Belgian Kids in Kensington Gardens (these kids weren't posing, so much as poseur-ing. I took several images, but they weren't aware of my presence...(too taken up with themselves, I think).

I really like this photo, but it IS interesting that the only intelligent critiques of it (or rather of its 'philosophy') have come from two of the most talented and active contributors to the 'Street and Documentary' forum on PN. Tony Dummett, Beau and a.kochanowski all have distinctive styles, and they all differ from each other. I'm for any comment that encourages - intelligent - debate between people whose work I admire.

Ah, bliss! Two of my favourite photonettari commenting on the same golden day! Vuk and Monsieur Dixsonne, greetings!

Dennis, your analysis was brilliant. It had been lurking, unformed and unworded, in my brain for thirty years and you gave it light and sound. I can never look at this picture again without mentally referring to what you saw in in the image. Damn your eyes, come out and fight me, mano a mano. Then we'll see who's right.

Vuk, your sardonism re. flash web sites also put into words what's been trying to escape from my lips (or my pen) for a long time. Talk of rebellion against such straight forms as mathematics and science, takes me back to the old days (for me) when I mucked around for months in a darkroom trying to figure out a way to take photographs - inspired by the fantasy sequences of 2001: A Space Odyssey - without a camera. Luckily, I decided to go straight and try glass and shutter again (and nowadays, I can't watch 2001 without falling asleep three minutes into the Jupiter mission). Once again, I've been left behind by fashion. I'm told that 2001 is all the rage again.

A little point of vanity I'd like to clear up: this image may be over-neat, trite and derivative, but it's sharp as sh*t. If you don't believe me, look here. I have to admit that with a rangefinder camera (as Leicas were and, mostly, are) it's harder to fiddle with focus and still capture the action. Hence, HC-B left his focus at 4 metres and shot at f/8 whenever light permitted. I could never do this when I bought an XPan and lost many keepers tussling with its finickerty focus mechanism. Likewise with the Leica I once used (an M3). I still have it, in perfect condition (how could I throw it away when it was manufactured within a week of my birth date?), but use it mostly as a paperweight. The D100 is so much more convenient, and produces roughly equivalent images to grainy Tri-X when used correctly.

On neatness: anyone who knows me will tell you I'm the messiest person they have ever met. I was even messier thirty years ago. Perhaps this picture represented the neatness that escaped me then, and still does to this day. I like being neat, but can only manage it in two dimensions.

Sorry Andy, but I have to take issue with you again on the influence of HC-B. He is the kind of photographer who will be rediscovered, time and again, by generations of up and coming photographers. Much of the contrasty, grainy 60s and 70s genre photography was made as a reaction to his near perfect images. A lot of it was really good, when not self-conscious rebellion. The thing that maddened later photographers about HC-B's work was how technically good it was. How could a photographer get the composition and timing right, while still being pretty spot-on technically? OK, Pierre Gassman was a genius in his own right at printing, and that contributed to a lot of the appeal of H's pictures, but it was the photographer who staked out the middle ground with such a large shadow that forced others to try and compete for whatever was left, like shoppers in the car park of our local mall on a Saturday afternoon, looking for parking spots. There were all these lenses available, yet the old man used on a 50mm "straight" focal length. He printed grays. Nothing was flared-out. He didn't photograph other human beings literally ripped apart by war, or in despair. His photographs were well-mannered. Yet he employed, via Magnum, many war photographers (most of whom were killed while HC-B remained in Paris). He did not betray the trust of his subjects, yet fulfilled the promise he made to them of presenting them truthfully, even if in their most relaxed moments. He was a cantankerous old bastard, cursed by a fate that saw so many believe they, and only they, were the only ones who really understood him. Yet his principles were simple: point and shoot... but see first. No genre - Japanese, American, or Calathumpian - has a monopoly on seeing. They only have different points of view. Ultimately, the truth will out.

Midweek, this POW thread has potential. I agree that discussion should be civilised and thoughtful (although I don't agree that there have only been two valuable contributors so far). There is no photoshop controversy to ignite passions, no invasion of privacy to criticise (we were all in a park, one of the biggest in London, in broad daylight). The elements are all there for a chat among ourselves concerning the nature of what we like to do.

That's fantastic to bring out life in that still picture.

