luis_g Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 <p>Ton, I was kidding about it being wedding. It surely is nature.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonmestrom Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 <p>absolutely ;-)</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad_ Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 Winner winner, chicken dinner! Medical indeed, Ton! www.citysnaps.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luis_g Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 <p>Yeah, but does it rise to the standards of <em>street </em>medical? I mean, he's off-street. Wouldn't that be <em>arboreal </em>medical?</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonmestrom Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 <p>that's just geography.</p> <p>I warned you! I'm very boring. Perhaps I better leave you to it... since my photo got removed</p><div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norma Desmond Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 <blockquote> <p>what category would you put the photograph in?</p> </blockquote> <p>I wouldn't much care. Brad, you're the one who's making an issue of the importance of strict categories and yet you can't or won't categorize the photo you described as not rising to the level of street. That's kind of odd. </p> <p>But not as odd or hard to understand why Ton's photo was removed!</p> We didn't need dialogue. We had faces! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spearhead Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 <p>What photo of Ton's was removed?</p> Music and Portraits Blog: Life in Portugal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norma Desmond Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 <p>An African American man. Ton posted it as an example of a photo that could fit several different categories, portrait, street portrait, studio, wedding . . .</p> We didn't need dialogue. We had faces! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonmestrom Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 <p>it was this one Jeff. Most likely a mistake. Not a big deal.<br> Thanks for the explanation Fred.</p> <p> </p><div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad_ Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 >>> I wouldn't much care. Brad, you're the one who's making an issue of the importance of strict categories and yet you can't or won't categorize the photo you described as not rising to the level of street. That's kind of odd. Not odd at all. As I said above, I just don't know. I have no problem categorizing photos when it suits a purpose, such as, but not limited to describing photographs, as do many other photographers. Hardly making a fuss. It's fine that you that you don't categorize, but I am happy that you were able to in referencing the photo that went missing up above. www.citysnaps.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norma Desmond Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 <p>Brad, I never said I don't categorize. I am simply questioning the restrictiveness imposed on categories on this thread. Like word definitions, categories aren't stagnant or fixed entities. Like words, categories are defined by <em>usage</em>, not by God or Plato.</p> We didn't need dialogue. We had faces! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad_ Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 OK, glad that you do and it's simply a matter of scale with respect restrictiveness. It shouldn't be too surprising that notion occupies a spectrum. And that people will have different views. Not sure why you brought it up, but nobody here has said that words are cast in concrete and subject to a singular definition. www.citysnaps.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norma Desmond Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 <p>Brad, I started by responding to Ilkka's first post where he quoted Wikipedia and suggested that street photos had to be candid. In his second post, he said he'd never heard of street photographers engaging their subjects or making contact, outside of PN. I'm also uncomfortable with the distinction you're making between street photography and street portraits, for the very reason that Alan's last photo shows. I have many photos in my portfolio that others might call portraits that I don't think of as portraits. That doesn't mean either the person classifying it as a portrait or I, who might not, are misusing the term. It means we are emphasizing different qualities of the photo. </p> <p>Categories have a lot to do with context, intent, results, situation. The same photo that is considered a portrait displayed alongside one group of photos would be documentary displayed alongside another group of photos. I categorize at times and am also skeptical of them a lot. Some of my photos don't fit a category at all, though many probably do, even if they fit multiple categories. The ones that don't fit any category would be undermined by slotting them into a pre-defined one.</p> <p>Categories help explain. Explanations aren't always needed. Sometimes the experience is enough without the accompanying words and ideas that a category suggests. Words and categories tend to be more literal than a lot of pictures. Being too literal about a photo can distance one from that photo. Some kinds of literalism act as intermediaries and actually do get in the way of seeing.</p> We didn't need dialogue. We had faces! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad_ Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 >>> I'm also uncomfortable with the distinction you're making between street photography and street portraits, for the very reason that Alan's last photo shows. I wouldn't call it a street portrait, but that's simply my view. Didn't understand the purpose of posting the photo, actually. You don't need to agree with me. I'm OK with that. Not my intent to make you feel uncomfortable with respect to my distinctions... www.citysnaps.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norma Desmond Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 <p>The purpose of posting the photo, at least in my mind, was to show the untenability of the Wikipedia and Ilkka's restrictions on what makes a street shot. It is a street shot, or certainly can be viewed as such. Yet it's neither candid nor unengaged, two no-no's according to the too-restrictive definitions that were offered in this thread.</p> <p>Categories <em>per se</em> don't bother me. But when they are used more as an exclusionary mechanism than as a descriptor, that's a problem. I feel that's been done several times in this thread.</p> We didn't need dialogue. We had faces! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
