Street Photography

No better advice has ever been given to street photographers than that offered by Walker Evans, one of the greatest American photographers of the mid-twentieth century: ‘Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.’
I have been following a project that has been running on Flickr that is based around street photography.http://streetphotographynowproject.wordpress.com/ I thought this might be fun to try. It actually proved to be more difficult than I presumed. The first problem  was trying to find out what actually constitutes street photography, after a quick google search, it seems that it means many things. So I had to come up with my own definition. I think it is a desire to record the reality of everyday life, the private and public faces of people going about their daily life, in crisis, in happiness, in sorrow, alone or together, aware or unaware of the photographer.
One of my all time photographers was Dorothea Lange, she captured the forlorn, down trodden, helpless and homeless during the dust bowl of the 1930's.http://www.myhero.com/go/hero.asp?hero=d_lange 

I think we often forget that the  images of today are the photographic memories of tomorrow. The photographs that future generations will look at and try to imagine a time like we are living in today. The hardest thing about street and documentary photography is knowing what to capture. So I'm going to have a go at this project on flickr, I'm going to read the brief each week and see what I can come up with, trying to remember that they don't have to be clever or earth shattering, I just have to record a picture of life as I see it today.
This weeks brief was "look closer to home".

Yesterday we went to the Mango Strut http://kingmangostrut.org/parade.htm in Coconut Grove - Miami, Street photography was all around me. I didn't want to use a photograph of the parade though, as I don't think this really is street photography, although the parade is very controversial  and political, it is very obviously staged...not great for realism!
Brian and I were having tea in a French Bistro called Le Bouchon, I'm done I've taken loads of shots hoping I'll have at least one that I can use for the brief, when just as my tea and chocolate mousse arrive, I look up across the street and notice a couple sitting on a couch in the street, this was the shot this scene made great street photography!!!!!I took the shot and then went over for a chat to get some information about the couple.The couple owned the store or studio as they called it. It actually doesn't sell anything its a front for their catering company called Lasso the Moon., and they where just enjoying the winter sunshine, relaxing after a busy holiday season.

The contemplation of things as they are
without error or confusion
without substitution or imposture
is in itself a nobler thing than a whole harvest of invention.