Some can remember their own past :) looking at it.

Tony, it now seems, that your picture has so far only be criticized for being almost as "irritating" and passe as HCB's. I hope you can live with such a great compliment. :-)

Ok, way out of my league here but I'm about as far from a street shooter as they come and I have a question.

 

Defining moment? Old School? New philosophy? I was always under the impression that street shooting had little or nothing to do with rules but more so in capturing emotion and the essence of the subject. All I seem to be hearing is a debate over which rules are correct for which time period or how something is outdated in it's perspective. I thought (maybe naively so) that street shooting was about the honesty of the person looking through the lens.

 

I would hate to think, and depending on answers I may have to, that something I enjoy so much to look at is bound by as many rules or philosophies as stock images. The one thing I love about street shooting is how it shows me an environment. How it puts me there. Good street shots put me behind the lens, not the photographer. This image does that. Many of Peter's do, Andy E's do that to me all the time (I miss that guy). Maybe my simplistic ideas of street shooting let me to believe there weren't many rules behind it. Don't get me wrong, the talent needed to succeed in it blows my mind, and is light years beyond my abilities but I thought it was a more individualistic concept than an overall guideline.

 

Thanks for your thoughts guys - Dave

Great question but not the right question. It's not a matter of "rules," because you're right there aren't any, but a matter of understanding what the shooter was trying to accomplish with the photograph. Let me give an example. Suppose a kid in 10th grade showed up with a cellphone photo of his buddies that looked like Tony's picture-- this wonderful quilt of different expressions nicely lined up in just-so framing. If you knew the kid had no interest in photography you would reasonably and correctly conclude that he got a lucky wonderful shot and leave it at that. No rules, no interpretation, nothing but a pleasing image.

 

But photography doesn't exist in a vacuum, and outside of a site like this no one seriously looks at just one image from a given photographer. Just like Tony's folder, any serious photographer who works in a documentary/ street idiom and who wants to have his/her work say something will begin by putting together a portfolio of at least 15-20 images, often a lot more. And it is only from that portfolio of multiple images that someone with a practiced eye will be able to derive some understanding about the photographer's work. Anything less and you're in the realm of art fair booth photography where buyers look to fill the space above the sofa with a nice black and white picture.

 

I am quite familiar with the work of many published photographers in the documentary/street genre. So, fair or not, when I look at Tony's folder I do ask the questions: what is he is trying to say and what idiom is he using to say it? And the clear answer is his work is derivative of the work made popular 20 to 30 years earlier than 1975 by the Fench photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. There is no problem with that of course, and as I recall Tony's folder makes it quite clear that was what he was doing. The point I was making was that nice as much of it is, its derivative nature in form does not make it stand out. It looks like the work of a young photographer who had not yet found his own voice. And in terms of content, what strikes me is that the young Tony had not yet begun to work with the mix of elements that HCB did (pattern repetition etc).

 

None of that is unusual nor should it be taken as criticism. Just as an example, a few weeks ago I picked up a new book by Mitch Epstein, a color urbanist of some popularity, though not generally a top name among the public, which showed his work in a particular series from the late 1970's to 1988. The early work was clearly recognizable as influenced by Gary Winogrand, all wide-angles, slight tilt, a certain randomness. Later on Epstein found his own "look", and his photos from the early 1980's on said something different than the work from the 70's. Winogrand was gone from Epstein's frame.

 

Beau started this by pointing out that much of the appeal of the Kensington Park photo lies in a 70's nostalgia. I think that's about right.

 

It's an interesting field, and I'm glad that for once there is an opportunity to talk about it on POW.

I think we can all agree that b&w street photography is a little like playing be-bop or writing sonnets, and Andy's point is valid to the extent that there's only so much that can be said about such photos in the context of "contemporary art".

 

But there's a lot of joy to be had from art that you'd never see displayed in the meat-packing district, and I for one can attest that it can be a lot of fun making such art.

 

The fact that HCB made extraordinary images AND revolutionized his medium only means that he's a giant and we're not. There's no shame in striving only for the first half of that achievement, and if a person comes up a little short in that endeavor, he or she has more to show for it than the person who falls short while striving exclusively for the other half.

