Defining Street Photography

By Kris Hooper

Nearly everyone you know has a camera. Some even carry a camera near at hand through most of the day. Some of these people might even call themselves a photographer. Yet, interestingly, only a few of these people will endeavour to explore the genre of street photography.

Why is that? What’s the barrier to enter the genre?

It isn’t likely equipment. Pretty much any camera will take street photos. You don’t need a tripod. You don’t need lights. You likely have a comfortable pair of shoes you don’t mind putting some miles on in.

Here’s the hurdle: In order to get into street photography you need to develop a sense of appreciation for the fleeting moments that surround you. Also, a desire to capture these moments so that they can be shared with others. Or, more accurately, a desire to attempt a capture, for not every attempt is going to be a success.

Some people think this sort of activity is great fun, and for others the appeal remains elusive. There’s an open-ended, choose-your-own-adventure quality to street photography that can make it difficult for some to fully appreciate. These very qualities can make street photography difficult to define. So what is street photography?

It can be useful to remember that street photography did not arrive fully formed as a genre. It was shaped by two hundred years of technical developments, countless trailblazing photographers, and some themes that have fascinated artists. Taking into account some of that history seems like a good way of getting closer to the essence of street photography.

The Desire to Depict Daily Life

Artists have long been preoccupied with depicting the daily “street” life around them. Unsurprisingly, capturing such moments is a concern for photographers as well. However, for early photographers, doing so was technically far more challenging to accomplish than it is now.

Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, Boulevard du Temple, c. 1838

A famous example that illustrates this challenge is a daguerreotype, an early type of photo, known as “Boulevard du Temple” by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre himself. Dating from 1838 or 1839, it depicts a broad street scene from his studio window in Paris. The boulevard at the time of exposure was full of pedestrians, carriages and typical street activity. However, all of this—anything that was moving— evaded capture. The Parisian apartments, lines of trees and the boulevard itself appear, but no human forms are seen except a single individual who happened to be still far longer than everyone else while getting his boots cleaned. In the photo this individual haunts this street scene alone on account of the fact that the photo required an exposure of roughly seven seconds in order to be correctly exposed. Such was the state of emulsion, lens and camera technology at the time. At this stage in the technology, a camera was a tool best suited to a controlled environment like a studio. Fleeting moments were left largely unrecorded.

As technology progressed, the possibility of capturing scenes outside of strictly controlled environments grew. The gear became less cumbersome. A scene could be captured more quickly due to more light sensitive emulsions. Every element of the process was getting more sophisticated and the tools were becoming easier to use. These changes were effectively bringing photography to the “street”. Candid but fleeting moments were occurring as they always had, but now they could be captured photographically. It should be noted though, “street photography” was less a reference to actual streets— urban, rural or otherwise— and more a reference to getting out of fastidiously controlled environments. What’s outside of the studio? The literal street, sure, but a great deal besides.

Fast forwarding nearly a century from Daguerre’s “Boulevard du Temple”, and how far things progressed! Consider Henri Cartier-Bresson’s famous photo, “Behind the Gare St. Lazare”, from 1932. In silhouette, a man is seen in mid-leap as he jumps while navigating a large puddle. The composition is remarkable and a bit mysterious with background figures barely visible and geometrics elements in the water. But the main draw is this moment captured. A man leaping is, of course, common enough that we can readily identify it as such. Yet he is also presented in a manner that we simply cannot quite see in reality. While we don’t know what happened before or after this moment, we are instantly prompted to imagine this. Experience tells us that the man made his way a few inches back down earth, perhaps with a splash, but the photo has frozen a little slice of life. We are presented the opportunity to contemplate a moment that might otherwise flow past us without a thought. Another photo of a person jumping over a puddle might not inspire us, but this simple moment here somehow is as elegant as a ballet.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Behind the Gare St. Lazare, 1932

If photography is partly about freezing moments for capture, then the selection of those that could be captured was increasing. To be clear, this is not just a freezing of physical movements, but of all manner of gestures. Moments bursting with sentiment. Or a sly wink at human nature. Or of great beauty, poignancy, action or drama. It is out of this abundance of possibilities that the genre of street photography grew. So, looking through the lens of history leaves us with a basic definition (or maybe the outline of one): street photography is concerned with freezing moments outside of controlled environments in order to share them with others.

Perhaps it is noteworthy that some giants of the genre have never really taken a shine to the term “street photography”. Bruce Gilden and Bruce Davidson both dislike the term despite being considered classic practitioners. Henri Cartier-Bresson, now often called “The Father of Street Photography”, never used the term himself. Perhaps the term “street photography” was too open ended, or the notion of a “street” being too prescriptive. Maybe the idea of breaking out of a controlled environment to take photos was reductive given that these were individuals that worked entirely in uncontrolled situations, and insufficiently described the essence of their work. Maybe “photojournalism” or “art photography” were more practical to use? Or maybe trying to arrive at some consensus amongst street photographers is a bit like herding cats?

The fuzzy edges of the definition

Be that as it may, there have been attempts to clearly define the boundaries of the genre. These attempts have largely been based on observations made about the work of specific photographers. Though well intentioned, these lines, having been drawn, can introduce as many questions as they answer. They are nonetheless interesting to consider.

Street photography is candid

Some say that street photography is strictly candid. This is broadly interpreted to mean that photographic moments are found and not contrived. This is generally true. But Diane Arbus’ work, to give one example, proved that engaging with a subject and introducing a small amount of direction can reveal incredibly intimate but unrehearsed moments. Contact sheets from the photo shoot for “Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park” reveal Arbus trying a bunch of angles with the subject, ultimately running with the most extreme and expressive.

