Chapter 8 "The New Street Photography" (For week 4)

Michael Fried calls chapter 8, Street Photography Revisited, which is a perfectly sensible title for the chapter but I decided to call it the new (or I supposed contemporary street photography).

Often when we think of street photography we think of the greats, starting with Cartier-Bresson and moving towards Winogrand and Frank. It seems though (to me at least) that an interest in street photography has dwindled  recently, perhaps it has been over done or it has said all that it can say. In chapter eight, Fried talks about three contemporary photographers who have put a new spin on the idea of street photography, Jeff Wall (yet again), Beat Streuli, and Philip-Lorca Dicorcia.

When you type "street photography" into Google images search, you get a lot of black and white images, mostly of people crossing the street or sitting and waiting outside.

The picture above is an example of one of Garry Winogrand's black and white (typical of you will) fairly close up street photo. I truly think that Winogrand was a great photographer of his time but work like this now seems rather dated. After awhile the issue of awareness or non-awarness became an issue in street photography. Was the photographer always aware of what they were going to capture, was it intentional?

Though it is in the book I have added the above photo, Jeff Wall's Mimic, for reference. Here Wall is working in his usual format of staging an event but at the same time he is using the look of street photography. Someone who is not well versed in photography or familiar with Jeff Wall might even believe that he has captured a real moment here but we (as the readers of this book) know that he has not.
Thanks to Fried, we know that Wall has hired actors for this picture and has told them how to act, but then again this scene is not completely fictional this is something that one could perhaps see while walking down the street.  This image obviously has to do with social issues and as Fried says, acceptance or non-acceptance. (p. 236) Does Fried consider this work to be anti-theatrical because it is an happening that could occur?
Of coruse since it is Wall there are many layers here. The idea of working around social issues comes from Baudelares interest in painting "modern life" and the image itself has an art historical refrence to Caillebotte's Paris Street Rainy Day". (Below)

A key composite of this painting and Wall's photo is the way the subjects are placed in the frame and where they are looking. In the painting the couple moving towards us seems to be ignoring the man that is about to pass them on our left, or perhaps they are just absorbed in something that is to our left out of frame. In Mimic the Asian man and the woman seem to be unaware of what the bearded man is doing. Fried says that the Asian man seems completely unaware but I feel like even know he many not be in the right angle to view the distasteful gesture that he still senses a harshness being projected towards him. The female counterpart however does seem very much unaware as she stares off into the sun. I found Wall's description of the "micro-gesture" on page 237 very interesting. Wall believes that the bearded man is performing such "micro-gesture" which means that he is acting on a deeply rooted subconscious social judgement, or in other words he is not fully aware of his actions, instead this offensive gesture is something primal, within him.
The meaning beneath Wall's image seems to be much more important than the meaning behind a lot of street photography mainly because it was planted here by the artist. He did not capture this moment but it is believable, this is what Wall calls "near documentary". (p. 238) Fried says that this way of working is still anti-theatrical because it is not over done. I found it interesting that later in the chapter Fried mentions Barthes remark in Camera Lucida where he calls street photography theatrical, because the way of shooting becomes like a performance. (p.239) Wall is in a way mimicking (pun intended) street photography here but he is not the one performing the subjects are, and in typical street photography, like that of Winogrand, he is the one performing not the subjects.

Beat Streuli's work is also a new take on Street photography yet he is working much differently from Wall. Streuli sets up video cameras, usually in crowded urban locations and uses multiple techniques to get different effects. In The Pallasades, Birmingham [England] he used a telephoto lens and projected the video in slow motion so that the viewer feels as though they are focused on a specific individual even though the scene is very crowded. In other video projections like 8th Avenue and 35th, New York City, the camera is focused on a specific location and people move in and out of the viewers frame of reference. I unfortunately can not find an example video to show here but if you visit his website they are available there. However below is one of Streuli's video stills.

Here the subjects captured by Streuli seem to be uninterested with each other and are possible just absorbed in the idea of getting where they are going, they are almost depicted in a trance like state. Fried comments on how Streuli sets up the videos in a way that we as viewers are removed from making judgements about the individuals, we are simply observing. (p.244)We are watching them in these transfixed states that Fried says that Wall might call "micro-gestures". (p. 245) Fried also comment on a "warmth" that the videos or stills have this might be due to the way that Streuli doesn't lead the subjects to be criticized or as Fried sates the was that their "diversity is highlighted and minimized at the same time".  (p.245) The viewers are not objectified.
Streuli does shoot straight photos as well in the same sort of manner. He captures people unaware and makes upclose shots of them with a telepohto lens, somewhat working in the style of Garry Winogrand, but from a greater distance. Does this mean that contemporary street photographers like Streuli are becoming lazy through the help of technology or is technology enhancing what they can do as photographers?

The image above is an example of this technique used by Streuli. He also incorporates the use of strong sunlight to create contrasty images where the background behind the subject goes back, taking them out of context in an almost unnatural way.

