Street photography?*
'Humans must not be aware of the photographer; if they are, it is portraiture in the street, not street photography.' - The street photographer's manual.
Street photography is a sub class of travel photography, where the understanding of social world is communicated through photographer's choice of subject and style. It is also a sibling of social landscape photography and records human constructs and human actions. The practice of street photography itself is confined by defined rituals. Earlier street photography was used as a documentary record with photographs as a medium to document. But urge to differentiate and be creative, introduced auteur nature into street photography.
Street photography is the recording and representation of subject matter usually found around
and about streets, sidewalks and other public places. Photographers have made pictures of people who are going about their
business unaware of the photographer’s presence i.e, candid pictures
of everyday life in the street.
While traditionalists shoot black-and-white film
and make fine prints and photo books, the new photographers in google age tries different medium from gallery exhibitions to online publishing (in-public.com). The advent of internet broadened the audience resulting in wide spread acceptance.
Tribute of street photography extend to John Thomson, Eugene Atget who notably took camera out of rich class portrait rooms and shifted lens to the streets. Henri Cartier-Bresson introduced the value of decisive-moment. The later development in street photography is contributed by people associated with "New York school of photography". It refers to an ecosystem of like-minded New York based photographers in mid 20th century.
In spite of wider acceptance and growth of street photography in the west, comparatively little attention is given to street photography in the east. There are limited references or reviews on works of street photographers outside North America and Europe. A trend which is now changing but lot more to go,
* These are my personal views and not a statement about the topic itself.
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