street photography – Page 4 – tom stappers

Mar 12

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By Tom | street photography

Photography to me is not just another graphic technique, but an independent medium with its very own iconography and specific means of expression. There is evident mutual influencing by other artforms, but personally I prefer photography in its pure form that in no way tries to imitate or tries to be like other graphic arts. It does not seem very clear to some people, by the way, why some photography is supposed to be art, and some is not. I think what makes it art is defined by both the design (which is often instant and spontaneous, therefore intuitive to a high degree) and by the psychological impact of the photographer’s personal selection from reality. In these aspects photography can be totally autonomous.

(from introduction, graphic arts exhibition containing my photography, The Hague 1997 © Tom Stappers)

Mar 11

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By Tom | street photography

“Observations, memories, associations, they all merge at the moment you take the picture. You don’t think of it beforehand. Intuition is far more important, since everything happens so fast that often it isn’t until much later, that you realise what it is that made you decide to take the picture. I think interpretation is more important than striving for objectivity or completeness.”

(part of a text accompanying an exhibition of my photographs about Antwerp, Belgium, at the Flemish Cultural Center, Amsterdam, nov./dec.1994 © Tom Stappers)

Mar 09

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real street photography

By Tom | street photography

Contrary to what one would conclude after looking at a large number of sites by this name, street photography is about people, not streets. In fact, it is a misleading name if you are not familiar with it.

Mar 07

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tourist remover

By Tom | street photography

Only a few days ago I was walking in the icy drizzle of late winter in the beautiful medieval center of the French town of Dinan, Bretagne, paying attention not to slip on its equally picturesque cobblestoned streets. It reminded me of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s book “Les Européens”. There were few people on the streets and only a few families, looking a bit lost while visiting the fairground along the river bank.
I had just bought a postcard of Cartier-Bresson’s man jumping over a puddle, which was almost the only one of interest in the whole Super U shopping mall, apart from some Doisneau cards.
But in this cold and wet town I missed the people to bring it to life. I was holding my Contax in my pocket, but didn’t take anything.
A thought struck me: the Tourist Remover! I had only just recently learned about this program with its ominous name which can remove anything that moves from your digital snaps. You just take a series with some intervals and the program “sees” what moves, removing it and filling the gap with what it perceives as permanent. If only those digitally removed tourists remained floating somewhere in cyberspace…. How happily would I use them to fill my empty streets! A program called “Tourist Adder” for the street photographer? But I’m not a digital photographer. On second thoughts, no thanks, I’ll manage, I’ll deal with reality.

Mar 06

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why the blog

By Tom | street photography

My website is all about photographs, about straightforward black&white analog (film) photography. And there are some pretty strong pictures, I think. But even the strongest photography can be diluted by putting too many words in between, so I decided to separate the texts from the images.
In this blog I will therefore comment on my own work, as well as possibly on current developments and subjects of interest in photography, with a special focus on real street photography in the Garry Winogrand vein. Other favorites that will no doubt be mentioned in the near future are Lee Friedlander, Robert Frank and Diane Arbus. So please visit this blog from time to time if you are interested in the backgrounds of my work and my thoughts about photography. Until later!