Joel Meyerowitz: phones killed the sexiness of the street

[christian_mozetic]

I think style and design have had a negative impact on the aesthetics of street photography. The visual cohesiveness and order in Meyerowitz's photos is very difficult to come by nowadays. The street is full of visual clutter and pollution: car design, signage and billboards, fashion and style, are all a mess. I think style and taste are down the drain and it reflects in street photography.

[Norma Desmond]

For me, the beauty of street photography is its “this is what you get” nature. The street, photographically speaking, isn’t necessarily meant to be idealized, ordered, cohesive, or aesthetic in the way we typically think of as aesthetic. The street in photos often gets its aesthetics in the randomness and messiness of different sides or aspects of life. Design, as it were, whether it be of cars, clothing, or buildings, is not so much an aesthetic thing in itself in street work as much as it provides support and context for the energy to be found out there. So, like it or not, the auto and hair and clothing and architectural fashion of the day is there to be woven into the story of today. Yesterday is, for the most part, gone. I can be as nostalgic as the next guy and I appreciate older styles more than newer ones in a lot of cases but, If I as a street photographer don’t find some of those things as aesthetic as “back in the day,” then I need to figure out a way to express that, figure out a way to find an alternative aesthetic in more contemporary design or lack of it, find more nostalgic street settings, which still exist, or start working in another genre. It’s not the job of the street to make itself photographically compelling to people who remember better times. It’s the job of street photographers to rise to the challenge of documenting and expressing something significant about what’s going on out there now.

[Allen Herbert]

Like the world and life evolves.

 

The street.

 

Crying back for the old days....is losing the exciting dynamics of todays street.

 

[Allen Herbert]

[Allen Herbert]

[wogears]

The cellphone comment was one line in a medium-length article. I think Meyerowitz is essentially correct about the changes in the street as a part of "modern" culture. Of course, I suffer from nostalgia like everyone else, but I honestly believe that the texture of life has changed (probably not for better or worse). A few years ago, I scanned some negatives I'd shot back in the early 80s, and the lack of cellphones really struck me. I also noticed less use of phones in Spain and much of the UK outside London. Ditto for semi-rural France, come to think of it. Maybe it's a North American thing?

[Norma Desmond]

Of course, I suffer from nostalgia like everyone else, but I honestly believe that the texture of life has changed (probably not for better or worse).

I get off on nostalgia, too, and I agree with you about the texture of life having changed. The thing I keep in mind about nostalgia is that as good and real as it feels, it’s also familiar and comforting. Newer textures are less known and a little more of a challenge, sometimes downright strange. So while I may luxuriate at times under the silks and satins (and even the tie-dyes) of the past, it’s also important to me to experience and express things about the more metallic, more LED, more binary-coded textures of the contemporary world.

[Norma Desmond]

A non-nostalgic cell phone street selfie by Fred G.

:)

 

[christian_mozetic]

Does anyone know where the "Fallen Man" picture was taken in Paris. I would love to compare the looks of that street corner today.

[Allen Herbert]

Fred, those specs you are wearing.....

 

70's look sort of hash and cold......which you are not.

 

.

[Sandy Vongries]

70's look sort of hash and cold

Nah, the Hash ones are round or oval metal with Rose or Smoked lenses...:D

[Allen Herbert]

Okay, me, myself was not around just offering a conjecture.

 

But lets be honest they are ugly buggers.

[Allen Herbert]

Thin frames, some sort of Art....thought that would be Fred.

 

Those frames.... feel like you are about to be interrogated by some bloke who has been resurrected from the 70"s KGB.

 

Scary or what.

[Allen Herbert]

;))

[denny_rane]

If you are not old enough, it will not mean much, but...i really miss (from a photographic viewpoint) Cigarettes and Phone Booths.

I took lots of interesting frames that involved people in or near a phone booth. They often had all types of ads (of the day) associated with them, not to mention they varied from a small "building" to a mere phone under an overhanging piece of metal. They were used for making phone calls that made people look Happy/Sad/Trance Like...a whole myriad of emotions took place while a person was in a phone booth.

Cigarettes.?.....nothing ever took the place of smoke in a 100 different situations and light. Smoking could make a woman look "cheap", it could also make her look sexy as Hell. Cigarettes had their own, unique effect on Men, in a photo, as well.

Mr Meyerowitz might have chosen his words poorly, or he might just be plain wrong, but i get what he is saying.

Other members have said it, but Yeah.......these situations have been happening "to" photographers from the very beginning. It use to be very common to see a horse in a frame.....either just there, or because they were THE major source of transportation and commerce at one time in our history. How often now, circa 2015, do you look at "Street Photography" and see a horse.?

Good/Bad/Indifferent...the cell phone has had an impact on photography. They are "everywhere".

[Norma Desmond]

Cigarettes.?.....nothing ever took the place of smoke in a 100 different situations and light.

Steam coming out of manholes . . . :)

[Sandy Vongries]

Steam coming out of manholes . . . :)

Hadn't thought of that in years - when I read your comment, I could almost smell it!

[Norma Desmond]

Speaking of smoke and smells in the city, bus exhaust is still around and, especially at dawn or sunset can be almost as sexy and probably as toxic as the erotic cancer-causing cigarette smoke we miss so much . . .

 

Also, much more benign but sometimes very photogenic is the steam rising from the pavement after a warm rain.

[Moving On]

The smell of garbage, urine, and raw sewage driving up South Third early in the morning, I swear you can see it on the negatives.

[denny_rane]

The smell of garbage, urine, and raw sewage driving up South Third early in the morning, I swear you can see it on the negatives.

That's quite enough of That Young Man.......:)

[Moving On]

Scented Photos, the new fad.....

[Sandy Vongries]

Scratch & sniff photos! Rabelais would be amused.

[reginaldsmith]

Nostalgia is grossly underrated.

 

For example. As a geezer a Chuck Berry song comes on the radio and I experience a wonderful flood of memories of meeting Susie at that party that Friday night. But when a Katie Perry song comes on, I simply hear sounds, maybe pretty, maybe lush, maybe interesting, but no impact to my soul. Street photographs are the same. I gaze at that Joel Meyerowitz photo, the one with the '59 caddy, and I think pleasing thoughts of my crazy uncle and his caddy, who died 30 years ago. A picture taken yesterday with a 2015 Buick in the background means nothing to my soul. I can enjoy both photos intellectually, but only emotionally.

 

Everyone's 'old days' represent the period where they learned about life, death, love, sex, violence, hope, fear and joy. Old songs and old photos act like greeting cards from the past. I do not try to live in the past, but I sure enjoy the greeting cards that come unexpectedly.

[Norma Desmond]

Old songs and old photos act like greeting cards from the past.

True. But not all photos are meant to act like greeting cards. Thankfully. A GOOD street photo with a 2015 Buick in the background won’t cause a nostalgic emotional response but will cause some other significant response in an open viewer. As a matter of fact, an exercise worth trying is creating the mood of nostalgia in a photo without photographing something old or from childhood. It can be done. There’s a difference between a good street photo and a snapshot taken on the street that happens to have a Buick in it. Some snapshots are very good. Most are tossaways.

 

In any case, the point was not to put down nostalgia. The point was to put down nostalgia when it creates an atmosphere, as expressed by Meyerowitz, where it prevents him from engaging in the present or preoccupies one enough to continually distract them from what’s happening today or induces one to spend a lot of time comparing yesterday to today.

[Supriyo]

Steam from manhole