Street Photography HISTORY & CONTEXT

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What is it?

Street photography is all about capturing real, everyday moments in public places. It focuses on people and life as it happens, unstaged, unplanned, and often unexpected. The goal is to show the world as it really is, with all its beauty, chaos, humor, and emotion.

Unlike studio photography or portraits, street photography is usually taken on the go. Photographers walk around with their cameras, looking for interesting scenes, faces, or situations. They might snap a photo of someone crossing the street, a couple laughing on a bench, or even just the way light hits a building. What makes it special is that these are real moments that aren’t posed or arranged.

One of the key ideas in street photography is capturing what’s called “the decisive moment.” This means getting that perfect shot at just the right time, like when someone jumps over a puddle, or two strangers pass each other in a funny or meaningful way. It takes patience, quick reflexes, and a good eye for detail.

Even though people are a big part of it, street photography isn’t only about humans. It can also include empty streets, shadows, signs, or anything in the urban environment that tells a story or sparks curiosity.

The photos are often in black and white, but color is common too, especially now with digital cameras and phones. Technology has made it easier for more people to try street photography, and the genre keeps growing and changing.

In simple terms, street photography is about noticing the little things that happen around us every day and turning them into powerful, sometimes surprising images. It’s a way of seeing the world through fresh eyes and finding meaning in ordinary moments.

Panoramics

Panoramic photos, or panoramas, are really wide pictures that show a big view all at oncelike when you want to capture an entire landscape, a city skyline, or a big group of people. Instead of a normal photo that only shows a small part of a scene, panoramics give you a much wider look, sometimes even a full 360-degree view.

To make a panoramic photo, photographers usually take several pictures in a row, moving the camera slowly from one side to the other. Each picture overlaps a little with the next one. Later, they use special software to stitch all these pictures together seamlessly, creating one long, wide image. This process makes it look like the scene was captured in a single shot, even though it’s made up of multiple photos.

Some cameras and phones have a built-in panorama mode. When you use it, you slowly sweep the camera across the scene, and the device automatically takes and stitches the pictures together for you. This is super easy and popular for capturing wide views without needing special equipment.

These are the panoramics i made from the photos I got from Havre Des Pas, I think they are pretty decent in relation to how a panoramic should look, this is because I’ve made it so I added quite a lot of of photos in each panoramic, for example in the bottom panoramic, there are over 10 photos included in it.

The New Topographies photoshoot and typologies –

best raw photos –

edits and experimentation –

within this image its interesting its not too like the new topographies or typologies

final typologies photos –

second photoshoot ( The New Topographies) –

best raw photos –

edits / experimentation –

final edits –

Typologies

Typologies Research | 2020 Photography Blog

artist reference –

Bernd & Hilla Becher

examples –

photo analysis –

The New Topographics

A description first used by curator William Jenkins in 1975 to characterize the photographs he included in the exhibition “New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-altered Landscape“, which focused on artists who depicted the built, or human-made, environment with a sense of detachment.

 a ground-breaking exhibition of contemporary landscape photography held at the George Eastman House’s International Museum of Photography

Urban landscapes

An urban landscape refers to the environment shaped by human habitation and activities within cities, impacting plant species, biodiversity, and ecosystems. “Urban landscapes” and “cityscapes” are often used interchangeably, and both are popular and contemporary art genres. However, there are subtle differences between the two. Urban landscapes typically depict a city’s natural and built environment, including parks, rivers, and buildings.

