As I See It - Thoughts of a Street Photography Group Admin
Posed.
2020 has been a peak and valley year for me relative to pursuing my passion for street photography. The year started off strong. I was in Central America in January and had wonderful opportunities to shoot vibrant, friendly cultures. I came back home and was invited to speak to a N.C. Photo Club. I weirdly like public speaking. The speaking engagement required me to organize my thoughts on how to explain and encourage interest in street photography for photographers in other genres. It took place just in the nick of time. The next weekend we were in high pandemic lockdown.
Then came the valley. If you were to go back and read this year’s earlier blog posts, you would know where in time the valley was. I began to believe I would have to give up writing the blog. It is only because of the encouragement of my friend, Simona Ruggeri, that I hung on.
The first light at the end of the tunnel for me was the incredible opportunity that I was given to judge the Facebook Street Photography Challenge, “Faceless”. It turns out I have a passion for curating. Then, really against all odds, I was asked to be an Administrator for the Facebook group Inspired Street Photography (ISP). I have been so challenged and enriched by the posts and the issues that arise daily as I interact with our members and other Admins. Here are some things on my mind this week.
An issue that sometimes arises in reviewing photos to post in the ISP group is whether the picture is posed. Street photographers can worry a lot about this issue. In its most extreme form, the thinking is that street portraits should not be called street photography because it is possible the photographer spoke with the subject before taking the picture. A similar extreme version is that if you get eye contact, your photo is not candid, and therefore it is posed. On my own photography I can get tangled up with what is posed and what is not posed. For example, on many of my trips, I have encountered a bride getting professional photos taken. I am absolutely ready to join in and get a picture. I do understand that it is posed. I also know how to take the picture so that it is not posed.
This photo is clearly posed.
This photo is clearly not posed.
So, what is the problem? I can forget that pictures being taken by iPhones are posed. If it is posed for the iPhone photographer, it is posed for me. In addition, photos that are not posed, can be so tightly cropped that they move out of being street photography. In general, I am not prepared to make the final call on whether a photo has been posed or not posed, because I cannot think of standardized criteria to make that decision.
I have posted this on street photography sites. Is it posed?
The other task that I have asked to be excused from is to make the calls on what is and what is not street photography as the group accepts photos for posting. At first, I thought I just needed to gain some experience to understand what the criteria was that the group had for street photography. It is a much bigger problem than that. I am inclusive by nature, so if you submit a photo that has a tiny, tiny person in it, I will quite likely say, “Yep, street photography to me.” My colleagues are generally more discerning. But that still is not the problem, because I could learn to be more discerning. There is a certain kinds of street photography that I am less and less inclined to call street. Let me see if I can give you some hypothetical examples. There was a time, fortunately short time, when I got interested in taking pictures of manhole covers in foreign countries. If the picture happened to be taken on angle with a shallow depth of field so that perhaps there were unfocused human legs in the background, I would not think I had taken a street photo. Here is another example. If I see a picture of a person carrying an open umbrella through sand dunes, I will never believe that it is a street photo. Perhaps most of the street photography community would see them both as a street photo. Bottom line: I can learn to be more discerning and accept fewer posts as street photography. I cannot learn to be less discerning and accept more.
While it is true there are people in the background, the picture that I was taking here is of a glass of beer. I do not think of this as street photography.
As the song goes, you have to know when to hold them and know when to fold them. It is best not to let me be the judge of what is street photography or if a photo is posed.