Street photography emerged in the mid-19th century, evolving from capturing urban scenes and architectural details to documenting everyday life and capturing candid moments. Early pioneers like Charles Nègre documented Parisian streets, while Eugène Atget became renowned for his Paris street and architectural photographs. In the 20th century, figures like Henri Cartier-Bresson and others helped define the genre, focusing on capturing the “decisive moment” in everyday life.
Who lead the movement
The first images to exemplify street photography were those produced by French photographer Charles Nègre, who used his camera to document architecture as well as shops, labourers, traveling musicians, peddlers, and unusual street types in the 1850s.
Lee Jeffries
Lee Jeffries lives in Manchester in the United Kingdom. Close to the professional football circle, this artist starts to photograph sporting events. A chance meeting with a young homeless girl in the streets of London changes his artistic approach forever. Since that day Lee has been on a mission to raise awareness of – and funds for – the homeless. His work features street people from the UK, Europe, and the US whom he gets to know by living rough with them, the relationship between them enabling him to capture a searing intimacy and authenticity in his portraits.
Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French artist and humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography, and viewed photography as capturing a decisive moment. Cartier-Bresson was one of the founding members of Magnum Photos in 1947 and they all thought the camera was an extension of the eye.
How is a camera an extension of the eye?
A camera is considered an extension of the eye because it captures and records visual information much like our eyes do. It uses a lens to focus light, similar to how the eye focuses images on the retina. The camera allows us to frame, focus, and preserve moments that the eye sees, turning brief visual experiences into lasting images. In this way, it enhances our natural vision and helps us share our perspective with others.
How can you gain physical pleasure from taking photographs?
The physical pleasure in making photographs comes from the tactile and sensory experience of the process. Holding the camera, adjusting the focus, feeling the click of the shutter, and responding to light and composition all engage the body and mind. There’s a satisfying rhythm in moving, framing, and capturing a moment often described as a blend of intuition and control. This hands-on interaction creates a sense of presence and flow, making photography not just a visual but also a deeply physical and pleasurable act.
How is photography similar to hunting?
Photography can be likened to hunting in the way it involves patience, observation, and the pursuit of a target. Like a hunter tracks and waits for the perfect moment to strike, a photographer carefully watches for the right light, angle, and expression to capture. Both require skill, timing, and instinct. The “click” of the shutter parallels the trigger of a weapon seizing a fleeting moment. However, instead of taking life, the photographer captures it, preserving the subject rather than consuming it. It’s a hunt for beauty, meaning, or truth.
Theory of “the Decisive Moment”
The decisive moment is particularly concerned with the overall structure and composition of the photograph, such as shapes, geometry, patterns, action and movement. Comment on these elements as well as other formal elements such as:
Image Analysis
Henri Cartier Bresson – Hyeres, France 1932
Line
The sweeping spiral staircase is a good example of leading lines, they dominate the composition and guide the viewer’s eye through the frame, from the top left down to the cyclist. Railings and architectural elements create dynamic tension and contrast with the curves, adding movement and depth.
Shape
The photo has Geometric and organic shapes, The stairs create overall and circular shapes, while the cyclist and bike introduce softer, organic forms. The photograph contains a balance of abstract geometric forms and recognizable real world shapes, giving it both structure and narrative.
Form
The use of light and shadow gives a 3D feel to the staircase and the buildings. Though it’s a 2D medium, Cartier-Bresson’s framing and use of perspective (looking down from above) make the forms feel sculptural.
Space
The composition makes great use of positive and negative space. The cyclist occupies a relatively small portion of the image but is emphasized by the open space around him, enhancing his importance. The downward viewpoint flattens but also deepens the scene, playing with spatial perception.
Colour
As a black-and-white photograph, colour is absent, however, Value contrast (light vs. dark areas) replaces colour to create interest and guide the viewer’s eye. The grayscale allows the viewer to focus on composition, light, and texture without distraction.
Value
There’s a strong range of tonal values, from the deep shadows under the staircase to the bright highlights on the pavement. These contrasts are essential for defining the image’s forms and depth.
Texture
The gritty pavement, smooth stone walls, and metal railings have textures that add realism. The clarity of the photograph and the play of light emphasize these qualities, even though the viewer can’t physically feel them.
