'I'm A Photographer - Not A Terrorist!'

Street photography has had particular prevalence in contemporary art circles, capturing a universally familiar pulse of city life. The central origin of street photography arose in New York during the 1960's, with founding practitioners Lee Friedlander, Garry Winogrand and Joel Meyenowitz forging a distinctive genre. These key figures continue to influence current productions and methodology associated with street photography. While street photography can be linked to such pioneers as Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, it wasn't until the 1960's that a notable attitude and distinguishable genre was forming.

Sean O'Hagen's article on this genre in the Guardian, brought to my attention the similarity of intention and methodology of my market photographs as this genre. As I have stated in a previous blog entry, my intention as a photographer is to observe rather than control my world. The images I captured a the markets were not focused on perfect camera settings and contrived compositions, but rather to quote Winogrand:
"When I am photographing I see life. That's what I deal with. I don't have pictures in my head...I don't worry about how the pictures are going to look. I let that take care of itself. It's not about taking nice pictures. That anyone can do."

Unfortunately street photography, especially the more aggressive forms, is under threat, caused largely by an era the article describes as 'an age of anxieties, both big and small, real and imagined'. Terrorism, paedophilia, intrusion, surveillance and the insistent right to privacy all endanger the future of this distinctive genre of street photography!