I admit my one Dizzy Gillespy LP is covered with dust but I just listened to Billie Holiday with Benny Goodman sing the hottest version you can imagine of "What a little moonlight can do." It's not dated to my ears even though it's from 1935, two decades prior to Bebop.

In 1991 Lincoln Center made a major commitment, appointing Wynton Marsalis as artistic director of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. Soon after the Smithsonian Institution and Carnegie Hall created their own repertory jazz orchestras. The efforts of these groups has helped to revitalize music from earlier jazz periods including the works of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, among others. During the mid 1980s and '90s, many younger musicians began to explore earlier jazz styles, incorporating them into their music. Musicians rooted in bebop and hard bop styles also began developing a repertoire incorporating influences from early jazz and the swing era. (Verve)

Pablo Neruda released "100 Love Sonnets" in 1960. The language and POV is pure Neruda but the form is 400 years old and still viable as demonstrated by this modern master. Today the most widely read and contemporary poet is Jalaluddin Rumi from the 13th Century.

I am not convinced that "new" is necessarily better or that fashion is anything more than a temporary collective idea of what is acceptable.

Intellectual fashion is intellectual fashion, whether it is in photography or philosophy or anything else, and what is fashionable is too often trash. The idea of whether Tony has "moved on" as a street photographer evokes in me the question: "Moved on to what?" Once that question is answered, then I want to see to what his work is being compared that is supposed to be so good now or in some intermediate epoch.

 

Time will tell what is of enduring value. During the epoch in which something is fashionable is probably the worst possible time to evaluate it. It is then all the rage. Soon it might be trash. A lot of it will then be destined for the trash bin. Out of each era, most things are destined for the trash bin. That which endures has recognizable value across generations and across schools of thought. It might be lost for a while, but it will come around again and again.

 

This photo captures some enduring themes. It has a lot more value than nostalgia. Kids are still kids, and, while the mode of dress may vary from generation to generation, the slice of life captured here is not only enduring but timeless.

 

I am personally not after the fashionable, but the timeless. Fashions come and go. That which is timeless endures, in all fields of philosophy, including aesthetics, of which art theory is a part. I can't wait to see how history judges the so-called "post-modern" as well as "deconstruction." My guess is that they will be treated either as passing fads or as something of enduring value under a new name.

 

Technology aside, there really is not much new under the sun when it comes to aesthetics. A good picture will always be a good picture, and, if it is a picture of human beings, it will be "contemporary" as long as human nature is what it is, which could be a very long time indeed.

 

This is a good picture. It will be interesting five hundred years from now, not just a relic. It is about kids and about composition, and a good composition will always be a good composition--and kids will surely always be kids.

 

Life is short, but art is long. Fashion is the shortest of all, the least worthy of pursuing in the name of the "avant garde."

 

--Lannie

Very good discussion was brewing up here. The level of criticism itself is the best compliment to the photographer.

First, Beau's analogy with be-bop playing and sonnet writing was very appropriate. We can easily misinterpret it, however, if we limit ourselves to the discussion that uses the opposition of enduring and ephemeral values as its starting point. Too many people criticize fashion by saying that it is useless and ephemeral, while it is only a dialogue. A dialogue ceases to exist once encapsulated. Too many people prefer things to remain encapsulated, in the womb of "timelessness," their own presumptions, or other value hierarchies.

This photo works precisely in the manner poseurism works. The young persons in the photo are all about acting in a certain (hip) style, the photo is all about showing them in a certain (anecdotal) style. A lot of work done by Cartier-Bresson was an exercise in caricature, nothing more. A great exercise, which made its performer a name in his discipline. Style is key in caricature, there is nothing in this photo but style. Which is not a bad thing by itself; it only places the photo in a different discourse.

p>Reliance on nostalgic reaction is also not a bad thing by itself. Without change, nostalgia would be impossible. Nostalgia is realization of change. It is possible to evoke nostalgic feelings without making references to the past. Subjects who have never had past can equally experience nostalgia.

This "timelessness" that people like to assign to certain things in order to raise their perceived value is only a style, a form. There is a style which is repeatedly perceived as "timeless" thanks to the parsimony (but also specificity) of its system of references. The specificity is the problem here. You cannot avoid being specific by being parsimonious. It is important to understand that "timelessness" is merely a style. Our current perception of "timelessness" style is very different from what it was a century ago and from what it will be a century from now. Which is to say that this "timelessness" style some people seek is not timeless at all.

