Street Photography - Witness Fleeting Life Moments - Speech or Presentation Example

Writing the Street Photography “We live in the age of the The is everything to us - it consumes us, and for that reason we glorify it.” Onookome Okome Introduction: The city is an intriguing mix of elements that are paradoxical in nature. The word evokes images of an urban environment with tall buildings with impenetrable walls made of cold steel juxtaposed with beating hearts and warm bodies. The city with all its sounds, movements and emotions acts as a giant canvas that portrays, in the form of still images, the transformation that it has undergone over the years, tells tales about an era long forgotten. The city is full of visual inconsistencies that includes the rustic buildings that stand loud and proud despite being long abandoned and the cracks and crevices of old buildings makes for an interesting visual expression. A city is a truly fascinating place. It is a unique blend where the poor meet the elite, where tall plush buildings are often seen looking down on ghettos - the underbelly of the city, and where the city is populous and lonely, dark and well lit, asleep and awake all at the same time. The same is glorified through art in the form of street photography. This essay looks at the manner in which street photography makes the still images come alive to inform and enchant us with vivid stories behind those still images through the works of Eugene Atget, John Thomson, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, Yutokutaishi Akiyama, and the likes. Street photography: Reliving history “Still images can be moving and moving images can be still. Both meet within soundscapes” Chien-Chi Chang Street photography is not a new phenomenon and has been existence for decades. Street photography as a definitive art came into light during the end of 19th century followed spontaneously by the emergence of portable cameras. Over the years street photography has offered a detailed glimpse of diversity and uniqueness of lifestyles of people and the city they live in (Tormey, 2013). Street photograph was first popularised by Parisian artists who helped promote the concept by publishing images and stills that conveyed more about the city and its people than a lucid piece of writing ever could. Figure 3 & 4: Photographs by Eugene Atget Source: http://www.atgetphotography.com/The-Photographers/Eugene-Atget.html Atget’s Paris resembled nothing like the city we know of. His version of street photography deliberately excluded all the elements that are usually associated with the dazzling city. It lacks the grandeur of churches and beautiful historic landmarks such as the Eiffel tower, the cathedrals or the Louver - names so synonymous with Paris that it is almost impossible to think about Paris without conceiving certain images in our minds. In contrast, Atget’s Paris comprised of the routine and the ordinary. It comprised of images of mundane everyday lives of people in those times, wide empty streets, with a silence that spoke volumes about the characters in it. His characters – be it a street, people or even a door handle, were shot in the most realistic manner possible without any gimmick or fancy tricks that is common in street photography (Scott, 2013: p.58). Atgets photographs accurately depict the life of people in Paris during an era when the city was in the midst of a significant transformation both - economically as well as politically. His pictures capture the drama, the culture, the poverty and the struggle experience by the people in an almost poetic ease (Bogaerts, 2013: p. 1865). It is this depiction of the stylish and glorious city of Paris that evoked exclamations of surprise and often shock mainly due to the contrast between perception and reality. Galenson (2012) perfectly described Atgets style of street photography and the depiction of Paris as visualised and perceived by Atget. He described it, as “Atget’s Paris was an ancient city of small scale His Paris was a private city, with no palaces, and few churches." John Thomson: Human beings have been the central and often sole focus of various street and city photographers. Although the choice of humans as the central subjects of their photographs could be explained as inevitable, but the same could be perceived as an adornment used to glorify the city, which often served as the backdrop. Figure 5: London Nomades Figure 6: Street Doctor Source: http://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/collections/streetlifeinlondon Travel photographers such as John Thomson skilfully used people as the subject to make the city appear more humane and alive and give it a definite character that evoked emotions and feelings in the observer (Hannavy, 2013: p. 63). The city in Thomsons photographs, published in ‘Street life in London’ in 1877 were hence not of inanimate objects but comprised of something that carried as much emotions and life as the people in it (See figures 5 & 6 above). Thomsons photographs depict the lives of people in 19th century