Thoughs from Giani on Street Photography..

Hi Fabiola and thanks so much for the first and very important question.

In a theoretical level Street Photography is not Documentary Photography for a number of reasons. We realize that there are similarities when we compare them and we can accept some street photos valued as documentary ones particularly after some decades but let's take a look at the differences.

Street photography is completely subjective whereas documentary must by definition be objective.

Since I am often crossing between the two genres I have to tell you that at the time of shooting I know exactly what I am looking for. If my intention is to record an event, political, religious, whatever, I have in mind that this has to be as objective as possible. Get the big picture, Who is doing What, Why, When and Where. These are the five Ws of Documentary photography, no matter if it's editorial or braking news. Out of those five, the only two that are vaguely "necessary" in Street photography is When and Where. Street Photography is instinctual, un-premeditated, reactive and spontaneous, we don't care who is the subject or the reasons he is doing something. Another important difference is that Street Photography has to be conducted in public places, mainly in the streets, Documentary however can be conducted in any place the topic dictates, either public or private. A photo can be called Documentary if there is or there isn't human presence in, but in Street we must have some kind of human presence.

I can go on and on on differences but having not seen the photos you took, I can say that there are ways of answering this question looking back at your intentions at the time of shooting. The way you describe the shooting however, is IMHO a characteristic of documentary but individual pictures can fall on to Street, remember... It's most important to take good pictures and less so to classify them :-)

I hope this helps, in any case we are here to discuss it.

 

Best regards

 

Gianni

From Gianni

 

Hi Norman and welcome to the discussion,

you are right about the cultural diversity and Laws, they are playing a very important role in SP*, so much, that different styles developed in different geographical zones just because of this. (I have never being in the US)

Northern European SP is so much different from the South, the Middle East and Asia. In Germany and other countries (I think) there laws that don't allow photographers to take close photos without consent, and don't even think to shoot a woman in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

In any case we have to respect the laws and customs of the countries we visit, there is no need for provocation, as about my shooting distance, yes, I do it because I have the freedom of doing it and I do enjoy it very much, apart from anything else, Athens is a very "open" city and we don't have issues, either legal or cultural about taking street photos..

GREAT VIDEO FROM FAB FORNS

Fabiola Forns CREW

Posted 3 days ago

Edit Delete Quote

Although Bruce Gilden is in a Street Photography class in itself, you can hear him speak for Leica about his work on this link:

 

https://vimeo.com/168179178

 

Enjoy!

Fabiola

Hi all,

this thread is Phyllis's idea, and we can post and discuss anything inspiring about Street photography, like videos and photos or even external articles on the subject.

 

I would like to thank Fabiola for sharing the video about Bruce Gilden, it's a good start, then I suggest a video by one of my favourite photographers, Daido Moriyama. The video is called "in Pictures" :

 

https://vimeo.com/52692514

 

and if you saw it, take your camera and go out to take a few photos, in the film era Daido was shooting around twenty films a day for years and years and he used to say: "there is no quality without quantity".

With digital cameras it's easy to shoot a lot these days but then other issues evolve, like processing and editing. We will talk about all this when it comes to it.

 

Enjoy the video, it's in Japanese with English subs.

 

Gianni Giatilis

Street group manager

 

 

Cheers

Fabiola

 

Thanks Fabiola,

Daido is not the only one who did this, Garry Winograd shot more than five million eight hundred and fifty thousand photos (5.850.000) in his entire life...on film...and he died at 56, then we have Vivian Maier, who was shooting on average one film every single day for more than forty years, more than 150.000 photos and so on.

When I think about it, I get out and go for street shooting :-)

 

So...keep shooting guys, it's an excellent learning procedure !

 

Gianni

 

 

Thanks Fabiola,

Daido is not the only one who did this, Garry Winograd shot more than five million eight hundred and fifty thousand photos (5.850.000) in his entire life...on film...and he died at 56, then we have Vivian Maier, who was shooting on average one film every single day for more than forty years, more than 150.000 photos and so on.

When I think about it, I get out and go for street shooting :-)

 

So...keep shooting guys, it's an excellent learning procedure !

 

Gianni

 

Sorry, but there must be something wrong with the number of photos taken by Gary Winogrand.

 

When he died at the age of 56, he lived 56x365 = 20,440 days.

One day has 24 hours, 20,440 days have 490,560 hours.

Taking 5,850,000 pictures in 56 years means that there are more than 10 images per hour, one image every 6 minutes.

 

No, I don't think that this is possible.

 

Cheers, Hans-Martin

 

 

Hi Hans-Martin,

I will not argue with you about how many photos Winograd shot in his life, here is the source and someone claims the same as you:

 

http://erickimphotography.com/blog/2012/08/20/10-things-garry-winogrand-can-teach-you-about-street-photography/

 

The reason I mention it is not because of the actual numbers but for the passion of some photographers for shooting.

BTW, when I was an active photojournalist, I was shooting between 5 and 10 films every single day, on serious assignments even 20. This is 180 to 360 frames per day for many years, do the maths.

 

Cheers, Gianni

 

Hi Hans-Martin,

I will not argue with you about how many photos Winograd shot in his life, here is the source and someone claims the same as you:

 

http://erickimphotography.com/blog/2012/08/20/10-things-garry-winogrand-can-teach-you-about-street-photography/

 

The reason I mention it is not because of the actual numbers but for the passion of some photographers for shooting.

BTW, when I was an active photojournalist, I was shooting between 5 and 10 films every single day, on serious assignments even 20. This is 180 to 360 frames per day for many years, do the maths.

 

Cheers, Gianni

 

Hi Gianni,

 

thanks for the link ! Very interesting. I already read serval publications about Gary and I like many photos made by him.

 

I agree with you that it is not so important if the number of images is true or false. By the way, I read that Tatsuo Suzuki (also active here on 1X) sometimes shoots 2,000 images a day. Also a very passionate street photographer !

 

Cheers, Hans-Martin

 

Photographer Fan Ho Dies at Age 84

 

Hi all,

Sad news for photography as the famous street photographer from China passed away a couple of weeks ago. Here is a Petapixel article about him

 

http://petapixel.com/2016/06/21/photographer-fan-ho-dies-age-84/

 

and here on his official site some of the greatest street pictures of our time:

 

http://www.fanhophotography.com/hong-kong-yesterday.html

 

RIP Fan Ho

 

Gianni Giatilis

Thanks Gianni,

Wonderful photos. There is a section called Famous Photographers..you might want to copy/paste there also so people not in the Street group will see it and also it will remain there...

 

I love the work!

 

Phyl

 

Thanks for the suggestion Phyllis, I did make a post there as well.

 

Gianni