It is completely wrong to think that contemporary discourse rejects the previous achievements. It reconsiders them, produces a dialogue around them. Any artwork engages the viewer into a dialogue, the criticism is never that of an artwork itself, but always of the dialogue it produces.

Ah, Eugene, you have offered discourse about discourse.

 

No, timelessness is not a style, and this photo is about more than style.

 

Both are about what is universally, eternally human. The style of composition may change, the style of dress will change, but kids will always be poseurs, especially for their peers.

 

Nothing timeless? Ah, Michelangelo, Plato, Jesus, King come to mind. Yes, the discourse changes, but, interestingly, that about which the discourse changes remains remarkably constant.

 

May it always be so.

 

--Lannie

Lannie, you completely miss the point. A post hoc derivation can't be timeless, it can only be a copy.

Aah, post hoc ergo propter hoc! As this isn't particularly related

to this week's POW as such, I suggest that whoever is interested

in discussing "timelessness" posts in the thread

href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00E9y6">What

is timeless?

in the Philosophy of Photography forum.

Wow! This is all going waaaay over my head. There was me, 30 years ago, walkin' thru the park, saw these kids, followed 'em around for a while, snapped a coupla pix, processed it a month later, thought "mmmm.... not bad", printed it darkroomwize once or twice later on, scanned it in 2000 and stuck it on PN to give it some air. Four years later everyone's arguing.

 

Like that point Eugene: here we are discussing obsolete styles of photographs and the contents are obsolete style as well! How to figure that?

 

Well, I guess the pic's not just about style. And I certainly wasn't thinking, "Must get the style right, 'cause 30 years later when I'm 52, some people who mightn't even have been born now are gonna be sluggin' it out on some thing called The Internet... whatever that is." I really didn't consider that a simple snapshot picture of a bunch of teenagers sitting on a park bench was already disqualified because over in Asia some Japanese Avant Gard dude was printing out-of-focus Grade #2 negs on Grade #5 paper.

 

Someone above said I didn't have to be ashamed of the pic and for that I am truly grateful. Thirty years of embarassment and personal flagellation, emotional crisis and outright self-disgust about this image got swept away when that kind commenter offered me absolution for my sins. And my sins were many (thanks Lannie, but it's the truth).

 

Since reading that comment, I've already forgiven myself for focusing the camera, composing it right and printing all the mid tones on the neg. So many times I'd thought of clipping the blacks and bleaching the whites, trying to be stylish, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. The most "dangerous" I got was to sepia up the scan a little, but even then MD was onto me, proving I cheated. My bad. Thanks MD. It took you a couple of comments, but you got me fair and square.

 

How I, through the 80s and the 90s, despised my non-fashionable pedestrian values! How I punished myself all those long years for using a 50mm lens, with forgiveness but three short decades in the future (I sold all my lenses to pay for the ticket to London... but that was no excuse, I know now). I shoulda held on to them and I never would have had to hate myself! If only I'd known about Mitch Epstein and Gary Winogrand I might have crawled under the seat and taken a photo of their asses as they sat there... much more interesting than their faces or their gestures. We're talkin' "gritty", people! All those wrong choices. Why use a lens at all? That would have kept you all guessing, wouldn't it?

 

On the day, I could have started a fight, instead of just walking by, and photographed their expressions in between donging them on the head with the trusty old Nikormat: "the dark side of Kensington Gardens", and all that. I wanted to get violent, I really did. It's only now that I know the possibilities were endless, and that - in ruining this scene for future viewers by my dependence upon a style, itself a further 30 years old - the best I could hope for was to "come up a little bit short".

 

All that angst over nothing. Next time, I think I'll just feed the ducks.

Ha, Tony. The age gap, the Internet, the ducks... The whole thing is

just so comical and ridiculous; maybe

we should just drop it altogether...

P.S. on a slightly more serious note: just saw the Winogrand shot (cross-posted). Interesting arrangement of people, but his "keeper" shot was more like one of my "rejects", as posted elsewhere. Even thirty years ago I knew it was way too easy to just snap from "the amateur's angle" - 45 degrees walking by - chopping off people's heads and limbs into the bargain. You cursed your bad luck, or bad timing, and then looked for a scene you could do something better with, that had all the elements.

