At 09:43 PM 1/6/2003 +0000, you wrote: >> So what the hell IS street photography? (it's taken years, but I >can dare >> to ask the question now ;-) > >Until yesterday I thought I knew what street photography was. >What I mean is, I had jumped to some conclusions based on the style of >the work presented on streetphoto etc, on magazine articles and on >comments of certain PF members (esp Dave Small). > >After the discussion on Robert (the Fake) Doisneau I wonder if I ever >knew. Maybe that was why Mr Rosen kept his distance from the genre - >preferring the self-styled "Field" ... > >I had mistakenly made technical allowances for stuff I percieved as >"street" in the mistaken belief that the flaws were the inevtable side >effect of taking "decisive moment" pictures on the fly. I hadn't >realised that this was a heavily scripted genre: these illusory >moments little more than heavily rehearsed and oft-repeated staged >simulations of real life. Now I understand where I have been going >wrong when I've tried to emulate the stye: in the real street things >just never seem to come together so perfectly as they do for real >Street photographers ;o) > >Those who say that it shouldn't matter that you know the truth: it is >strange to hear because businesses today are spending ever increasing >sums on the words / ideas they use to present thier products and ever >less on the actual content. The way we think of things IS the essence >of things. > > >There is nothing wrong with staging photos >There is nothing particularly virtuous about seeting arbitrary >restrictions "genuine" shots. >Pretending that staged / manipulated shots are genuine is the mark of >a fraud though. >Once one fraud is exposed - everything else by the authour is tainted >... > > >Bob > >"Be very, very careful what you put into that head, >because you will never, ever get it out." >Thomas Cardinal Wolsey (1471-1530) > Bob, That's what mom always said - I stuck a bean in my ear anyway. My system of sorting pictures is simple The urban ones are "street" the ones with barns are "rural" the ones with people and cars are 'street" - people and cows are 'rural' and so on. Then there is the one of the camel in the financial district in Toronto....? I think it is logical that RD should fall into the street pile of pictures with HCB, RF, and GW. I believe that up until photography became a more popularly recognized art form pictures published in the media were known as "illustrations." Compilations of illustrations from the media such as were RD's drifted into the art book and art photography realm - as well they should have. I don't see a distinction to be made between so-called posed and candid pictures in his case. He was a photo illustrator - pure and simple. That is based on an historical judgment of his body of work. BTW on the back cover of his first book published in the U.S. in '56. it says: "There is not a single 'arty' picture or 'arty' moment in the entire volume." I think that says a lot about what is perceived as authenticity. He had been exhibited at MoMA at that time. Illustrations (re-enactments, for example) in media should be labeled as such. hair-splitting about graphic adjustments that don't change the essential "fact" of the subject isn't necessary. There are bound to be gray areas. AZ Build a Lookaround! The Lookaround Book. http://www.panoramacamera.us
