There's another problem with the Doisneau - the 'actors' as I remember were not professionals but students and they WERE a couple - so they were simply doing their thing extravagantly and elegantly with an awareness of the camera, unlike those around them, for a (very) small consideration. I've suspected staging with many Doisneau images - i.e. the one of the couple peering into the antique shop window, she at the object d'art, he at the nude painting to one side. Funny, a neat comment but a little too contrived to be a candid. The couple are just too perfect for their roles.
It all seems to come down to a perennial confusion between photography as a recording medium and as an art form - and where the border lies. I explained it to an art teacher who works in the room next to me in this way. I can argue all I like for photography as an art but, the next time she hires a life model, if I enter and set up a camera on a tripod, the reaction of the model and students would be VERY different to my setting up an easel and canvas.
Damn.
AndrewF
So what the hell IS street photography? (it's taken years, but I can dare to ask the question now ;-) karl