don_essedi Posted October 31, 2011 Share Posted October 31, 2011 @ john robison , Oct 30, 2011; 11:18 p.m. "I have a serious question. When did the label 'street photography' enter the vernacular? I don't remember seeing it as late as the mid to late 70's." I don't know, but I'd guess the MOMA (or similar) was involved. It is a label for the purpose of titling an exhibition or a 'movement', or category for auction or critique. I assume it is now an artform. When I began photography in the mid-60s we used to call it "practice". A few young photographers got together in San Francisco. We were interested in photojournalism. We had our Nikon Fs and Spotmatics. What was there for some poor kids to shoot besides family or friends? So, we would wander about streets and parks looking for things of interest. Times changed, and several became commercial photographers with studios, and one actually did become a photojournalist. After about six months in a studio, I walked out, never looked back, and still wander about the streets and parks looking for things of interest, and still use a Spotmatic. I'm pleased to still be boring after all these years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richardsperry Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 Fred, You may change the Wikipedia "restrictions" if you like. You can change the definition, add any categories you want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spearhead Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 <p>That's what makes Wikipedia useless. Anyone can say anything they want. The "expertise" is in knowing how Wikipedia works, not knowing anything about the subject. Wikipedia is the source for people who don't care about authenticity, expertise. Some of us obviously haven't made it that far.</p> Music and Portraits Blog: Life in Portugal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad_ Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 >>> It is a street shot, or certainly can be viewed as such. Yet it's neither candid nor unengaged, ... Fred, it appears your view (and no doubt definition) of "candid" is pretty restrictive, certainly much more than mine, and many other photographers who shoot street. But I'm OK with that. It's probably why I didn't get the "humor" with respect to Alan's photo above. Views and restrictions that flow from them by others don't bother me in the slightest. I do what I want to do and haven't suffered in the slightest from categorizing, slotting, being limited, confused, or whatever. If people find others' views/definitions problematic, then they can ignore or adapt as necessary. This seems to only happen on internet forums. In real life, hanging around other photographers who actively engage in sp and have work I admire and respect, it just never is a hand-wringging issue to get worked up over. www.citysnaps.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richardsperry Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 Jeff, You don't use Wiki? Hmm. What do you use instead? My leather bound set of Encyclopedia Britanicas has been in a landfill for over 10 years now. Which is about as long as the last time I heard someone say that Wiki was useless. The ability to edit the encyclopedia with new information is obviously what makes Wiki usefull. If street photographers here don't like the definition they can change it to reflect its present meaning. No one has to rely on stodgie dusty academic types to update it every 10 years or so, like with 'real' encyclopedias. Brad can edit it tonight. Fred can edit Brad's edits tomorrow. I can edit their definition tomorrow night. And then Brad can edit my edits. And so on. Obviously, the real definition remains. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norma Desmond Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 <blockquote> <p>What do you use instead?</p> </blockquote> <p>Books and articles by and about photographers and photography specifically. I learned by Junior High School to go deeper than encyclopedias for good definitions and research. The library card catalogue wasn't as easy as The World Book, but it bore more fruit. Google can be used as the equivalent of the library card catalogue or it can be simple link to an online encyclopedia.</p> We didn't need dialogue. We had faces! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norma Desmond Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 <p>Wikipedia offers a superficial, often black and white take on things. It's the way we like our politics, right or left, and our photography, candid or staged. What seems to get lost is all sense of nuance and the significant MIX of approaches, styles, and methodologies that often goes into better photos.</p> <p>As if candid and staged are mutually exclusive. What narrow thinking! Do you really think that setting up in front of a billboard or a no smoking sign and allowing the right person in the right sort of dress to enter the frame is not staging? Do you really think that coming across such a scene innocently and shooting it doesn't have an element of staging? When you supposedly shoot candidly, do you think people are really always in the act of being candid? You don't think they are often presenting themselves even when they don't know they're being stalked by a street camera? Watch people smoking a cigarette sometime, watch lovers holding hands and kissing sometime. There's not often a staged quality to this? Note Hollywood's and Madison Avenue's influence on our so-called candid and true gestures and expressions. Shakespeare was onto this centuries ago . . . "All the world's . . ." Do you think setup and "staged" shots have no element of spontaneity and candor? Is it really so black and white as these categories and definitions make it out to be? Every definition and every category has a kind of truth to it and, importantly, also a kind of falseness. That's why they can be interesting.</p> <p>A significant aspect of any photographer's method can be the willingness to be flexible. I get a thrill often dwelling in the gray and fuzzy areas. It often seems to me that nothing is quite clear. I can live with that. I read books and articles about photography not always to settle or clarify things but often to put more in the mix.</p> We didn't need dialogue. We had faces! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
don_essedi Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 The difference is me "staging" someone, and them "staging" themselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luis_g Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 <p>How is that difference manifested in the resulting image? What exactly is that difference? Not only philosophically, but visually.</p> <p>_________________________________________</p> <p>To a degree, I owe a debt of gratitude (which I will never repay) to the guys drawing the lines and telling others to "Think Like Me" or "rise to the level they're at. You make things much clearer and easier for a few of us. I mean, we're aware of 99% of it, but you are strong reminders of where the conventional lies.</p> <p> </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richardsperry Posted November 1, 2011 Share Posted November 1, 2011 Well, Fred, in all honestly the Wiki entry for street photography is pretty thin, wrong, and pathetic. I am not a street photographer, I just enjoy some of it. So I really am not going to be the one to edit it. Some of you others are though, and definitely should flesh out the entry. I have no dog in the hunt, some of you other posters do. Get on it and fix it. Examples: The entry seems to be too HCB centric to me, as if his work is the seminal form to be emulated. I would consider Vivien Meier a valid street photographer, and may never have heard of Bresson, let alone influenced. She didn't use a rangefinder Leica, she used a larger Rollei TLR. And apparently knew how to hold a camera still, unlike Bresson(whose portraits even have camera shake in them). Brad's (and Travis') style of interactive "street portraiture" style definitely fits into the definition of street photography for me. And do a much better job of conveying a meaning than most(all) of what I have seen from Bresson. Gaining permission from the subjects does not detract from the quality of the work, it enhances it. His style should be included in the Wiki entry. I disagree that Wiki is black and white. It is truely democratic and egalitarian. You may change it if you like. If you don't, then just like not voting, you lose a big amount of credibility when bitching about it. The entry is a stub, it still says so on the page, it is asking you to revise it. It is your responsiblity to fix it if its wrong. Which it is. If you want to delegate it to me to fix it then just say so. What do you want it to say? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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