Stephen Shore, Beverly Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, California, June 21, 1975, chromogenic colour print

In the foreground there is a petrol station and it has bright vibrant colours, in the middle ground there is a lot of promotion going on and information boards. and lastly in the background there is hills where the light goes from being really cold to colder

This photo uses natural lighting. The petrol station has national colours to attract peoples attention. because back in 1975 when this photo was taken it was a time of distress. the background has a sunset

there is many colours in this photo that stand out in this photo are the yellow and orange car, it has no clouds and it has a blue sky that fades into a lighter colour

Image Analysis-Robert Adams

Robert Adams

Robert Adams is an American photographer who focused on the changing landscape of the American West. His work first came to prominence in the mid-1970s through his book The New West and his participation in the exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape in 1975. He was born on May 8, 1937 (age 87 years) City of Orange, New Jersey, United States. He also moved to Southern California in 1956 to attend the University of Redlands. He chose to major in English literature and went on to earn a PhD

Image Analysis

Technical

This image was taken outside which means this light is natural and there is no artificial light. This was taken at a low ISO due to there being little visual noise, it looks like the visual noise might have been (100-200).

Visual

In this image there is lots of repetition of the porter cabins which people may of lived in. In the background there is lots of empty space behind the porter cabins. There is lots of geometric shapes in this image.

Contextual and Conceptual

This image is connecting nature and normal life. The nature is mountain. The nature indicates that the area is a quiet and peaceful place. This was a big retrospective in Paris offers a logical narrative of the development of the Western United States in the late 20th and early 21st century, but also a challenging view of the complexity and contradictions of our contemporary, global society.

New topographics

What are New Topographics?

New topographics was a term coined by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers (such as Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz) whose pictures had a similar banal aesthetic, in that they were formal, mostly black and white prints of the urban landscape.

“New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape” was a ground-breaking exhibition of contemporary landscape photography held at the George Eastman House’s International Museum of Photography from October 1975 to February 1976.

What was the New Topographics a reaction to?

Their stark, beautifully printed images of this mundane but oddly fascinating topography was both a reflection of the increasingly suburbanised world around them, and a reaction to the tyranny of idealised landscape photography that elevated the natural and the elemental.

Artist Reference – Stephen Shore

Stephen Shore, Beverly Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, California, June 21, 1975, chromogenic colour print
  • Foreground vs background | Dominant features
  • Composition | low horizon line | Square format
  • Perspective and detail / cluttering
  • Wide depth of field | Large Format Camera
  • Colour | impact and relevance
  • Nationalism vs mobility vs isolation
  • Social commentary | The American Dream ?
  • An appreciation of the formal elements : line, shape, form, texture, pattern, tone etc

Technical

The image was taken in natural daylight, and the lighting almost looks cold. The sun being o the left side of the image, gives off some distinct, hard-edged shadows. A slow shutter speed has been used as the cars on the left are slightly blurred while everything still is completely in focus. It was taken using a large format camera and it has a wide depth of field.

Visual

In the image, there are a lot of vertical and horizontal lines which contribute to the rule of thirds.

Conceptual

The image looks as if it is leading the viewer to the mountains, indicating to get out of the busy area.

My Images

These are some of the photos I took on the walk we did around La Collette. For these images, I turned the contrast up and lowered the exposure, while increasing the clarity to make sure I still got a detailed sky in the background.

New Topographics – 1st Photoshoot

Photoshoot Plan

For this photoshoot, I am planning to go to Harve Des Pas and take images along the coast to take images of an Urban area to resemble the new topographic images. This will broaden the range of my images, and I can collect a diverse selection as I can take photos of the beach and the buildings nearby. This will take place when the weather is somewhat nice, so I can use the natural light to my advantage.

Image Selection

For the following images, I colour coded each one to make the process easier when uploading the image to photoshop. This way, I can easily identify which images I like, and ones I don’t, so I don’t have to use them. I took around 230 images, which I am pleased about as a large selection improves the amount of images I can edit and choose.

Best Images

The following images are the best images from this photoshoot.

Exposure Bracketing

For the next couple of images, I used a technique called exposure bracketing, where the camera takes three fast images at different exposures to enhance the brightness and quality. I merged the three images from each photo to ‘HDR’ in Lightroom to exaggerate the exposures and show the detail.

In comparison to the first three original images of each photo, these definitely improve the quality and they have the perfect amount of lighting in each.