So-called “Street Photography” seems to circumnavigate the globe, moving from “iconic” city to “iconic” city, with New York and Tokyo apparently acting as the anchor points in this endless sashaying about.
People on the streets in 1960s New York in Winogrand, or 90s New York in Gilden, or 70s-80s-90s-00s New York in Meyerowitz are different from but similar to people on the streets of 70s Tokyo in Daido Moriyama and 2010s in Tatsuo Suzuki. Styles vary but subject matter, like the song in Led Zep’s estimation, remains the same.
And then there’s Saul Leiter and Harry Gruyaert. Young men on Reddit photography subs will tell you these may not be “real” street photographers. Too much color, too little concentration on “people”. Gruyaert travelled, Leiter stayed in New York. But Leiter’s New York is a galaxy removed from that of Winogrand, Gilden and Meyerowitz.
Winogrand said “All things are photographable” but when you look at his work, there really aren’t all that many “things”. Leiter said “One doesn’t have to be in some faraway dreamland in order to find beauty.” And Meyerowitz said of Gilden “He’s a fucking bully. I despise the work, I despise the attitude, he’s an aggressive bully and all the pictures look alike because he only has one idea—‘I’m gonna embarrass you, I’m going to humiliate you.’ I’m sorry, but no.”
Most relevant to this stream of thought, Gruyaert said “In Europe and especially France, there’s a humanistic tradition of people like Cartier-Bresson where the most important thing is the people, not so much the environment. I admired it, but I was never linked to it. I was much more interested in all the elements: the decor and the lighting and all the cars: the details were as important as humans. That’s a different attitude altogether.”
It’s also an attitude that obviates the need for circumnavigating the globe, moving from iconic city to iconic city, and opens up vistas of mundane objects found just about anywhere to be beautiful in a Leiterian sense.
Which brings me to the repetition and stillness. Why go anywhere at all? Just take your camera with you, whenever you leave the house (or the living room), and look for something like beauty wherever you happen to be. Even if its the same place you found yourself yesterday, last week or a year ago Sunday.
Smoke and Mirrors 