it doesn't work for me either. The circular shapes also seem different enough from the 99 in the poster that I don't see a connection, though I do see some symmetry with the ripples in the water. I see the angle of the man's leg, but rotated as it is, it doesn't connect for me with the background. It's true that there's a connection with a railway, but you might have to know that it's taken at a station to get that (either from the ladder or the writing on the poster) - those references would work for me only if there was a more explicit reference somewhere in the photo. The "tombstones" are too vague for me, while a photo that foreshadows an event that happens after it was taken may be poignant, it's hard to give it credit for doing so. The man is jumping to the unknown out of the frame, but there's no connection with him, no indication of what he's running from, no story - the outside of the frame isn't offering escape, or doom, since there's no contrast with what's in the frame. None of this means that those are not part of the analysis of the image, or what Cartier-Bresson was thinking (I'll watch the documentary when I'm home - thank you). But if these are the aims of the image, my opinion is that it doesn't achieve them very well - though I concede that plenty of people seem to think otherwise, so I'm not going to say they're wrong. That an attempt was made to achieve these goals at all may make the image interesting in a historical perspective, being an early example of its type, and it may be that there's a line between "representing something badly" and "representing something subtly", which exposes my own inadequacies. Still, I don't think it "works" - for me. I don't hate it, and images that give me a visceral reaction like "hate" may be good by some measure, it just feels like a failure to me.

 

Perhaps this is where I'm struggling. I had thought that I can see an image, see what it's trying to do, and not like it because I believe it fails to achieve those goals (or because I don't think they're good goals to achieve). I don't do that analytically, it's still an instinctive reaction, but to discuss anything usefully here I have to try to quantify why I have a reaction - and why I've not had a reaction to some images. Maybe my problem is with the image which, in the opinion of my subconscious or analytical mind, fails in its goals so completely that I can't tell what the goals are. Only then do I find myself unable to form an opinion. Sometimes, as in Erwitt's Arthur Miller photo, I'm lacking the external information needed to make sense of the photo - that may be general knowledge or down to my lack of education (such as with the language of flowers used in paintings). An explanation may give me reason to like the image - or at least to judge it. Or, in the case of the Cartier-Bresson image, explaining the goals of the image which are self-contained may merely open my eyes to disliking it because I think it fails to achieve them; in which case, maybe it's really a bad idea for me to try to expand my understanding to the point where I can see the problems.

 

(By symmetry, there's the use of computers in feature films: Those without a decent exposure to computers may find computer-related plotlines to be enjoyable gibberish that can be glossed over. Those of us who work in computers are just distracted and irritated by everything that's needlessly wrong, and breaks the illusion of the world. It happens in photography too - in this year's WPoTY there was a snow-based image which was very nice, but on seeing the print it was slightly, though certainly not completely, spoiled for me by noticing that the highlights had blown on the fur. My wife would never have noticed... I might rather not know that I don't like something!)

 

That's possibly an insight which will help me, in which case I thank you all for your attempts to educate me until I reached it (although it won't stop me continuing to look at the resources recommended in this thread). Or I may just have descended into my own level of gibberish.

 

And yes, I agree with others that taking an image that might work is very different from selecting it for presentation. While many things in a good image may be planned, others may well be a happy accident - but they can cause an image to be selected during later review. I've been there often enough - I was shooting the subject, but failed to appreciate something in the background that contributed to the image. I've certainly done the reverse - the lovely photo of a person with a street lamp growing out of her head, or the many shots I took at a friend's wedding ceremony without realising that it would be quite a good idea to photoshop the "emergency exit" sign out of the background. At the same ceremony, I have a shot that I like of the bride and groom exchanging rings and looking adoringly into each others' eyes... and the bride's ex-boyfriend clearly in the background between them. Photoshop again. If I were better, this would happen less often, and if I took more photos there'd be more of them which escaped accidental errors - but I don't think anyone can claim that it never happens, any more than they can claim that every aspect of each successful dynamic shot was planned in advance. Especially in street photography.

Andrew, Bresson’s puddle photo always strikes me as more gestural and abstract than narrative. What I get is an association of time, which looks down on the scene, and movement. Abstracted, that leads me to music. The man, almost in full silhouette, is a musical note leaping off the ladder, which is the musical staff. The ladder and other trash in the water act, for me, like abstract elements would, say, in the Russian avant-grade paintings of Malevich. They are a geometry, not a meaning. The fences, wall, and posters in the background are background rhythms and the still figure of the background man is a lone, moody bassoon contrasting the energy of the flight of the melody figure in the foreground. On a more literal day, I might see something different here. But I thought a metaphorical foray might just be worthwhile.

Definitely, and I sometimes think this post-capture analysis is a little ambitious and wonder if HCB was aware of the all those readings when he took the photo. Not that really matters.

Probably not all the nuances mentioned, though its interesting to see that interpretation, and that is often the sign of a good photograph, in it suggests a narrative whether the photographer intended it or not. Here's a very condensed summation of HCB's explanation of those so-called "decisive moments".

 

"To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression."