When Fried mention that Beat Streuli made straight photos with a telephoto lens from a distance I immediately thought of Michael Wolf's series The Transparent City shot in Chicago. A few years ago the Museum of Contemporary Photography showed this work. I happen to work there and not more than a few weeks ago I had an interesting encounter with a patron. I was sitting at the front desk and as the man was leaving he pointed to the Michael Wolf book on the shelf and told me that he was in there. He even grabbed the book and showed me the image of him sitting in his office. I wish I would have asked him in more detail how he felt to be photographed like that but he seemed more amused than anything.
Those of you unfamiliar with Wolf's work he shot (with a telephoto lens) into office buildings and apartments in Chicago, catching people unaware but also in a much more private setting than Streuli's subjects who are out and about on the streets. A lot of the work makes the people in these buildings appear to be just floating in glass boxes but they are also mixed in with super up closes pixilated images of the people.

Above is an example of how I described the people to be floating in boxes, if you will, by Wolf. And below is an example of the close up pixilated sort of image that Wolf also uses. However this one is somewhat comical due to the subjects knowledge and reaction to being photographed. Perhaps this pixilated images is too different in the way that it is also Wolf's only image where the subject is confronting us or beholding us, we somehow share an exchange even though we can't see his eyes, which to me is an interesting concept. 

The last photographer Fried mentions in this chapter is Philip-Lorca diCorcia (one of my personal favorites). His work has a similar feel to Streuli's and Wall's in the way that the subjects seem absorbed in their own moment. His earlier work made in the late 70's focused on his family even early on he started out with his now famous technique of hiding a light (out of the cameras view) that would be triggered when he snapped the shutter. Through this technique (even at the early stages of it) he managed to create an ambiguous scene that highness the viewers attention to the drama that seems relatively unexplainable to us. This technique also captures the subject in a way that they are belivably absorbed in a moment (like Mario 1978) but at the same time we as viewers are aware that this scene is set up due to the lighting and almost perfect composition. 

Mario, 1978

diCorcia's more well know work developed in the 90's when he began hiding lights along urban streets and waited to trigger them with the shutter when an interesting person or possible scene came along. diCorcia is quoted on page 253 saying, 

"the street does not induce people to shed their self-awarness. They seem to withdraw into themselves. They become less aware of their surroundings, seemingly lost in themselves. Their image is the outward facing front belied by the inwardly gazing eyes."

I like how this gives insight to how he is interested in the subjects self-absorbed states. 

Fried Says diCorcia's work is different from past or traditional street photography because of it's "dramatic to-be-seeness" (p.253) or in other words, it is very obviously made for the viewer in the way that it is pre planned yet he still waits for a random moment. 

I also found Fried's description of diCorcia's work as being "violent" especially in images like Los Angeles, 1993. (Below) Fried explains these images to be more explotive (especially in comparison to Streuli's work). He basically says that Streuli's work is warm, while diCorcia's is cold. (p.254) While I see capturing people with a harsh flash as being more obtrusive, I'm not sure if the term "violent" is necessary. Obviously diCorcia's method eventully makes the viewer aware of what is happening when Streuli is not. I don't see this as being a matter of violent or not, perhaps diCorcia is more aggresive in the way of getting what he wants as an artist. 

diCorcia's other street photography like project is Heads doen in 2001. These images are very similar to Streuli's from the use of high contrast lighting (of course diCorcia's in artifical) which causes the background to drop to black and create a dramatic effect. Also both projects were done in the early 2000's in New York City. diCorcia's work differs in the way that it seems more judgemental than Streuli's, even with no background and the absorptive facial expressions, viewers tend to read more into the images in Heads. Perhaps this is due to the fact that diCorcia seems to pick subjects that have more character thus giving them a more narrative like feel. Below are examples from diCorcia's Heads project.

Philip Lorca diCorcia is well known for many other projects where he uses the same techniques, for example his doc-ish project on male prostitutes and his somewhat randomly put together project, Story Book Life done in 2003. Fried mentions Story Book Life in correlation to the other work mentioned in this chapter but I feel as though this project doesn't fit. While I like the work in Story Book Life it doesn't seem to have a street photo like feel, to me it reads much more cinematic, ambiguous, and staged similar to Gregory Crewdson. 

It does seem as though recently street photography is diminishing. As proven by Fried there are photographers who are putting a new spin on the style of street photography, new spins such as, staging scenes to look like street photo, using video to capture street scenes and using telephoto lens to capture subjects un- aware better than ever. It seems that technology is doing it's part as a strong force in the contemporary art world to change the way art is made, especially here, with the new telephoto lens', video recording devices (as previously said) and even the use of radio activated strobe lights. One of the biggest differences that these three photographers embody that the work of older street photographers does not is the to-be-seeness of the work. All three artist create work with the viewer in mind. 

It might be sort of a stretch but in a way I see some documentary photographers using techniques similar to the old school street photographers. Of course documentary photography has been around for a long time too, and usually leans to be more formal but there are some examples where it feels a bit more street. Of course this could be said for photojournalism to but that's a tangent I'm not ready to go off on. Instead I'll leave you with a few examples of Paul D'Amato's Barrio project. While it's true that Paul got close to a lot of his subjects, some of the images in this project depict subjects who seem absorbed in their own moment and unaware of the camera pointed at them.