A few weeks ago, while selecting photos for the photo blog, I came across this pair of images. I thought it would be interesting to create a series of posts with them, exploring the doubts I have during the editing process. Although in the end I leave some certainty, most of them are questions.
I had started selecting a set of street photography, and when I saw these photos, the eternal question sparked: what is street photography?
The general definition that I like most is from the London Festival of Photography “un‑posed, un‑staged photography which captures, explores or questions contemporary society and the relationships between individuals and their surroundings.”
But the story doesn’t end there, because the question arises: what is not street? That is almost more important than the first. To clarify this, I like the phrase from Nick Turpin “It is a simple ‘Zen’-like experience…”
Both parts fully agree with Rafa Badía’s ideas, the documentary and playful aspects. The two main axes that must be translated into the third: the aesthetic.
In these photographs, taken seconds apart, the experience is the same, but they do not serve the documentary aspect in the same way and, of course, do not carry the same aesthetic load. It is in the supposed documentary approach related to street photography where my main philosophical problems lie, which I addressed from a personal perspective, in what we might call the “author’s path”.
I started doing street photography out of an irrational and inexplicable need, as I start almost all my projects. But time has added a conviction: “our time and place must be portrayed.” This certainty was born in front of Joan Colom’s photos. Between his photos and my eyes there was a contrast. At that time I photographed a lot of the Raval. The “my place” versus “another time” link is the key to understanding the importance of street photography. I realized that the systematic practice of the genre is a legacy that transcends the author and the subject. The author is only useful as a messenger.
Colom’s legacy, along with Winogrand, Evans, Maier, and many others, transcends their aestheticism and transports us to another time, to worlds that have disappeared. I am not moved by composition, style, or coherence, but by how they function as windows to the past, by their ability to tell a story.
I am drawn to the clothes, the newspaper typography and headlines, the cars. The teapot at the bar, which if it were in Paris could still be almost the same, but if the photo is from New York it would surely be completely different today.
Many times I do an exercise: what does my photo of this time tell? They will age like Colom’s. In 50 years will the Passengers book series carry the weight that Evans, Baudrillard, Agou, or Davidson have today?
If a photo can answer these questions it starts to resemble the street I want to achieve. I don’t shoot street to consume it today, but so that it is consumed across several generations.
That’s the first axis and the first post. I will continue with the playful/Zen aspect in the next one, and if I have the courage, perhaps I will try a third one on aesthetics (always from my personal vision).
Which photo did I choose? For now, both. The one on the right fits better into my series street portraits and the other was more commercial for social media consumption and was published on the photo blog. I usually edit in time jumps. I do a first selection during or immediately after the trip. A second one a year later. And another, the definitive one, at some later moment. These two were the head‑bang in the second round.
PS: yes, the title is a nod to Carl Sagan’s series “Cosmos: a personal journey”, especially the first chapter “On the shore of the cosmic ocean”.