sjl photography: October 2012

Thursday, 18 October 2012

Street Photography

Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos. GREECE. 1961. Cyclades. Island of Siphnos

Cartier-Bresson didn’t just take photographs (as Americans say), but rather he made photographs. He had the patience of a monk and would find interesting scenes and would be patient enough until the right actors would enter his scene. This gave him the ability to set up his backgrounds and compositions, and let the one right person who entered complete the scene

I very rarely get good shots. I currently shoot around 50 rolls of film a month (about 1,800 shots) and would say I only get a good shot once a month, and one great shot a year. I remember feeling this constant sense of disappointment that my “hit rate” was so low, and whenever reviewing my images from my days shooting I would feel like giving up. If I do my math correctly, my “hit rate” is only at 0.05% (a very low standard). Eric Kim Street Photographer

Street photography is a type of photography that features subjects in candid situations within public places such as streets, parks, beaches, malls, political conventions and other settings.

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.