Gare Saint-Lazare, Henri Cartier Bresson, 1932
Technical
For this photo he used the Leica Rangefinder with a 50mm lens that allowed him to capture far and close with detail. The Leica rangefinders, really effective quick moments in sharp focus. The camera was more discreate which was an important part of Bresson’s practice as it allowed him to take photographs more secretly..
Shutter Speed / Aperture
Added more depth not a lot of motion blur sharp focus in foreground and background, smaller aperture for sharper focus for the whole depth of the photo. Smaller shutter speed as there’s no motion blur.
Visual
Horizontal lines (frame the action / decisive moment)
Rule of thirds …. frames the background, middleground and foreground. The subject also falls on the right gridlines – compositionally this is more appealing to the eye.
Being on the right third is also important for showing the journey of the leap … the moment where he took off and landed
Lighting – Bright highlights of the sky, reflected in the puddle, – adds balance and frames the darker shadows in the middle, including the main subject
Colour / Tone – Black and white, creates more focus on details and texture. THe high contrast adds depth. It could also add nostalgia
Conceptand Context
One of his most popular photos perfectly represents his philosophy of the decisive moment freezing that split second in time his photo revolutionised street photography finding beauty and magic in the mundane.
I’m an artist, educator, writer and Lecturer on BA (Hons) Photography at Kingston School of Art. My practice embraces autobiography, literature and reference-based thinking, to create narratives that question the relationship between the body and the photographic medium. I work with photography, writing, performance and sculpture, employing methodologies cultivated by the 1960s-70s Land Art movement, Performance and Arte Povera, to help question, or push, our understanding of the photographic.
Alexander Mourant is an artist, educator and writer based in London. His first publication, The Night and the First Sculpture, was published by Folium, 2024. Recent exhibitions include To Walk in the Image, Lismore Castle Arts, Ireland (2023), At the Farthest Edge: Rebuilding Photography, NŌUA, Norway (2023) and A Sudden Vanishing, Seen Fifteen Gallery, London (2023). Mourant is a recipient of grants from Arts Council Norway, Arts Council England and Arthouse Jersey. He has been commissioned by FT Weekend Magazine, Hapax Magazine and The Greatest Magazine, and included in BJP, The Guardian, Photograph, Photo works, METAL Magazine and Photo monitor. He won the Free Range Award and was nominated for the Foam Paul Huff Award. Mourant is a Member of Revolve Collective and Contributor at C4 Journal. He achieved BA Photography at Falmouth University, and MA Photography at Royal College of Art, London. He is a Lecturer in Photography at Kingston University.
New Topographics was a term coined by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers whose pictures had a similar banal aesthetic, in that they were formal, mostly black and white prints of the urban landscape. The photographers associated with New Topographics include Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Nicholas Nixon and Bernd and Hiller Becher, who were inspired by the man-made.
Composition. Centred, ‘matter of fact’ style framing, flat horizontal and straight vertical lines are all hallmarks of New Topographic photography. Composition is everything and what you exclude from your frame is just as important as what you include.
What was the New Topographics a reaction to?
It is a reflection of the increasingly suburbanised world around, and a reaction to the tyranny of idealised landscape photography that elevated the natural and the elemental.
Robert Adams
Robert Adams (born 1937) is an American photographer who has 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 (1974) and his participation in the exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape in 1975.
Adams Style – a spare formalism coupled with emotional depth.
Analysis
Contextual (Photography in Relation to Its Environment & Purpose)
Robert Adams’ work in the New Topographics movement (1970s) responded to rapid urbanization and environmental change. Instead of romanticizing landscapes, his photos presented suburban expansion with a neutral, detached perspective. This image shows the tension between natural landscapes (the distant mountains) and human development (tract housing and roads), highlighting the spread of suburbanization in the American West.
Conceptual (Ideas & Meanings in Photography)
This photograph challenges traditional landscape photography by portraying the human-altered environment rather than untouched nature. Adams doesn’t dramatize the scene; instead, he presents suburban sprawl as mundane yet thought-provoking. The image invites viewers to reflect on progress vs. loss, raising questions about how human expansion reshapes nature. The placement of the mountains in the background suggests an underlying contrast what the land once was vs. what it has become.
Visual (Composition & Aesthetic Aspects)
Framing & Depth: Adams uses a straightforward, almost clinical framing with a balanced composition. The houses and streets lead the eye toward the mountains, subtly reinforcing the idea of encroachment.
Lighting & Tone: The use of black and white removes any romanticized colour, making the scene appear stark and factual. The tonal contrast between the light-coloured homes and the darker roads creates structure in the composition.
