What is Street Photography?

What is street photography? That seems to be the age old question. I think the easiest way to describe it is to analogize it with pornography, in that you know it when you see it.

When someone asks me what street photography is, I say to look at the works of, among others:

-Garry Winograd
-Henri Cartier-Bresson
-Bruce Gilden
-Leonard Freed
-Chien Chi-Chang
-Gilles Peress
-James Nachtwey
-Nikos Economopolous
-Carl De Keyzer

Alas, I don’t profess to have the definitive working definition. This is not to say that street photography cannot be defined or is non-definable, but rather my purpose here is to underscore how fluid the concept of street photography is.

Perhaps street photography is a frozen moment of life captured. Maybe street photography seeks out the ordinary moments and ordinary people to show just how extraordinary that moment is or how extraordinary that person is, even for that split second the camera soaked up that image. Maybe street photography is an expression of the photographer’s soul, the viewer having the opportunity to see what he or she sees or feels or wants you to see or feel. Or maybe street photography is simply just that, photography that takes place out on the street, outside the comfort of a studio or a home.

Despite maybe the amorphous definition or definitions of street photography, one thing I am confident to say is certain. When you look at the works of the above photographers, it’s clear that just because anyone of us can go out and purchase a nice camera with a nice lens doesn’t make you a high-caliber photographer. When you look at the works of these photographers, you will see a clear and distinct difference between “pros” and “amateurs.” It’s about their eye. Photography is a great equalizer because if you don’t have the equipment you can’t take shots. At the same time, just because you have the cash to acquire that equipment, doesn’t mean a hell of a lot in terms of your work.

A quick example. I saw a documentary of James Nachtwey called “War Photographer.” They put a special video camera on his lens so that “you” could see what he was seeing. I spoke with numerous people about the film and they agreed that when you saw Nachtwey’s finished image, it was much different than what you saw on the screen. The screen wasn’t screwed up. Rather, Nachtwey’s eye was so unique that he was able to capture something differently, even though we were seeing what we initially thought was the same scene.

Just because it’s street photography doesn’t mean composition doesn’t matter or that compelling images don’t matter. As long as photography is photography, they still apply. Seeing the work of the photographers above only underscores that point: it’s perhaps easy to shoot something and call it “street photography,” but to shoot street photography well is really difficult.

I think this post was largely in response to some websites or forums on Flickr out there proclaiming that street photography has no rules and that it can be anything you want it to be. While in spirit, I agree with these proclamations – which of course can be applied to most other forms of photography – it fails to recognize the lessons and importance that these artists have shown us of what solid street photography is all about.