Four Women of Vernazza. Cinque Terra, Italy.
Blog Note: Although I didn't identify it as such, the photo of the pedicab and driver in my previous post was pure street photography. That started me thinking about the subject and wanting to write more, but I realized that I couldn't improve upon a post I wrote a few years ago. So here it is.
Street photography is an ever popular genre of photography. In the broadest sense, street photography is just documenting the world around you.
In some cities, much of life is lived out in public, on the street. This is more the case in other countries, of course, but it's also still true in some cities in the U.S., especially the larger ones. This makes the streets an open-air studio for photographers sufficiently skilled to make something of the opportunity.
Browsing
through photography web sites and blogs, I see a lot of what is
called "street photography." And it is indeed street photography, if by
that you mean someone out on the street
photographing people and things in passing.
However, most of the work I see has no point to it. Most so-called
street photographs look as if someone had just gone into a public place
and started firing his camera around at random. There's no apparent
point. No apparent message. Not even anything unusual or unique to
capture the eye or the imagination. Most of those voluminous photographs are simply meaningless junk. One well-known blogger posts volumes of sharp, perfectly exposed street scenes. If they have a point, maybe I'm too stupid to discern it.
I believe street photography must reveal some aspect of life, of the human condition. If it fails in this, it fails. Period.
Elliott Erwitt died nearly two years ago. I consider him to have been the greatest street photographer of all time. He created thousands of poignant, incisive photographs simply by carrying a camera with him at all times and keeping his eyes open and his mind engaged. He had a gift for this that most of us can only marvel at. He excelled at making photographs that show some aspect of human, or sometimes, as he so ably demonstrates, animal behavior. But the operative words here are "carrying a camera at all times." "Open eyes." And "an engaged mind."
Sometimes
Erwitt's wit is very subtle, and
sometimes it's like a slap in the face. Photograph above copyright the Estate of Elliott Erwitt.
As he said, "It's about reacting to what you see, hopefully without preconception. You can find pictures anywhere. It's simply a matter of noticing things and organizing them. You just have to care about what's around you and have a concern with humanity and the human comedy."
Check out his web site here.
(Top photograph: Canon EOS 20D, Canon EF 24-85mm f3.5-4.5 lens.)
If you like my pictures, visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/
Signed copies of my book Backroads and Byways of Georgia are available. The price is $22.95 plus $4.95 shipping. My PayPal address is djphoto@vol.com (which is also my email). Or you can mail a check to 8943 Wesley Place, Knoxville, TN 37922. Include your address and tell me how you would like your book inscribed.
I also offer signed prints of any photograph in the Rock City Barns book. Contact me for details.
Photography and text copyright 2025 David B.Jenkins.
I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.
