Street Photography Wesley Tang/ SM2221/ 2004.11.02

1. Street PhotographyWesley Tang/ SM2221/ 2004.11.02 • Multiple Identities of Street Photographer • A Chronology of Street Photography • Key Features of Street Photography • Eugene Atget and His Disappearing Paris • Concluding Remarks about Street Photography • Possible Integrations with Street Photography

2. Street Photography:Street Photographer • Multiple Identities of Street Photographer • As a Walker • As an Observer • As an Archivist • As a Philosopher • As a Critic • As a Historian

3. Street Photography:Street Photographer • Multiple Identities of Street Photographer • As an Ethnographer • Who participates, observes and researches • Who is interested in social issues, esp. that in urban environment • As an Author • Who responds to and makes sense of spatial issues • Who constructs narratives • Who appeals more to Flânerie (Walter Benjamin)than to Dérive (the Situationists)

4. Street Photography:A Chronology of Street Photography Major Highlights 1839 Invention of Photography (William Henry Fox Talbot) 1850s Larger cameras and glass plate negatives  Sharpness, Depth of Field & Resolution 1877 John Thomson, Street Life in London  The first collection of social documentary photographs published  Arranged Custom & Staged Reality: Crisis of Photographic Realism 1888 First Kodak box cameras came onto the market Late ‘20s Documentary Project (Farm Security Administration) 1930s Invention of 35mm Camera (Leica) Compact Size & High Speed Walker Evans: American Photographs 1938-1941 Humphrey Spender: Mass Observation documentary project in England

5. Street Photography:A Chronology of Street Photography Major Highlights 1950s Henri Cartier-Bresson (individual photojournalist): Photo-journalism  Visual Poetry of the ‘Real’ World  Accidental Photography: Randomness Photography as Sketching “What counts are the little differences”: Portray of Everyday Life Juxtapositions of Realities Graphical Composition & Expression

6. Street Photography:Key Features of Street Photography • Street Photographer as Ethnographer AND Author A combination of Critical and Creative Intervention • The Aesthetics of Streets • Fluid-liked organic nature of Space  Flows • Constant unexpectedness • Curiosity & Discovery • Chance & Encounter • Walter Benjamin: “Moving through this traffic [in the city] involves the individual in a series of shocks and collisions.” (1) • Imbalance, Disorder & Out of Control (1) Walter Benjamin, “On Some Motifs in Baudelaire,” in Illuminations, p.175.

7. Street Photography:Key Features of Street Photography • The Aesthetics of Streets • Street as a Theatrical Stage • Spatial Drama • Magical Moments • Street as a Political Space • Heterotopias (Michel Foucault) • Simultaneous multi-layers • Fragments & Disharmony • Spatial Organizations as Power Relations

8. Street Photography:Key Features of Street Photography • Action-based spatial interpretation • Walking (Influences from both Flânerie and Dérive) • wandering • getting lost • constantly looking for dramatic/ contradictory elements in the streets (but not something ‘great’ and ‘grand’) • footsteps as concrete actions which transform the space of the streets • street-informed tour as detourment • distractions (change of perspective and city experience)…

9. Street Photography:Key Features of Street Photography • Action-based Spatial Interpretation • A different sense of rhythm • E.g. ‘Dandy’ in 19th Century Paris • Set their pace by walking with turtles in the arcades • Trivial daily settings • Live actions/ postures • not mimetic • have rules and criteria but very much undetermined) • Focus on Differences

10. Street Photography:Eugene Atget and His ‘Disappearing’ Paris • Eguene Atget (1857-1927): • Attended the State Acting Academy after moving to Paris at the age of 21 • His Theater performance was not successful • Gave up acting and started painting • Lived in a street where many bohemian artists gathered • As a painter, his career was not impressive, too • Began taking pictures in 1879 • Photographed Paris for 30 years • Woke up early in the morning, walked around and took pictures • Produced around 8000 photos • More than 1500 photos are reproduced in books published after his death

11. Street Photography:Eugene Atget and His ‘Disappearing’ Paris • Eguene Atget (1857-1927): • “Documents pour Artistes” • Supply of artistic models • As raw materials and models for painters, sculptors and stage designers • Paintings of natural landscapes were preferred as they are in colour • The exactness and accuracy of photos are advantageous: Architectural photos • Atget sold his Architectural photos: • To architects as models • To tourists as souvenirs • To authorities for their archives

12. Street Photography:Eugene Atget and His ‘Disappearing’ Paris • Eguene Atget (1857-1927): • Atget’s Tool • A wooden camera(which was becoming ‘old-fashioned’ as more compact cameras were invented) • A massive tripod • Glass plate negatives: • Gelatin ‘Dry’ plates • 7 x 9.5 inches (a bit smaller than an A4 paper) • Heavy but Fragile • Shorter Exposure Time • The weight of his equipment set: ~ 45 lbs • Refused Man Ray’s offer to use a Rolleiflex • Walking in the streets of Paris on foot& traveling out to the suburbs by train

13. Street Photography:Eugene Atget and His ‘Disappearing’ Paris • Eguene Atget (1857-1927): • Atget’s Tools and His Photographic Images: • Images were reversed and upside-down on the screen: • Composition was difficult(esp. in Atget’s favourite vanishing-point style) • Glass plates were expensive: • Repeated snapping of the same motifs were unlikely • Shorten (Long) exposure Time • Blurred images of fast-moving objects(e.g. the ‘ghostly’ traces of passers-by) • Strong contrast, hard shadows • perspective convergence • depth of field • detailed view of spatial configurations

14. Street Photography:Eugene Atget and His ‘Disappearing’ Paris • Eguene Atget (1857-1927): • Atget’s Tools and His Photographic Images: • Ignored the Eiffel Tower and other monumental buildings erected in Paris • Disappearing Urban Landscapes • Empty parks • Abandoned palace gardens • Squatters • Old hotels • Window Displays • Door knockers • Old fountains • Wood Stairways etc.

15. Street Photography:Eugene Atget and His ‘Disappearing’ Paris • Eguene Atget (1857-1927): • Atget’s Tools and His Photographic Images: • Systematic and Thematic approach to document Paris, esp. the ‘old’ Paris which was disappearing • Twenty Arrondissements: • Street by street • By area • By guidebooks • In season • Social class and professions of people etc. • An archive of a city that changes;and his photographs change and create the city, too

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22. Street Photography:Eugene Atget and His ‘Disappearing’ Paris

23. Street Photography:Concluding Remarks about Street Photography • Street Photography is • Not about a perfect reproduction of reality (Realism) • City as a source of discovery and invention • A great concern with urban environment, esp. its changes and critical transitions  organic nature of spatial arrangements • Walking in the city as a means (an act) of discovery and invention • Street Photography as both a tools and a methodology • Juxtaposition of realities – images within an (flattened photographic) image • Fragments of Everyday Life and Commonplace Mysteries • Spatial Contractions as narrative and story plot

24. Street Photography:Concluding Remarks about Street Photography • Street Photography is a performative art form which: • Challenges the understanding of Culture • through the critique of the (concrete) Spatial forms of (abstract) Culture • Frees visual images from the formulation of discursive practices • Produces Everyday Life situations for the dynamic circulation and re-generation of new meanings

25. Street Photography:Possible Integrations with Street Photography • Action Research - participation, interview and even collaboration with subject? • Performative Street Photography? • Marriage and dialogue with other existing media? • Electronic Surveillance Devices? • Sound-based Street Photography? • Digital Street Photography - but not in the form of digital touch-ups? • Anything Else?