Street Photography

The photographic landscape has been changing, and I’m feeling a bit disoriented.

 

I try to not think of things categorically, but it seems to be a human trait- What do you photograph”, or “What kind of photographer are you”. I don’t do landscapes, and I don’t do portraits. Because I am a trained photographer, I like to think my Travel photos are (technically) a bit better than average, but my Family pics are just as goofy as everybody else.

But when I am consciously trying to make a picture,  I think of them as Observations- a Point of View that hovers between Documentary and Journalism -what Walker Evans called Descriptive Photography.

A few years back I read an article about a Street Photography book that had this Matt Stuart photo on the cover

http://www.mattstuart.com/photography/tqzpf859421njkn58ppuql6y0xaw5b

I looked into Matt, and he appeared to be a guy who walks around with both a camera and a particular view of the World, and is pretty good at using one to capture his impression of the other.

About the same time, along with the rest of the World, I discovered Vivian Maier, one thing led to another, and this whole “Street Photography” thing started to take off for me, with Cartier-Bresson, Winogrand and others. Street photographers are folks who carry camera around with them to record the World as they see it. Street Photography seemed to be a non-categoric Category, one that felt good to be in-it was observational, and you couldn’t predefine the image.

I hung around Street Photography for a few years, scoured Web Sites and got a sense of who was doing what. The discussions were what could be expected- approach, attitude, privacy, and so on. Fortunately, for a field that is gear obsessed, Street shooter conversations about equipment were minimal. Photography for these folks it is about the intersection of place and time (or timing)-not gear, and not prescribed rules.

I recently read a quote that expressed this quite well. I apologize for not including my source, I don’t recall it-

“I don’t know whether this truncated elephant with arm unmanned was a one-shot or a whole roll.  I just know it was right.  And it illustrates what goes on in the photographer’s mind when he’s being totally unconcerned about composition, almost.  He’s being almost totally concerned about subject.  What comes through is the subject.  What comes through the subject is the way of seeing.” —Jonathan Brand wrote these comments on composition and subject in his Popular Photography Critic’s Choice column about Garry Winogrand’s photograph of an elephant’s trunk, exhibited at the 1964 Museum of Modern Art show The Photographer’s Eye.

I decided that I was a street Photographer.

 

I entered a few competitions-

2016

Streetfoto San Francisco International Street Photography

http://streetfoto.org/sf2016-contest-finalists/#single

2017

LACD Street Shooting Around the World

https://lacphoto.org/gallery/2017-street-shooting-around-the-world-exhibition-winners-in-show

Meanwhile, I was noticing a trend towards formalizing Street Photography into a genre. Many street photographers who were gathering around the Internet water cooler started forming groups, or collectives. This seemed a good thing because their purpose was to critique and help curate each other’s work.

Others created self-promoting websites that seem to have evolved into large mirrors of their own self worth. There started to be Fanboys who wallowed in didactic conversations.There was some talk of Gear-“you have to use 28 or 35mm, you have to get up close”.

There were Rules.

Street Photography turned into a category.

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Recent Photography

Photographically speaking, this has been a busy month.

 

Streetfoto San Francisco

For the second year, Ken Walton did another job of organizing Streetfoto San Francisco, a weeklong, multi venue festival of street photography that included workshops, contests, photowalks, lectures, and other activities. I wasn’t chosen as a contest finalist again this year, but I viewed the exhibits, and attended a few presentations, and to my eye, Ken has refined the event, and hit another home run. The speakers that I saw were engaging, and there was a peppy three person panel who did a “speed dating” critique of projected images, that was brutal in its criticism, but stimulating and thought provoking just the same.

 

I am looking forward to next year’s event.

 

http://streetfoto.org/

Oakland Museum of California

I have always had a soft spot for local, or regional museums, and The Oakland Museum of California* is no exception. They are currently exhibiting “Dorthea Lange: The Politics of Seeing”, a powerful and moving exhibit that presents the work of this pioneering 20th Century photographer. Her work during the Great Depression is pretty well known, and “Migrant Mother has been on everything from postage stamps to T shirts.

Lange’s social conscience didn’t stop when the Depression ended.. After the Japanese Bombing of Pearl Harbor, the US Government targeted people of Japanese (along with others) descent, rounded them up, and put them into Internment Camps, or “Relocation Camps”.

Dorthea Lange was there, documenting this injustice, and the photos present another sad chapter in our County’s history. In display, there are documents and pictures that tell of grade school children who recited the Pledge of Allegiance to the US, and were then sent off to the Camps. The irony of this dehumanization is heartbreaking.

 

As I read the daily news, I can’t help thinking about how reactionary we are getting here in 2017.

 

 

Yesterday, on what was forecast to be the hottest day of the year so far, we went into San Francisco to visit Pier 24**.

How hot was it?                                                                                                                                        Well, as we left the BART subway station, we followed this guy across The Embarcadero to The Ferry Building, the centerpiece of the row of Piers that make up San Francisco’s Historic Waterfront-

He must have used a bucket of sunscreen.

 

The Pier 24 show, titled “Grain of the Present”, exhibited some of the mid (20th) Century photographers whose work was descriptive of the world as they saw it-neither Documentary nor Journalism, but more expressionistic in nature.  The show was complemented by a handful of contemporary photogs who continue working in this style.

 

Alec Soth

   

 

    

http://alecsoth.com/photography/

 

Vanessa Winship

    

 

http://www.vanessawinship.com/projects.php

 

Latoya Ruby Frazier

 

http://www.latoyarubyfrazier.com/

 

 

For notetaking purposes, I took some snaps of both the Lange and Pier 24 exhibits with my phone- None of these images are mine (except the naked guy), and  I don’t mean for them to be anything more than visual reminders.

 

 

 

*http://museumca.org/

**http://pier24.org/

STREETFOTO SF FOLLOWUP

You have to hand it to ken Walton, the producer and organizer of Streetfoto SF- everyone I spoke with felt he did a great job creating this event, printing the photos and hanging the show.

I noticed something at these event. Everybody enjoys looking at the pictures, but as you are standing there, the person next to you always seems to be asking who the photographer is.

So I went to a drugstore, and made a 4×6 print of my image to use as a name tag-

It was a kick to see my pic hanging among so much really good work. There were over 2000 entries, and I felt honored to be on the same walls with the other finalists.

The Festival winners were announced on the last night, and I am happy to say that theses were among my favorites as well.

Because there were a couple of speakers whose talks I wanted to hear, and because I live just across the SF Bay, I hung out at there a lot, probably too much.

It was extremely stimulating, but I also got oversaturated, and it is taking some time to get my mojo back.

But it’s coming back.

STREETFOTOSF PHOTO FESTIVAL

About a week ago, I learned that a pic I submitted to this event was chosen as a finalist.

 

Imagine my surprise yesterday when I opened one of my regular morning blogs, and saw it featured in their announcement.

 

http://www.streetshootr.com/streetfoto-finalists-announced/#more-6785

 

The blogger makes a good point about the number of finalists, and we will have to see if the honor is diluted by such a large number-kind of like a little league softball team that has to give a trophy to every kid so their helicopter parents don’t get their tailfeathers in a tizzy.

 

Just the same, it is a kick to see my photo pop up unexpectedly.

Copyright 2015   Jimmy Reina