surviving the streets

I never expected this theme to run over three posts, but as I considered my self-posed questions, the stream of consciousness flowed and could so easily have continued to more. But I’m going to close with this post where I find myself wondering if anything I do can be considered “street”.

As someone who finds it exceptionally hard to photograph people, even people I know, street photography, in its widely accepted guise as (mostly) candid observations of people in public situations, is perhaps a challenge too far. So, back to my earlier question: how do you define street photography? Can I remain close to my people-free comfort zone and still be a street photographer? Or must I step outside my comfort zone and take a more people based approach?

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living on the streets

In the last post, I began by pondering, “how do you define street photography?”
Since then, I’ve considered at length but have only been left with more questions.

I considered whether street photography is an evolution of documentary, but I don’t think it is. Not all street is documentary, and not all documentary is street, they converge and diverge like overlapping oscillatory wave patterns. If I were to photograph people at a demonstration marching through the city, I’d like to think I was making documentary photographs, but if I turned my back on the marchers to find images of people sitting in a pavement café watching the goings-on, then perhaps I might be indulging in some street photography.

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Don McCullin at the Tate

I always feel a little irked when a museum or gallery levies a charge to enter certain areas of an otherwise free to enter establishment. It irritates, probably more than it should, especially when the entry fee feels excessive, and for the same reasons that I won’t pay inflated “event” parking charges at the O2, or use the public lavatories at London Victoria train station, I’ve occasionally dropped plans to take in an exhibition due to what, to me at least, appears to border on profiteering by the venue.


Now, I have no problem with a venue covering its costs with a nominal entry fee. A well known “name” showing in a well known setting may well see me parting with a tenner to get through the door, but I work long and hard for a moderate salary, so I want value, and that includes the cost of getting to and from the venue.

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