Repetition & Patterns: The uniformity of the houses and roads emphasizes suburban monotony and the lack of uniqueness in modern development.
Textual (Photography & Language/Representation)
Absence of People: By not including human subjects, Adams shifts focus to the environment itself, letting the landscape tell the story of human impact.
Title as Context: “Colorado Springs, Colorado” is direct and unembellished, reinforcing Adams’ documentary approach. The neutrality of the title reflects the movement’s goal of avoiding subjective emotional influence.
Photographic Language: The image’s restrained, observational tone aligns with the New Topographics philosophy describing rather than judging.
Joint Analysis
Stephen Shore, Beverly Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, California, June 21, 1975, chromogenic colour print
Visual
The line across the horizon, squashed compressed loads of negative space in the top of the image
Technical
Clear sky no clouds, cold lighting, hard edged distinct shadows
Contextual
8 cars 4 pumps and 3 gas stations this photos about the cars and roads connecting places back together all about petrol cars and oil damaging the environment. sense of nationalism red white and blue colours same as the American flag.
Conceptual
The road leads back to the mountains and open air. leaving the squashed ruined land and going back to the beautiful open sky of California.
During this photoshoot I explored Jersey’s rural farming landscape. I took my photos during sunset which heightened the dramatic lighting. The strong light of the sun reflected on the plastic sheets that covered the fields, this added light to both the top and bottom of the frame, creating more balance in the photo.
Exposure:
The strong sunlight allowed for a quick shutter speed. so the sky had a balanced exposure. This fast shutter speed meant that any areas in the foreground (not covered in plastic) were under-exposed, enhancing the dramatic outcome.
Angle / Perspective:
During the photoshoot, I tested different angles to adjust the perspective of the images. During this process, the aperture was adjusted to adjust the depth of field.
details about jersey farming
Jersey’s countryside is a place of beauty, recreation and culture. It is blessed with some of the deepest, most fertile soils, and our climate is perfect for growing most crops. Our beautiful countryside flourishes with wild flowers, and our famous Jersey cows graze on lush green fields for the majority of the year. We know that dairy farming in Jersey has a positive impact on the environment and countryside. And the dairy industry in Jersey is committed to adopting good environmental practice in its operational and capital investment decisions and to operate at the highest levels of efficiency. The total area of land under cultivation at around 36,500 vergées this represents 56% of the island area with its 10,000 farms.
Raw Photos:
Photoshoot 1
Photoshoot 2
Selection process:
I starred my favourite images these were images I thought were clear and had a great contrast between light and darks whilst also being the perfect angle.
Photographers photographed a landscape in sections and lined their daguerreotypes side-by-side to create one long print, a panoramic photo. They used this technique to document history, and many antique landscapes are incredibly collectible today.
Daniel Wretham a panoramic photographer said:
shooting these ultra wide panoramic pictures really is a joy because they are such high resolution and really show off the image to its full potential, plus they are very forgiving for images in case you want to use different ratios and take sections of the image out to use as individual pictures, for want of a better expression it has the potential to be 3-4 different prints from one image.
joiner photos – David Hockney
David Hockney is an English painter and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Hockney is also gay he came out when he was 23 years old.
This photo is made up of over 700 separate photos showing all the details he missed on his first trip Hockney travelled up and down this road multiple times to get all these photos. he thinks of his photos as art work not just photographs.
My Photos
I took these panoramic photos at Havre des pas whilst on a walk, its a combination of multiple images taken in a line from left to right. I then printed them out and laid them out in different ways on white card and took a photo of them. The last one is my favourite one because I think it looks more composed and neat whilst also showing the wider view.
Exposure compensation basically helps you override automatic exposure adjustments your camera makes in situations with uneven light distribution, filters, non-standard processing, or underexposure or overexposure. It lets you take control of your image’s brightness by manually increasing or decreasing exposure.
Exposure Bracketing
when you bracket your shots you take exactly the same picture of your subject at several different exposures. This technique gives you a range of options to choose from when you’re editing. As a result, it’s much less likely that you’ll end up with a badly underexposed or overexposed photo.
HDR photos
HDR (high dynamic range) helps you get great shots in high-contrast situations. The iPhone camera takes several photos in rapid succession at different exposures and blends them together to bring more highlight and shadow detail to your photos.
