“Intrusive” Street Photography (discussion thread)

drd1135

Zen Snapshooter
Location
Virginia
Name
Steve
An interesting article/video:
 
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Street photography is a tightrope walk in areas where people want to think their privacy is in their own hands to protect (it isn't, it's probably all over the internet). On the west coast USA I find street photography isn't understood by the majority of the public, they just don't run into it enough and sometimes don't react too well - but if you stick to touristy spots you are ignored. I have never felt comfortable getting in people's faces, I am myself a very introverted person and I want to respect other folks' introversion, but I also feel that authentic street photography has some value in illuminating the human condition and encapsulating a time and place, a cultural aesthetic or what-not, and I (for example) would not mind my likeness in a respectful street photograph - yet I don't like being photographed and would prefer to avoid the moment. In essence, if I don't know I was photographed I am fine with it (as long as it's a public place and not a private moment), and that's the same I extend to other people when I photograph street. I photograph other people in public but I prefer to be unseen, not because I'm sneaky but because I realize that many people don't welcome the interaction.

Maybe I'm crazy. But I figure if a street photograph of a person is good enough to see the light of day then I feel like I could justify it to them as a piece of art, and I will have already judged it not to be demeaning or intrusive in what it depicts. If it doesn't meet that bar then I'll have binned it anyway.
 
It’s a tricky balance. I like street images and many require taking pictures without people realizing it. You could argue this is deceptive but you get a “natural look”. If you ask, you will often get a friendly look. If you do it like Suzuki, you get a startled or annoyed look. Although most folks will just duck away, I do believe that someone will eventually grab the camera and damage it or him. This is why I take cow pictures.
 
I've shot street photography since I began my photography. I fall into the camp of wanting a genuine reaction, so tend to shoot with longer lenses and try not to be noticed or up in peoples faces.

I'm "aggressive looking" enough as it is, I don't think I would make too many friends getting up close and personal like depicted in the Fuji X100V video.
 
I don't want to be eternalized as "man picking nose" (and I can undertand if others don't either) - but then again if any photographer should be able to pull off the trick to create an "iconic" photograph with my mug in it, then he probably deserves the fame :)

Jokes aside - I don't get what he wants to say with his photography... He's basically using people as compositional elements for snapshots. I don't get any insight into people's lives, don't feel with them...
He doesn't know anything about his photographic subjects - so he can't convey anything about them neither...
Just from seeing this video it feels to me like an immature way of taking "portraits"...

(that judgement is of course made from a superficial viewing of a youtube video - so I might be missing the point. It just doesn't speak to me.)
 
After watching the video, I was bothered that he blithely went on even when the subject matter obviously didn't want to be photographed. For that reason alone, I can understand why Fujifilm removed his video. I didn't like his style of shooting, but the resultant photos were quite nicely composed and processed. It's a paradox.
 
I don't get any insight into people's lives, don't feel with them...
He doesn't know anything about his photographic subjects - so he can't convey anything about them neither...
Whether it's any good is another matter, but he's taking shots of people in a particular corner of the world where you generally don't feel with the people and nothing is known of the them. Like most big cities of the world. Yet at the same time they walk around with such purpose (probably for money). So I *think* that's got something to do with what it's about and the images he's trying to catch. This gives me an excuse to mention this guy
. He takes that kind of shooting up to the max :roflmao: .
 
Not everything that is legal is also ethical. Legality can be decided upon in court. The difficulty is that viewpoints on ethics are more fluid and subject to debate. For me, the old saying “Don't do unto others what you don't want done unto you” is a nice guideline. I’d hate to be subjected to this kind of photography, so wouldn’t want to practice it either.

That said: I personally do love street photography where a human figure is used to balance the composition of an image taken on the street. I don’t understand the in your face style leading to gazillions of images of people walking on a sidewalk. To me, these images lack real vision.
 
After watching the video, I was bothered that he blithely went on even when the subject matter obviously didn't want to be photographed. For that reason alone, I can understand why Fujifilm removed his video. I didn't like his style of shooting, but the resultant photos were quite nicely composed and processed. It's a paradox.
We have to remember that Fuji is not being an art critic here but a business trying to sell cameras. In this day and age, part of that is not offending potential buyers.
 
I thought he was fairly respectful of these strangers. It looked like he tried to disrupt them as little as possible to get the shot he was seeking.

Although to be clear, the shots he was seeking.....well there's a gazillion of them. Every half-wit with a camera who has tried "street photography" has thousands of them......and 99.9% of them mare garbage.

Street photography is the modern version of "paint-by-numbers".
 
I thought he was fairly respectful of these strangers. It looked like he tried to disrupt them as little as possible to get the shot he was seeking.

Although to be clear, the shots he was seeking.....well there's a gazillion of them. Every half-wit with a camera who has tried "street photography" has thousands of them......and 99.9% of them mare garbage.

Street photography is the modern version of "paint-by-numbers".
This is why I'm always intrigued by the work of someone like Vivian Maier. Most of her stuff is available, even undeveloped rolls of film. We could probably calculate a pretty accurate "keeper" rate, although with film you can't just spray and pray like digital.
 
The street photography images I find more interesting don't usually involve people. Several of you wander around town with your cameras, taking pics of things like unusual doors you stumble across, or an old van painted in a hundred different colors, or interesting juxtapositions of shadows, or a bicycle perched on the balcony of a tiny flat, or an old abandoned building in the middle of town. Most images of people strolling down sidewalks don't do much for me.
 
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