England. The city of London was a capital of the worlds largest empire and enjoyed a steady stream of income and wealth from a range of countries including India and the Far East. This fact was contradicted by the millions of unemployed people who lived in poverty and suffered great social inequality due to the industrial revolution that followed. The poverty and struggle of the people in England were documented by various artists across genres including literature, paintings and photography. Popular authors such as Charles Dickens depicted the transformation in "A tale of two cities" while Bram Stokers remarkable thriller "Dracula" personified the struggles of the poor and the destitute in the form of the villainous blood-sucking vampire who fed off of the blood of the poor (Thomson, 1877). Similarly the photographers too managed to capture the life and times of people in London during this crucial phase through images. Some of Johnsons famous photographs such as "The Crawlers" depict the lives of the poor and the destitute during the transition era. Henri Cartier-Bresson: Similarly Henri Cartier-Bresson, a 20th century French freelance photographer who coined the term decisive moment was known for capturing candid shots of people, focusing on one particular action, gesture or expression. His style of photography is quite telling about the times in France where the Surrealist movement was at its peak (Ward, 2009: p. 126) and where the central idea was to focus on chance encounters in the city (Bull, 2009: p. 109). Fig.8: The Quai St Bernard, Paris 1932 Fig.9: Barcelona, Spain 1933 Cartier-Bresson was known to be instantaneous and discreet while capturing moments that appealed to him and that style of photography is usually associated with him. Almost all of his photographs highlight the candid moments, which have inspired several street photographers in the later years. His style of street photography involved individuals of diverse backgrounds and age groups. His photographs of children in particular highlight the spontaneity of the moments during which they were captured - a brand unique to Cartier-Bresson. Fig. 10. Henri Cartier-Bresson, France - 1969 The photographs of children by Cartier-Bresson help in effectively conveying the spontaneity and candid moments when they were taken. He stated that "you mustnt want, you must be receptive; dont think even, the brains a bit dangerous. Sensitivity is the favour moments" (Cartier-Bresson cited in Stone, 2012). Cartier-Bressons highly popularised and most notable photographs till date - the iconic Behind the Gare, Saint-Lazare published in 1932 highlights the use of shadowy silhouette effect creatively integrated into the photograph to give it a unique touch. At the time when this image was first published images of such puddle jumpers had become quite common. However Cartier-Bressons use of a non-pictorial spot, helped magnify the appeal of this image. The image was shot in a non-picturesque location where the surrounding environment is cluttered with objects from the repair work going on and the ground is littered with rubble and planks of wood (Longhurst, 2013: p. 38). Fig. 11: Behind the Gare saint-lazare, 1932 The unique style of Cartier-Bressons photography however helped in highlighting the central event i.e., the man jumping over the puddle while everything around him acts as a backdrop of the banality of the site and the life and times of people living in the era. Another key highlight of this style of street photography can be seen in the use of appropriate spot by the photographer. The image is clicked at an opportune moment when the background, that of a ballet dancer is juxtaposed with the not so artistic mid-flight pose of the jumper (Longhurst, 2013: p. 38). Robert Frank: The concept of street photography which was popularised during the 1920s by French photographers who, armed with the modern technology of those times, set out to capture every moment of life of people around them. The era between 1920s and 1930s saw an overwhelming influx of street photographers who, fascinated by the industrialisation and the rapid changes in the socio-economic lifestyles took to the streets to capture these changes and mark, forever, the decisive moments in history through their immensely popular works. The practice of street photography now shifted to the USA during the 1950s and gave rise to several prominent street photographers - Robert Frank being one of them (Wells, 2015: p. 119). Robert Frank published his widely popular collection of street photographs in his now famous work The American where he published a series of photographs that depicted his perception of the American life. He relied on the usual subjects of interest such as fleeting moments of ordinary/ routine life of people in those times, a characteristic trait inherent in almost all prominent street photographers by then. Despite being a non-native American (the photographer was born in Switzerland) Robert Frank added his own unique touch to the phenomenon of street photography. Some of the