Diane Arbus, Child with a Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, 1962

The subject of the photo later remarked:

“She catches me in a moment of exasperation. It’s true, I was exasperated. My parents had divorced and there was a general feeling of loneliness, a sense of being abandoned. I was just exploding. She saw that and it’s like…commiseration. She captured the loneliness of everyone.”

Whether such moments count as “candid” seem beside the point when the content of the resultant photo is so spontaneous and affecting.

Street photography is about people

Some have suggested that street photography is about people, even going so far as to suggest that people must be in a frame for a photograph to be a street photo. Again, this statement resonates somehow, yet exceptions to the rule abound. Many, many photographers have explored capturing deeply humanistic images with no one actually in the frame at all.

William Eggleston, for example, has a knack of capturing a soda bottle on a car hood, a pile of tires at the corner of a service station, or tomatoes arranged next to a sink that invites you to imagine the type of person that is somehow present just out of frame.

Michael Wolf’s series exploring private life colliding with the public amidst the urban density of Hong Kong speaks volumes about life there without showing people at all, just objects signifying private life in a public setting.

From “Hong Kong Trilogy”, Michael Wolf, 2014

Elliott Erwitt’s book “Dogs” focuses primarily, as the title suggests, on canines. People may or may not be featured in individual images, but the book holds up as a wonderful example of street photography and sits seamlessly with his other street work. There is an expressiveness and wit present which involves the user in much the same way human-centric photos do.

‘The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don't have to explain things with words.” – Elliott Erwitt

Street photography is about the external urban experience

There is no shortage of amazing street photography taken outdoors in the dense urban environments of New York City, Paris, Tokyo, etc. Such urban environments are brimming with activity close at hand, and the tight quarters encourage people to “live outside”, all of their expressiveness and eccentricities on display. The architecture, glass, looming shadows, signs and infrastructure suggest interesting compositions.

With that said, there’s no reason that other environments can’t be settings for street photos. You simply don’t need a street, urban, suburban, rural or otherwise, to capture the unscripted moments of daily life. You need interesting moments. Street photography can and has been taken in elevators, cars, homes, subways, suburban parking lots and everywhere else that interesting unscripted moments reside.

In Greg Stimac’s Mowing the Lawn photos were taken in small towns and suburbs throughout the United States, often by driving around listening for the sound of a lawnmower. Though seemingly a banal task to document, Stimac captures a wild diversity of characters, mowing equipment and lawns that surprises by revealing how embedded in American culture taking pride in your lawn is.

Street photography should reflect “reality”

Some argue that street photography should represent on the ground “reality” and not some of the more abstract images that result in intentional camera movement, slow shutter speeds, double exposure or other forms of altering the world as it is seen. Some of the more abstract street photography work is akin to 19th Century Impressionist painters who moved painting away from simply reproducing the image of a lily pond or ballet and attempted to play with light and movement, capturing the essence of a scene rather than a faithful visual replica. Rather than attempting to render a specific place, with specific people, abstract street photography endeavors to create a mood or atmosphere that is evocative of an emotion or feeling. Early examples of this approach to street photography can be found in the work of Saul Leiter. Leiter used steamy windows, a shallow depth of field and reflections to create abstract images that hint of human activity without providing the details. Faces are hidden, replaced by silhouettes.

More recently, this approach can be seen in the work of Alan Humphris who uses motion blur to create a sense of movement, describes his photos this way,

“The scenario is more likely to tug a memory or strike a chord with the viewer. It captures colours, forms, coincidences that wouldn’t otherwise be viewable. I like the idea of having a single image that represents several seconds in time rather than just an instance.”

Whatever you make it to be

It’s interesting to note that many of the most celebrated street photographers have seemed far more interested in taking photos than defining what they do, or the boundaries of their genre

“I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.”

– Garry Winogrand

“It’s not when you press the shutter, but why you press the shutter.”

– Mary Ellen Mark

“My photographs are more questions than answers. I use photography to help me understand why I am here. The camera helps me to see.”

– Trent Parke

“My pictures have no use for anything except my own pleasure. It’s not their function whether you like them or not. If I exhibit, that’s someone else’s problem. They ask me.”

– Lee Friedlander

“I only know how to approach a place by walking. For what does a street photographer do but walk and watch and wait and talk, and then watch and wait some more, trying to remain confident that the unexpected, the unknown, or the secret heart of the known awaits just around the corner.”

– Alex Webb

“There are photographic fanatics, just as there are religious fanatics. They buy a so-called candid camera… there is no such thing: it’s the photographer who has to be candid, not the camera.”

– Weegee

“You take 35 degrees out of 360 degrees and call it a photo. No individual photo explains anything. That’s what makes photography such a wonderful and problematic medium.”

– Joel Sternfeld

With this observation in mind, I wondered if a good definition for street photography should include this open ended quality. It should hint at the process used to make it. Then I stumbled about the following quote from Angela Kelly:

“Street photography is a kind of theater, and the street itself can function as a stage upon which multiple ’actors’ spontaneously interact without any self-consciousness or awareness of the ‘play’ in progress.”

Maybe street photography provides a framework. It’s the theater. Beyond that, the point is that street photography is exactly what you make it to be.

Kris Hooper is a Vancouver photographer and perennial wanderer. While his work is largely instinctual and reactive, common themes include exploring the impact that time has had on things, finding order and fresh beauty in clutter, and capturing scenes that are informed by colourful personalities.