Ansel Easton Adams was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association of photographers advocating “pure” photography which favoured sharp focus and the use of the full tonal range of a photograph.
His childhood
Adams was a hyperactive and sickly child with few friends. Dismissed from several schools for bad behaviour, he was educated by private tutors and members of his family from the age of 12. Adams taught himself the piano, which would become his early passion.
Yosemite National Park
“I knew my destiny when I first experienced Yosemite”
The Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is an American environmental organization with chapters in all 50 U.S. states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded in 1892, in San Francisco, by preservationist John Muir.
1927
On the chilly spring morning of April 10th, 1927, Ansel Adams set out along Yosemite’s LeConte Gully to capture an image of the striking sheer face of Half Dome, one of Yosemite National Park’s most iconic natural features.
Nineteen twenty seven was the pivotal year of Adams’s life. He made his first fully visualized photograph, Monolith, the Face of Half Dome, and took his first High Trip. More important, he came under the influence of Albert M. Bender, a San Francisco insurance magnate and patron of arts and artists.
Kings Canyon
The Sierra Club advocated for making Kings Canyon a national park so it could be better protected, and Adams was chosen to represent the club at a conference in Washington. To make his argument, Adams presented a selection of his own photographs before the assembled representatives.
Side Hobbies
During summer, Adams would enjoy a life of hiking, camping, and photographing; and the rest of the year he worked to improve his piano playing, perfecting his piano technique and musical expression. He also gave piano lessons for extra income that allowed him to purchase a grand piano suitable to his musical ambitions.
image with yellow filter image with red filter
Image Analysis
Technical
In Ansel Adams’ “Cathedrals Spires and Rocks”, the lighting is primarily natural daylight, likely captured during a time of soft sunlight, such as early morning or late afternoon. The high contrast between the bright sunlit rocks and the deep shadows of the crevices reflects Adams’ mastery over tonal range, using the Zone System to achieve precise exposure. The aperture is set for a deep depth of field, ensuring sharp focus from the foreground rocks to the distant sky. Adams likely used a wide-angle lens, allowing him to capture the expansive landscape. The ISO is low, contributing to a fine-grain texture with smooth tonal transitions, and the photograph’s fine details are rendered crisply. As the image is in black-and-white, the white balance is naturally neutral, focusing on the tonal contrast rather than color accuracy, highlighting the texture and form of the rugged rocks and sky.
Visual
The visual elements in “Cathedrals Spires and Rocks” are dominated by high contrast, with dark shadows enveloping the jagged rock formations and light highlights on the sunlit surfaces, creating a dramatic effect. The texture of the rocks is highly pronounced, giving the photograph a tactile, three-dimensional feel. The spires, sharp and angular, create strong vertical lines, which dominate the composition, while the surrounding landscape, though equally detailed, serves to frame these towering forms. The space is carefully structured, with a deep foreground and background, adding depth and perspective. Adams’ use of the Rule of Thirds positions the spires slightly off-centre, drawing the viewer’s gaze upward. The resulting composition is harmonious, leading the eye naturally through the image and balancing the visual weight between light and shadow.
Contextual
“Cathedrals Spires and Rocks” can be seen within the broader historical context of the American environmental movement, which gained momentum in the early 20th century. As an advocate for wilderness preservation, Ansel Adams used his photographic work to promote the conservation of the American West, showcasing the beauty and grandeur of natural landscapes. This photograph is a testament to his personal connection to nature and his belief in its intrinsic value. The towering rock formations in the image are not just geological features but represent the unspoiled wilderness that Adams sought to protect from industrial encroachment. His work, including this photograph, played a crucial role in the establishment of national parks and the broader environmental movement, advocating for the preservation of these natural wonders for future generations.
Conceptual
The concept behind “Cathedrals Spires and Rocks” is one of awe and reverence, drawing a parallel between the grandeur of the natural world and sacred spaces like cathedrals. The spires, reaching skyward, symbolize nature’s monumental and spiritual qualities, evoking a sense of the sublime, where the viewer feels both humbled and uplifted by the scale and beauty of the landscape. Adams captures not just a physical scene but the essence of nature’s power, presenting the rocks and spires as sacred forms worthy of reverence. The photograph is an exploration of nature’s dominance, its capacity to inspire awe, and the notion of wilderness as a place of deep, almost spiritual significance. This conceptual approach invites the viewer to reconsider their relationship with the natural world and recognize its importance beyond mere aesthetics.
