As a photographer and editor, I’ve recently become distressed by those few photographers who insist on taking photographs that don’t conform to common photographic practice. That is to say, these frondeurs ignore 180 years of tradition and insist on taking shots that are unique, having little or no banality to speak of. I don’t understand…
It’s Friday, so M and I want to advocate, once again, for being professional with your photography and editing it. In order to be more forceful and consistent in our advocacy, we’ve started a new event we’re calling the Friday Fix Your Shit post (#FixYourShizz) on Twitter. Now we know there are purists among you…
The longer I pursue photography, the more I am convinced that is it too ephemeral to capture. It is a fleeting thing, an idea, really, as we attempt to capture light with a butterfly net, all the while being enraptured by the shadows they make on the ground beneath our feet. There are those who…
In the most literal translation of the word from the Greek, anarchy means to be ‘without authority’. Although, it has been used to define a social movement, and often instills a sense of rebellion and disorder against the conservative and well-ordered establishment, a sense of chaos in fact that harks back to riots and revolutions…
Yesterday, 22 August 2016, marked the 108th anniversary of famed French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson’s birth. Although many worship the man as the founder of street photographer (I am not one of them) and while others are less enamored, I must recognize the effect of his work in pushing for composition in street photographer. He…
One of the things that pains Maria and me is the number of people who are enamored with a single shot by Henri Cartier-Bresson (“Behind the Gare Saint Lazare“). You know the one, the “Defining Moment” shot. But here’s the thing: it’s a shitty photo. It’s underexposed, details are lost because of the lack of…
Read Part 6 or view Index to start at the beginning. Part 7 – The Rule Making Epoch–Siskind to Cartier-Bresson As I stated in Part 4 of this series, there is substantial overlap between the street photography epochs we describe. Rather than being purely sequential time periods, as the word epoch might suggest, they are…
As indicated in the Introduction, this is Track A (History of Street Photography). Track B (Art of Composition and the Composition of Art) will start in the near future. You can find a link to the posts already written to date on The Art of Street Photography page in the header above. Part 1 –…
Raw, Naked Art 