I have noticed that some photographers, who are obviously trying to do some street photography, position themselves at a busy corner or big square and wait there for the things to happen. Mostly they are the “shoot from a distance” type. Maybe they have just found a spot where the light is beautiful, or they like the background and now want something to fill the foreground. I’m not convinced that works out well, it is like deciding for yourself “today I want to take a photograph that expresses this or that”. If you move around it’s easier to remain open and attentive, you can get into a “rhythm”, there are more chances and you develop a certain intuition for hot spots where “things happen”.
“Winogrand has made chaos clearly visible; he has disciplined it without breaking its spirit. It is not supremely difficult to make a clear picture of a truism, and it is easier still to hold up a mirror to the maelstrom and call it art. But to see and set down with acuity the flickering meanings that illuminate the menagerie we perform in – this is a creative miracle.”
© John Szarkowski (1925-2007), former curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art, in his Afterword to “The Animals” (MoMA 1969); great mind, a master of language and one of the few real connoisseurs of photography- he taught us all because he understood…
You know the Diane Arbus photograph of the creepy kid with the toy handgrenade, looking as if he could kill his own mother? Someone once remarked -and I found it to be both funny and true- can you imagine some manager hanging that picture proudly on the wall behind his managerial desk in the big office room? He might fear the reaction from a visitor: “O, nice, your grandson, I suppose.”
Photographs with strangers on them don’t seem to be attractive as a decoration. Much too confronting, too personal. People who have the taste and the money to buy a good photograph will still prefer a landscape (in color most of the time) or something perfectly meaningless, but aesthetic, to the more problematic work of say, Robert Frank or Winogrand. So, if you want to make money from photography without having to wait for fame, forget street photography. Do it for passion or you will be disappointed big time.
Garry Winogrand, my favorite photographer and doubtless the greatest street photographer ever, nevertheless hated that term as he hated categorisations in general. Here are some more interesting quotes from his famous interview with Barbaralee Diamonstein: …”I think that those kind of distinctions and lists of titles like “street photographer” are so stupid. […] I’m a photographer, a still photographer. That’s it. […] People are just dumb. They misunderstand.”
[…] “I’m pretty fast with a camera when I have to be. However, I think it’s irrelevant. I mean, what if I said that every photograph I made was set up? From the photograph you can’t prove otherwise. You don’t know anything from the photograph about how it was made, really. […] The whole discussion is a way of not talking about photographs. [What is really important] is the photograph.”Asked what he wanted to evoke with his photographs, he answers: “I have no ideas on that subject. I’m not making ads. I couldn’t care less. Everybody’s entitled to their own experience.”
Garry Winogrand (tv interview by Barbaralee Diamonstein ©1981 “Visions and Images”, Rizzoli Int. Publ. Inc.)
What is it that makes some street photographers (and wannabees) want to be invisible ? The thought would never have struck me, had I not come across this subject so regularly in articles and blogs lately. I don’t want to be invisible and it wouldn’t improve my photographs either, I think. If it is the fear of people reacting, well, that depends for the greater part on how you behave yourself. Even if you know you’re not doing anything wrong, does your body language show that your intentions are o.k.? Make sure you are self confident. Using long lenses and shooting from the hip is sneaky and makes you feel uneasy. In my book it’s a big nono.
Sorry, but you will run into the occasional paranoid nut every now and then. Be prepared. Invisibility is no part of that, I’m afraid.
If street photography was about streets, Google Street View would be the ultimate.
“When I’m photographing I see life, that’s what I deal with.”……….”I frame in terms of what I want to include, and naturally, when I want to snap the shutter.”……….”If I’m at the viewfinder, and I know that picture, why take it? I’ll do something to change it…”……….”I get into situations where there’s a lot of activity, more things can occur to me to try.”……….”Reality is the photograph itself…”
(Garry Winogrand interviewed by Bill Moyers on tv show, © 1982. Read more: navigate by clicking red tags below)
These are some alternative Winogrand quotes for you. The usual quotes (and misquotes!) can be put into a greater perspective, I think. Being a longtime street photographer myself, I have selected those words in which I recognize the approach that has inspired me, hoping to show that his ideas, though often provokingly formulated, were much deeper than some people seem to grasp.
Whoever is confused about the definition of street photography, may be inclined to look it up in the pages of Wikipedia. I personally was shocked to see some less-than-mediocre color photographs, having nothing in common but the fact that they were obviously taken of people outdoors, and a meaninglessness next to non-existance. These uninspired photos were intended as illustrations for a short, imprecise attempt at defining street photography, followed by extended ramblings about overcoming shyness !! [shy?- don’t even try!] , being invisible, tricks, the “right” equipment [can you imagine paints, brushes, or canvas being mentioned in an article about, let’s say: impressionism], and endless legal considerations, all of which reads more like “photography for dummies” than a serious article about photography (as art). This would put off and discourage anybody ever wanting to take a picture that might include (oh, the horror…) a complete stranger.
Could somebody (with more patience, and more knowledge of Wikipedia than me) please take the time one of these days to update this Wikipedia article about street photography, and balance its various aspects in a way that makes more sense. I think of a serious photographer rather than a legal adviser… Some Garry Winogrand quotes would fit in fine, I think, as would a few real street photographs for a change!
For my readers in the Netherlands and Belgium who read Dutch here’s [was, TS] a link to the article from P/F Vakblad voor Fotografie © 3/’99, written by the late Herman Hoeneveld, about my house parties series done in the famous Scheveningen Club Exposure during the 1990’s. This well-published series is the first batch shown on my new website, designed by |r|ocketclowns webdesigners from The Hague.
The link is [was] to my agent’s website [this link no longer exists, TS 11/16/2009]. Several more series of photographs are due for web exposure in the near future, making my photography site grow bigger still. The bulk of my street photography is yet to come!
“When things move I get interested, I know that much.”……….”I think that there isn’t a photograph in the world that has any narrative ability. Any of them. They do not tell stories, they show you what something looks like. To a camera.”……….”It’s the subject. I think I’m interested in how a lot of things look.”……….
……….Q: You shoot every day? Winogrand: Yeah,sure.
Garry Winogrand (tv interview by Bill Moyers, © 1982)
……….”the photograph isn’t what was photographed, it’s something else. It’s about transformation.”……….”there is a transformation [of the banal] , you see, when you just put four edges around it. That changes it. A new world is created.”……….
……….Q: Do you (….) think of yourself as an artist? Winogrand: I probably am. I don’t think about it (……) But, if I have to think, yeah, I guess so.
Garry Winogrand (tv interview by Barbaralee Diamonstein © 1981, quoted in the book “Visions and Images”, Rizzoli Int. Publ., Inc.)
(quotes edited and selected by Tom Stappers – for more: click red tags below this post)