Street photography attracts “an unusually open-minded and generous group of practitioners,” states a new book “Street Photography Now,” by Sophie Howarth and Stephen McLaren that explains how the advent of the cell phone camera is creating a new “art form” from the growing use of cell phones, smartphones and tablets that also feature cameras to take photos here now. In turn, the authors proclaim that “we are all photographers now,” with today’s street photographers living “in a digital society in which ideas, images and money move with increasing fluidity across national and cultural boundaries.” Thus, it’s now easier to travel between “far-flung geographical locations with lightweight, high-quality equipment, instantly uploading and sharing images with an expanding global community via the Internet.”
Growing archive of street photography on Huliq and online
While this reporter’s joy is sharing “street photography” with Huliq stories, it’s not uncommon these days to find just about anybody and everybody taking and sending photos; while in the past only certain people seemed to be taking photos in a group.
For instance, the growing of “street photography” – taking quick images of life happening around you – can easily be accessed online. “We each have cell phones that can take photos,” explains Helen while staging various family photos along the fishing docks here in the central Oregon resort town of Florence.
In turn, Helen whips out here smartphone and takes a “street photo” of her son Mark pretending to board a local fishing boat; while husband Peter snaps an image of Helen taking this photo with his new iPad2 that he got as a Christmas present. “I was never any sort of photographer, but I just turn my tablet and shoot and bang there’s Helen right on the screen,” quips Peter with a big smile.
“Everything is changing. How we take photographs, manipulate them, share them, store them – even how we pose for them. Our tools are mutating quickly, promising ever faster, clearer, brighter and cheaper pictures,” writes the authors of the new book “Street Photography Now.”
When telephones become cameras
Helen explains that “I was never a good photographer because, I think, I only took a few snaps during birthdays or something. I’ve learned that to be good at taking photos, you need to take lots and lots of them. That’s what happened when I got my first cell phone and noticed that the kids were taking all these pictures and then sending them to each other. I did likewise, and now I think I’m a pretty good photographer,” explains the mother of three, while showing off her recent shots during a Huliq interview at the Florence docks Jan. 6.
At the same time, the authors of Street Photography Now explain how street photography “is an unbroken tradition, stretching back to the invention of photography itself. It revels in the poetic possibilities that an inquisitive mind and a camera can conjure out of everyday life.
For instance, there’s Walker Evans – considered to be one of the greatest American photographers of the mid-twentieth century – who said “Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, and eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.”
Thus, it’s no wonder that Evans got some of his best shots in shopping malls, parks, bars, museum, subways or at coastal promenades such as the fishing docks here in Florence, Oregon.
Cell phone photos become an art form
The authors of Street Photography Now also explain how cell phone cameras have helped create this new art form: “In their spontaneous and often subconscious reaction to the fecundity of public life, street photographers elevate the commonplace and familiar into something mythical and even heroic. They thrive on the unexpected, seeing the street as a theatre or endless possibilities, the cast list never fixed until the shutter is pressed on their phone.”
In turn, this process involves cell phone camera users who are willing to stare, pry, listen and then eavesdrop; and “in doing so, state the book’s authors, “they hold up a mirror to the kind of societies we are making of ourselves.”
Meanwhile, it’s no secret that telephones have become cameras and desktop printers have morphed into something along the lines of mini-printing labs; with the authors of “Street Photography Now” stating that the “high-definition screens threaten to dislodge the venerable photographic print from gallery walls.”
Also, there’s something crazy happening with just about everybody with a smartphone taking photos these days.
For the street-hardened photographer, “the sheer ubiquity of cameras in public life creates an aesthetic obstacle,” write the authors of Street Photography Now; while point to one street photographer who concurs with this point of view.