Niklas, A photographer of the "street" genre and an artist that I a greatly admire remarked the other day that he had a noticed a decline in the number of artists on DA of this genre and wondered why. After thinking about this for a while and recalling from my personal interactions with people I thought I would pen down my analysis.
Firstly, there are those artists that feel they need to move onto professionally focused platforms, or independent websites. They have out grown the community of DA. These artists appear to prefer professional upward mobility to the warm coffee-shop ambience of DA. We can not begrudge them the features and focus that DA doesn’t provide. Secondly, it’s the discouraged and disparaged street photography newbie, that once started and suddenly has faded away, choosing another genre or simply giving up. It is this, that I do find disconcerting.
We must admit because of the very nature of the genre, it is the most unforgiving of photographic art. It’s a genre where the artist has no control of subject matter, presence or pose. No control of light or lighting and very little control of position, angle and perspective. Of all the genres this requires the greatest confluence of time and circumstance.We should also add into the mix that the difference between brilliant street and tedium is simply the difference of a hairs breath in a multitude of real time "there and then" factors. Simply stated, it’s a very difficult genre with just a fraction of a difference in an image that turns mundane into sublime and very few shades of acceptance in between.
Translating this into the newbies perspective, in many other forms of photography and art, work is interpreted through many levels of acceptability like grading A to F. While in street it is almost binary Pass or Fail … “wow that is amazing” or “urrgh it is dull as dishwater”. This failure-rejection syndrome is quite off putting to many aspiring street photographers. Especially when they submit to groups that are street photography focused.
Then we have the problem of “what actually constitutes” street photography. The definitions for street are very varied some are very broad and some are some are more constrained. I have experienced that many groups have a more focused and narrower philosophy of what constitutes street and what doesn’t. Literally one groups street becomes another groups rubbish. Again this leads to rejection of the poor newbie, while his image may be amazing and it may be lauded by one group but another group may find it unacceptable to their version and philosophy.
In many other forms of art there are a lot of basic and tangible guides to what would constitute a good image, a portrait, a scene, still life, while from the guides on street that I have read I have found them almost philosophically transcendental, leaving the poor newbie thinking that getting a good street photo is akin to rocket science or requires knowledge of the dark magic. Again, giving very little encouragement to the newbie. While the aspiring artist is struggling with all these difficulties and finding very little tangible guides to what constitutes a good street image, I do admit that because of the very nature of street photography these difficulties will persist and those that aspire to this genre must be prepared for a lot of hard work and a lot of rejection.
However, what I don’t find in street groups is the nurturing, the grooming and the mentoring that I find in practically all other genres and this is something that groups and even individuals can easily do and that they should do.
Having said that, I would like to share some wonderful works from wonderful artists as an inspirations to all.
