Street Photography, life changing?

[Sutton Warrior]

As an amateur in the world of Photography, who enjoys picture taking for its own sake, who also gets very frustrated with technology and the 'you must have . . . and if you have not got . . . you dont rate', has the world gone mad? . . . Well I have been watching the BBC2 series 'The Genius of photography', fascinating, sadly not seen them all but last night was for me, an eye opener. It showed work by revered photographers of mainly post war and more recent years, also explaining their mind set and the 'why' of their pictures, significant to me was the feature of the 'street photographer' . . . very 'point and shoot' style with an 'eye', using a simple compact 35mm camera, simple Lica quality

 

Get a bit lost when any one tries to understand the hidden, deeper meaning of pictures, paintings and art in general . . . ? I'm just not that deep . . .

 

However, what did come over to my simple mind was that in the era covered, 50's to the 70's and 80's, these revered photographic artists were often producing pictures that were on the face of it, grainy, washed out, lacked pin sharp focus. Thats not a criticism, far from it, I see it a personal revelation. The pictures captured a sense of suggestion, very much in the way a painting is never highly detailed, it leaves your mind to fill in the blanks. If you get up close, it is very disappointing unless you are into technique and brush work. The same applied to much of the picture work displayed on the TV, it was not about detail, more a suggestion beyond the main subject that the mind interpreted. The other point that came over was the introduction and use of colour, how colour was see by the street photographer as a description of the image . . . still getting the brain around that one, but I, see it as a significant statement . . . I think?

 

Set me thinking, pin sharp, noise, washout or dark shadow . . . a few steps back in modern time might be a good idea, all in descriptive colour?

 

The above had me looking at this picture recently taken on a jaunt along Felixstowe promenade, I remember the moment I first put it on screen . . . and the preparation to put it in Februarys competition. Not a winner, but to me it was very much 'my street style', I originally thought the title should be 'Darby and Joan' . . . Perfect . . . no, but for me it has something, as have many of my early pictures that I now see as 'street style photography my way' and I did not know it, thats not to say one is not learning, the learning process is painfully obvious . . . sometimes it is a pleasurable experience

 

 

The picture was cropped quite a bit, it came over in the BBC program, cropping is not a no, no . . . some times there is no time to walk 50 yards for a more full frame before the moment is gone in 'Street Photography'.

 

Life changing program? Perhaps not, but it certainly set my mind thinking . . . 'less is more' . . . ????????????

 

Anyone else see or get anything from the series?

 

SW

[DelJ]

Hi S.W. I saw it though not sure if it was last week or the week before when it was all about the war time photographers. Riveting stuff, there was one guy who was a full time (well for the duration of the war) and they were comparing him with another one who was an ordinary soldier who went to war with a rifle in one hand and his camera in the other.

 

Sad to say I have forgotten to keep up with the series since. D'OH itr must be my age, well I am even older than Snatcher.

[n4lly]

Thats the Fludyers pub, right ? what the didly happened to the beach?

 

Oh and the minds eye is king

[Snatcher]

Hi S.W. I saw it though not sure if it was last week or the week before when it was all about the war time photographers. Riveting stuff, there was one guy who was a full time (well for the duration of the war) and they were comparing him with another one who was an ordinary soldier who went to war with a rifle in one hand and his camera in the other.

 

Sad to say I have forgotten to keep up with the series since. D'OH itr must be my age, well I am even older than Snatcher.

 

:wheelchair:

[Sutton Warrior]

Thats the Fludyers pub, right ? what the didly happened to the beach?

 

Oh and the minds eye is king

 

You are right 'n4lly' the beach disappeared a couple or three years ago, few big tides, a storm or two . . . and some gravel dredging off shore, whoosh, all gone. Put the rock defenses in to protect the promenade! Its cracking up the other side of the pier!

 

SW

[corydoras]

... cropping is not a no, no . . . some times there is no time to walk 50 yards for a more full frame before the moment is gone in 'Street Photography'.

 

Life changing program? Perhaps not, but it certainly set my mind thinking . . . 'less is more' . . . ????????????

 

Anyone else see or get anything from the series?

 

SW

As far as I am concerned nothing is a no-no if it get's me the image that I want, or if it enhances an otherwise ordinary snapshot.

 

Take these two images as an example.

 

This one was just an experiment, I wasn't really 'taking photographs' that day, I had only just got the camera and I was just wandering around the ferry terminal waiting for them to call us foot passengers to the bus. I was just passing the time, trying out different modes, yada-yada

 

 

I few days later I noticed the bloke that I had caught mid stride so I made what to me at least is a totally different image from the above by cropping it.