Interesting faces and settings are just that: interesting... there are plenty of them about. But you really do have to dig a little deeper, try a little harder, take that extra frame from a better angle with cleaner composition and balance. You should try to be a little bolder and more imaginative, if you want to make an exhibitable photograph. That was why I posted my "reject" shots of this scene: to encourage the extra effort that might reward a photographer with a better shot.

Some scenes you just walk past. Some you shoot anyhow, just for the record, but only for the record of something that might have been but just didn't quite cut it. I don't think Winogrand's photograph is good enough to rate as a disqualifier for all future pictures taken in all future parks being labelled by you as derivative, post, pre or right-up-the-middle of hoc.

And I certainly don't think it's good enough for you, Andy, to allege by implication that I copied it. As I said, Winogrand's pic is the one I threw in the bin. If I'd heard of him (which I hadn't) I could only be accused of trying to improve on his flawed view, to go the extra distance where he stopped short.

The point here is the photo, not the philosophy of "timelessness."

 

Andy, of course a post hoc "derivation" can be timeless. There is no copy here, just a variation. I do not miss the point. I understand the logic of the argument. I disagree. Your derivation is predictable, unoriginal. Again, however, you are confusing the photo with the commentary. The photo has value even when the commentary starts going downhill.

 

 

No, the value of the photo is independent of the value of the commentary. That is the beauty of it. There are photographers and artists, and then there are critics. This is reified theory, and I do not mean meta-theory. It is just bad theory. On a typical day, I generate a couple of hundred theories, and I toss most of them. What I don't toss ends up in print. I know bad theory because I write it every day, and most of it has to be tossed just as most photos are also not keepers.

 

Again, this photo is a variation on a theme. Almost every photo is a variation on a theme. Every nude ever shot is a variation on a theme, likewise for landscapes.

 

Let me ask one of you guys to offer something that is NOT a variation on an old theme that is also worth looking at.

 

This is NOT a nostalgia shot. Bell bottoms be damned. Hair length comes and goes. What is memorable here is that which persists through the ages: kids being poseurs.

 

--Lannie

It must be quite a shock to learn that thirty years ago you were roughly the photographic equivalent of an out of tune garage band doing cover versions of Barry Gibb songs. I wonder what would happen if you had never made any enlightened references to HCB on our behalf. Surely someone else would have connected the dots for us or perhaps we would have simply wallowed in our ignorance for the rest of our days. Thanks for the many generous contributions.

 

I only wish I were able to compare my work to someone who is considered to be not only the master of his craft but a defining artist as well. Defining artist is a pretty potent concept to attach to any human activity. I like that term so much and yet it fills me with regret to know that I will never attain that status (well at least not for photography).

 

The photograph impresses me in that I do not see it so much in a nostalgic way as others have but rather as a mirror or a measure of the world as it is at the moment. It is still very relevant after the passing of the years. Besides that the hillbillies here in the Midwest are still dressing this way for the most part.

Lanny, Andy's comment still holds. Your argument was that timelessness is not "style," that it is a property independent of style. It is not. Why is this important? Because if timelessness is a "style," it is not timeless, since a style by definition isn't. As simple as that. You say:

Nothing timeless? Ah, Michelangelo, Plato, Jesus, King come to mind. Yes, the discourse changes, but, interestingly, that about which the discourse changes remains remarkably constant.

This is a logical fallacy. It is described as post hoc, ergo propter hoc. ("After the fact, therefore because of it"). Michelangelo had become "timeless" after we started considering him timeless, not because he or his work were inherently timeless. You cannot derive "timelessness" from looking at Michelangelo's work. I bet, however, that, in Michelangelo's time, there were people who expected Michelangelo's work to last (your definition of "timelessness"?), that there were people who didn't care much about Michelangelo, and that there were people who plainly disliked him. That doesn't say anything about timelessness. Michelangelo's work didn't survive because of some inherent timelessness, it survived because a lot of people knew that it was Michelangelo's work, that it was interesting/skillful/beautiful, that it was worth collecting/seeing/et cetera.

Other artists, whose work was also great, weren't so lucky...