 

— Henri Cartier-Bresson

 

That is an aspect of certain types of street photography, that make it interesting to do, its the instantaneous aspect of recognizing content and form as it happens that maybe separate it from other photography forms. But that alone doesn't describe all the ways in which one can approach, street, or urban or whatever label you wish to append. Just in my view. Those particular elements are probably present in all photography, its just the momentary glimpse and mutability factor, the speed up and compression of time into a single moment that defines HCB's type of photography.

yay! “wildlife street” defined even if it is a vid.

 

Footage of sole survivor of Amazon tribe emerges

its the instantaneous aspect of recognizing content and form as it happens that maybe separate it from other photography forms.

 

i suppose, thinking about it, that it is the instantaneous aspect that distinguishes SP from WP. I mean there can’t be that many people who wander around the serengeti hoping to snap a decisive moment. there is a lot more planning involved in WP which is not to say SPers don’t study their surroundings.

i suppose, thinking about it, that it is the instantaneous aspect that distinguishes SP from WP. I mean there can’t be that many people who wander around the serengeti hoping to snap a decisive moment. there is a lot more planning involved in WP which is not to say SPers don’t study their surroundings.

You know this might sound a little weird, but there's a certain, for want of a better word, mentality to shooting on the streets for years that seems to translate to other types of photography in some alchemical fashion at least for me. I was shooting a fashion show, and though the pics were more formal, I still found I was reacting to the models much the same way I would if I was taking candids. Its not a speed thing, it can be very deliberate, but I just sort of generally stopped emphasizing categories, not that they don't exist, but maybe its just an age thing, but they sort of seem to lose some significance for me.

I think i know what u r saying. Didn’t Bruce Gilden do his most controversial work wearing a sleeveless safari jacket?

Back to the HCB puddle photo for a mo. Has anyone considered why he jumped?

Thanks again, all. Maybe I am underestimating the required component of the viewer in appreciating the image. I'm trying to analyse the images to work out what I would be seeing intuitively were I in another mindset, but if enough of what is brought to the appreciation of an image comes from the viewer, that may do me little good without a greater understanding of psychology than I can lay claim to. It would not have occurred to me to take Norma's musical interpretation on the puddle jumping image, for example.

 

Street photography is innately (usually) a study of people; maybe my inexperience in the discipline explains why I may be failing to predict the interpretation of an image, and analysing the image itself is never going to get me there. I generally am fairly good at allowing for the ways people think (I believe), in that I consider myself capable in usability, or in making presentations, or in providing unambiguous technical documents - but the psychological framework taken to an image may be a step beyond what I claim to predict. Besides, as Norma alludes to, there's a saying that you never read the same book twice; the same is, I'm sure, true of appreciating an image. It's always possible that some day I will be in the right mind set for the images I currently don't understand to resonate with me, or maybe I just have to accept that our minds work differently and there are some images that will never click with me. Understanding them, and those who appreciate them, might still be an interesting exercise, but if this is so then it's not going to make the images "enjoyable" to me.

 

And yes, Phil - I'm absolutely a computer geek (although with a focus on computer graphics). The mechanics of photography have always been relatively easy (if interesting) for me, but actually generating good images is another matter, and I appreciate that it's something I've had to work on harder (and still am, obviously). This does lead me to an analytical approach to images, but that's also because I find it harder to describe a feeling that an image might invoke without trying to break down the "why".

 

I would say that the decisive moment is absolutely not unusual to street photography, at least the way I shoot. When I've shot sports, I've absolutely timed it for action (such as the interaction between ball and racket in tennis, along with the player's reaction). When I've shot landscapes, I've often tried to time moving light, or wildlife (such as birds) in the shot, or foliage moving in the wind, or a person in the distance. When I've shot wildlife, I absolutely try to get the wildlife doing something - a shot of a garden bird sitting at the feeder is much less interesting than the moment it takes off, for example. If people are going on safari just to get photos of lions sleeping, they're wasting a lot of effort. That's not to say that each "decisive moment" is the same length - but then in street photography, a scene could sometimes stay equally static, at least for a few seconds. The problem I've had in inspiring myself to street photography is in finding someone doing something that's interesting - but I absolutely think that's largely because I've not been spending enough time on it.

Back to the HCB puddle photo for a mo. Has anyone considered why he jumped?

 

That's part of my problem with the image - while you can make the "it's up to the viewer to decide" argument, to me that's an opt-out that could apply to any generic image. I'd like the image more if the jumper was clearly jumping away from something, or in a hurry for a reason (since what he's jumping to is out of frame) - some obvious motivation would connect me to the subject. I imagine it's as simple as a need to cross the puddle, and by not leaving a shoe in the puddle for too long it reduces the chance of the foot getting wet. (Water splashes out of the way, so if your shoes aren't waterproof you can sometimes get away with it if your foot is in the puddle sufficiently briefly.) But that's not really an interesting enough explanation to connect me to the image. :-)

Has anyone considered why he jumped?

No. There is no reason. Or, I should say, there’s every reason. It’s an iconic jump. It’s every man jumping.

Fred, I’ve always thought of it as a leap of faith which is what made the photo special for me.