Error: I'm afraid this is the first I've heard of a "writeback" flavoured Blosxom. Try dropping the "/+writeback" bit from the end of the URL.

Sat, 23 Aug 2003

Street photography

Of all styles of photography, one that I never dared practise is street photography.

I do like the truth captured in the pictures though. The spontaneity of people, the lack of light setup, everything is real and truly illustrates the society that the photographer decided to capture.
It is however very difficult to isolate the right element in the frame of the camera which will transform a mere snapshot into a nice photograph, and above all, do everything without being intrusive to the people you photograph.

My first attempt is a photograph of a young lady sitting by the escalator in an old building in Shinjuku, late at night.
I didn't especially expect to see her face so clearly, but she turned around right when I took the picture and after all, I'm glad she did: I like the expression on her face, a mixture of surprise and boredom.

Hoping that I will be able to take more pictures, I have added a new section to my website to gather the results of my new experiments.

For more striking examples of street photography, one of the masters of this style is of course Robert Doisneau, whose photographs illustrate more than 50 years of Paris.

The following links are also very interesting:

• The home of Street Photography: a website where street photographers can contribute with their own pictures to promote street photography.
  I personally really like the Richard Bram's portfolio: he was able to amazingly make the advertisements in the metro interact with people, all pictures are just breathtaking!
• No rules street photography: Great collection of pictures.