key objects of his photographs include objects as unique as and ordinary as a juke box and coffins on one hand to cowboys and long empty roads on the other. Some of his photographs also include unique subjects that depicted the state of the countrys socio-economic progress. These include drive-in movies and barbers chairs as well as lonely fields and bikers (Wells, 2015: p. 120). Fig. 12: Drive in movie, Detroit - 1955 Fig. 13: Drugstore, Detroit – 1955 Fig. 14: Detroit River Rouge Plant, 1955 Frank, is known to have entered the field of street photography at an opportune moment when the life in America was about to undergo a dramatic shift, foregoing the banal and unimaginative objects or moments were soon to be turned into a spectacle, something that people would be in awe of in the near future (Wells, 2015: p. 120). Most of Franks photographs comprised of images that symbolised Americas growth and prosperity during the post war period. These include automobiles, television sets and other objects that highlighted the materialistic lifestyles of the American people. He used recurring themes of highways and modern forms of communication such as telephones, the people could be seen as stuck or immortalised in that one moment, offering a stark contradiction to the movement behind them. His photographs are extremely perceptive and imaginative since he was able to successfully capture the growing distance between people - a fact that could be attributed to the sudden rise in materialistic objects that although seemed to bring them closer, drew a wedge between them in reality. In some of the photographs published in his book The Americans, it can be clearly seen that the people in his images rarely make eye contact or show a clear distance between them (Marien, 2006: p. 340). The insistence and at times excessive focus of street photographers on that one decisive moment is one of the most unique characteristics of the medium. Such moments are beyond interpretation and its essence can only be experienced by the unique gestures and the mystique surrounding the object of focus which all come together to create a magical masterpiece (Longhurst, 2013: p. 38). Conclusion: Street photography celebrates life in general and people in their most candid moments. Street photography comes in various forms as is observed from the various differences between the styles of famous street photographers who pioneered the concept, as we know today. However the key similarity between them all is the manner in which this concept enables and often encourages spontaneity, enabling the photographers to capture vivid images in their most decisive moments - people hard at work, lonely ruins, children playing on the street, stolen glances, meditative silence and busy streets. The beauty of it all lies in the fact that street photography enables us to witness fleeting moments in life and help understand the struggles of the people as well as the state of the city in that particular moment in history. Works Cited: Bogaerts, G., (2013). Walking Paris streets with Eugene Atget: Inspired stories about the ragpicker, lampshade vendor, and other characters and places of old France. Brunswick, ME: Shanti Arts LLC. Bull, S., (2009). Photography. London: Routledge Publication. Galenson, D., (2012). Eugène Atget and Old Paris [Online] Available at: Accessed: [March 11, 2015] Hannavy, J., (2013). Encyclopedia of nineteenth century photography. London: Routledge Publishing. Longhurst, J., (2013). On perfection: An artists symposium. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Scott, C., (2013). Street photography: From Atget to Cartier-Bresson. Salem Rd, London: I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd. Stone, L., (2012). Photographing childhood, the image and the memory. Waltham, MA: Taylor & Francis Publication Thomson, J., (1877). Street life in London. [Online] Available at: [Accessed: March 11, 2015] Tormey, J., (2013). Cities and photography: Critical introduction to urbanism and the city. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge Publishing. Ward, K., (2009). Augenblick: The concept of the Decisive moment in 19th-and-20th-century western philosophy. London: Ashgate Publishing Wells, L., (2015). Photography: A critical introduction. New York, NY: Routledge Publication. Images: Fig. 1 & 2: http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2011/02/07/captured-the-ruins-of-detroit/2672/ Fig. 3 & 4: http://www.atgetphotography.com/The-Photographers/Eugene-Atget.html Fig. 5, 6 & 7: http://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/collections/streetlifeinlondon Fig. 8 & 9: http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_10_VForm&ERID=24KL53ZMYN Fig. 10: https://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&STID=2S5RYDYMZR5E Fig. 11: Behind the Gare saint-lazare http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=98333 Fig. 12, 13 & 14: http://artblart.com/2010/06/26/exhibition-detroit-experiences-robert-frank-photographs-1955-at-detroit-institute-of-arts-detroit/ Read More