‘Why Street Photography is Facing a Moment of Truth’
There is an article in the Observer today about street photography. Nothing substantially new here; the article traces the origins of street photography, pays lips service to Winogrand, goes on to talk about the difficulties faced by the current climate and briefly mentions the ‘I’m a photographer, not a terrorist’ campaign. It’s a decent round-up though, bringing it all into a modern context.
What I did find quite interesting was the discussion about the art market’s view of street photography. The article quotes Paul Graham, who said: “…there remains a sizeable part of the art world that simply does not get photography. They get artists who use photography to illustrate their ideas, installations, performances and concepts, who deploy the medium as one of a range of artistic strategies to complete their work. But photography for and of itself – photographs taken from the world as it is – are misunderstood as a collection of random observations and lucky moments, or muddled up with photojournalism, or tarred with a semi-derogatory ‘documentary’ tag.”
It was perhaps no surprise that the article talks about flickr, more specifically the Hardcore Street Photography group. There may be little point here having the debate about what the increased access to photography means for its status, whether it devalues it as an artistic medium or has democratised it for the better, but it seems that few discussions about photography these days can leave flickr out – even if it’s there as an implied presence only. And going back to Graham’s comment above, there is no lack of “photography for and of itself – photographs taken from the world as it is” on flickr, and elsewhere. The discussion about value is one worth having, however. I would argue that far from there being a semi-utopian community where everyone is an artist, this increased access to photography (and its dissemination) helps highlight the gate-keeping function of the economic and cultural art (sub-)fields. I may come back to this in a later post, since I’d like to flex my Bourdieusian muscles in this area.
As a side note, perhaps, the discussion, towards the end – where 3 photographers describe what street photography is – shows how it’s pretty pointless, and self-serving, to try to define what it is or what it should be.
And it made me wish, again, I could do that stuff. I’ve tried but I’m shit at it. See …
© catherine buca 2006-2010
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There is an article in the Observer today about street photography. Nothing substantially new here; the article traces the origins of street photography, pays lips service to Winogrand, goes on to talk about the difficulties faced by the current climate and briefly mentions the ‘I’m a photographer, not a terrorist’ campaign. It’s a decent round-up though, bringing it all into a modern context.
What I did find quite interesting was the discussion about the art market’s view of street photography. The article quotes Paul Graham, who said: “…there remains a sizeable part of the art world that simply does not get photography. They get artists who use photography to illustrate their ideas, installations, performances and concepts, who deploy the medium as one of a range of artistic strategies to complete their work. But photography for and of itself – photographs taken from the world as it is – are misunderstood as a collection of random observations and lucky moments, or muddled up with photojournalism, or tarred with a semi-derogatory ‘documentary’ tag.”
It was perhaps no surprise that the article talks about flickr, more specifically the Hardcore Street Photography group. There may be little point here having the debate about what the increased access to photography means for its status, whether it devalues it as an artistic medium or has democratised it for the better, but it seems that few discussions about photography these days can leave flickr out – even if it’s there as an implied presence only. And going back to Graham’s comment above, there is no lack of “photography for and of itself – photographs taken from the world as it is” on flickr, and elsewhere. The discussion about value is one worth having, however. I would argue that far from there being a semi-utopian community where everyone is an artist, this increased access to photography (and its dissemination) helps highlight the gate-keeping function of the economic and cultural art (sub-)fields. I may come back to this in a later post, since I’d like to flex my Bourdieusian muscles in this area.
As a side note, perhaps, the discussion, towards the end – where 3 photographers describe what street photography is – shows how it’s pretty pointless, and self-serving, to try to define what it is or what it should be.
And it made me wish, again, I could do that stuff. I’ve tried but I’m shit at it. See …
© catherine buca 2006-2010
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