is street photography confined to the street
What is the definition of street photography? What is it that qualifies as street photography?
Well according to Wikipedia Street photography uses the techniques of straight photography in that it shows a pure vision of something, like holding up a mirror to society. Street photography often tends to be ironic and can be distanced from its subject matter, and often concentrates on a single human moment, caught at a decisive or poignant moment. On the other hand, much street photography takes the opposite approach and provides a very literal and extremely personal rendering of the subject matter, giving the audience a more visceral experience of walks of life they might only be passingly familiar with. In the 20th century, street photographers have provided an exemplary and detailed record of street culture in Europe and North America, and elsewhere to a somewhat lesser extent.
I prefer to define it as a documentary of life, so basically street photography is not confined to the street or to strangers. Its more like photos being taken to document life as is.
Fantastic photos – really, really excellent.
I like the last one. The first pictures are a bit to chaotic to me. I see you try to put the attention (sharpness) to the subject but the background is just to noisy…
Hi Nedewe, thanks for your comment. These photos were taken in a festival where about 150000 people attending. I do try to isolate the people by using depth of field to make the individuals more pronounce and remove the interest from what’s happening around.
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Wow, lovely images, I like that there are lots of people in the shots, its easy to get stuck do street portraits as opposed to street generally.
Thanks Louise, I know the feeling. I do a lot of street photography here on the island but nothing matches the sheer scale of this concert. I get daunted by the amount of people that attend it. The population here where I live is just about 40000, congregated in this featured concert there are more then 4 times as much. I do a lot of landscape photography and my objective most of the times is to try to picture the place without the influence of humanity, respecting and portraying its peacefulness. In this set though I wanted to show that such a number of people can still live together their own lives in tranquility.
Great street work, I think you are right, street photography doesn’t always have to be taken in the street – look at Bruce Davidson, he would do entire projects in the Subway, which isn’t technically ‘the street’. I think if you in an place where there are lot’s of people then it should absolutely be classed as street….
Awesome. Just awesome. Loving the high contrast. By the way, Defining it can be a bit of a confining trap question. I guess it’s still evolving, but I hope people don’t start putting rules on what qualifies as street photography. I think of photos in public mostly, but anything documenting this life is worth the title to me. Other than that, I’m not sure if I can put it in a nice neat definition, nor do I really want to. Great job on the photos!
these pictures capture the essence of what street photography should be! great work. in my opinion street photography should always be about spontaneity and you’ve caught that brilliant here.