I don't mind the "derivative" criticisms. They're perfectly OK to make. After all, everything is derivative. What got me going was the suggestion that I was copying that Winogrand picture, when I went to a bit of trouble upthread to show I already took that photo (or its facsimile) and then went deeper into things after that. Perhaps what was most irritating was the implication that it was even worth copying.

 

I'd have been quite content with a cogent discussion on some of the many points I've tried to make over the years here on PN. How there's no magic to street photography. How the "decisive moment" usually isn't handed down from On High, but is approached as your understanding of a scene grows. Sometimes (most times) you miss it. I also think it's always a good idea to have a good neg to work with (even if you're going to discard most of it). Oh yeah, and focus the lens too (you can always blur it in PS if you want to). Form, composition, content can all be achieved if you relax and allow yourself to see. Pretty basic stuff that a lot of photographers think is magic. It ain't.

 

Instead, we get someone making the profound point that there were other schools of thought in photography at the time. True, but then we hear that these more "mature" photographers somehow superceded everything beforehand, assumedly rendering it quaint. That's preposterous and deserves challenging.

 

Too much POW discussion is about "Art". It's not art when you're doing it... it's what you happen to be doing, nothing more or less. The "Art" bit, the "philosophy" bit, the "genre" bit comes afterwards when the critics have to try and think up something new to say. The best thing to do is to take the best photograph you can at the time. But to do that you need to know what's achieveable, and how to achieve it. That's why a POW discussion is important.

 

I've published a few sequences of failures to try and encourage others into believing they could do it themselves, that they needn't give up and sell their cameras or go back to their day jobs because they didn't make a picture they wanted to one day. Everyone goes through it, a sort of pain barrier of wondering how in the hell the "greats" got those shots, until one day they make a magic image and realise it's achieveable for them too. The pride may be purely personal, they may never show their images, but they know that once everything came together for them, and that if they keep at it, it may happen again. To get to that point, the first great image, you have to know it's possible. You don't need genre nazis haunting your every footstep pulling names out of books and whispering, "it's all been done before so don't bother".

 

I thought learning was a pretty basic element of why this site exists, and why so many fought so hard to keep it alive, and pay their yearly subscriptions to maintain it. If you score a POW it's easy to sit back and take the praise, and contribute only humble thank-you's. That's not me. Once in a rare while - like this week - I take the chance to ascend the soapbox and preach. Rest assured, when this week is over, I'll sink back into the dead zone again, where old duffers like me (apparently) belong and, to tell you the truth, are quite content to remain.

Tony,

 

That's a great picture. It's a slice of life. It'll still stand up another thirty years hence.

Keep saying it with pictures, Tony. The images will stay in my memory. The very bad logic? That I will fortunately soon forget. Art is long. Art criticism comes and goes in waves of fashion.

 

I just wish that I had taken this picture, or the one on Speaker's Corner (your most recent POW before this).

 

--Lannie

"And I certainly don't think it's good enough for you, Andy, to allege by implication that I copied it." - Tony

Tony - you call your folder "Poor Imitations of Cartier-Bresson." Andy just reminded us that this shot and your folder is derivative in nature and form. He didn't imply it; he made it explicit.
("And the clear answer is his work is derivative of the work made popular 20 to 30 years earlier than 1975 by the Fench photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson ...its derivative nature in form does not make it stand out.") - Andy

You both agree on this. I don't understand your objection to Andy?
Your statement that the Winogrand pic would have been one of your rejects sounds conceited. You may not like the chaos and apparent snapshot quality in Winogrand but you have to admit he is an original.

I love these picture, it is a total different world to my world.

Maybe you can sell it, as a poster by diviant art, or a other site.

The title alone, although it explains the distinction between what this looks like and what it actually is, does not make the picture work. That's like having to explain a joke to somebody. If you made that distinction visually - if it was abundantly clear that they were NOT POSED but they LOOK POSED - if the primary thing I got was that they have actually unconsciously posed themselves and that their vision of themselves is magazine-like and I got these things visually (not in the title) it would be wonderful. The perfectly clean frame and their stillness adds even further to the studio, posed quality. Maybe a crooked horizon or a background or surround of chaotic, unposed people would set these kids, like a jewel in a setting. The distinction would be clearer and your idea would work better. I love the idea but think you didn't bring it off. In that sense it is a little out of focus. Many others in this portfolio work better for me.