In Defense of Street Photography
In recent weeks there has been a surge in the debate around street photography, especially on social media platforms like TikTok, where a new kind of social outrage appears almost every minute. I am not totally surprised as it is an old debate that comes alive every now and then but thanks to the interaction this social media app allows, the debate has changed and it now includes people who are just finding out about street photography for the first time. Sure, not everyone needs to know everything that happens in the world, but it manifests something that we have been witnessing way too often in the past years: social media users with no knowledge on a topic sharing their angry opinions as if they were experts. Of course, everyone is entitled to an opinion, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that someone can just say whatever they want just to catch the trend train on time.
I consider myself a street photographer, not only because it is the style of photography I have practiced more since 2017 when I started photographing and the one I identify the most with alongside landscape, but I also believe it to be the most authentic, transparent, and honest genre of photography that dates back to the beginning of the XX Century. This is my defense of street photography.
I think it might be important to first establish what street photography is, as any debate should so we can all have a basic understanding before we can take a position. Street photography is a genre of photography that I would consider under the umbrella of documentary photography, which also includes photojournalism. As its name suggests, this style’s goal is to document life in the streets as it unfolds undisturbed and organically from human activity. This is one of the reasons it became popular amongst photographers in the XX Century, as cities were evolving radically fast with their population increasing and shaping society alongside. Photography allowed for that process to be documented thanks to photographers such as Dorothea Lange, Vivian Maier, Robert Frank, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. There is a lot we know about life and human relations thanks to the work of street and documentary photographers, so I consider street photography essential in understanding contemporary society.
But we are not in that time period anymore, where a camera was something exciting and new regular people didn’t even pay attention to. Our society now is well aware of photography, and even more so thanks to social media. The line between documentation and privacy is at the center of the argument, not only for street photography but also in new technologies such as face recognition for example. When someone is walking down the street, that person is exposed to CCTVs and to other people without giving specific consent. The street is a public space, so the core of the debate seems to be revolving around the use photographers, police, or private stores do of the images they collect. And that is exactly the thin line being discussed.
But not all street photography necessarily needs written consent. Let’s argue this with a practical example. The photograph above shows a man laying down from the side with a seagull flying over his head. Nobody can see his features, as he has a hoodie on and a hat, so no one could really identify who this man is, and hence his privacy is still preserved. And that photograph is street photography as it was shot in the streets of a small town in Morocco, it depicts human activity and it was spontaneous and authentic without staging a pose or the moment itself. I love this way of photographing, and I would rather suggest something than show it. I feel suggestion involves a lasting experience for the viewer. However, this is not always the case. I, alongside many other street photographers, am also drawn to human expressions of emotions, and to document that sometimes is necessary to show someone’s face, as in the photograph on the left.
In this last photograph, the man is clearly visible, very easy to recognize. So someone could argue that I am violating his privacy if he didn’t consent for the photo to be taken or—and here is the key—published on this article, my Instagram, my portfolio, or even sold at a gallery or an art fair. Why should a photographer profit from the image of another person? It is quite hypocritical and simplistic to pose this question in a capitalist economy where everyone benefits from the exploitation of others, whether it is through their labor or their bodies. Today street photographers are the scapegoat because it has gone viral on TikTok, but the reality is that we fail to criticize what we do every single day. It might not be through photography, but we violate human rights without the need to use their face.
I absolutely understand the concerns some people have about street photography and I can share some of those to a certain point. The internet has brought up a new understanding of consent, which is at the core of this argument but at the same time, that consent online is also violated every day. Some argue that if you voluntarily expose your life and yourself online, the rest of us can use it in whatever way we want. So why not on street photography when the people photographed are in a public, offline space?
The internet has multiplied these issues on consent and image to the point we are sometimes incurring contradictions. I would never refuse to remove one of my street photographs if the person being depicted found it and decided not to be shown on my portfolio. But the essence of street photography is based on spontaneity in order to show reality as it is, something I consider especially relevant in the plastic world we live in where everything is filtered and adapted to fit a type of mass-consumption aesthetics.
I consider photography an art form as I have written before. Some people don’t think the same and I believe those are the same people who would argue against street photography. Because there is art in everyday life that can be captured through photography. Not everything can be justified by the right of information. Even more, I don’t think we should leave the documentation of events in just the hands of contemporary media and their economic interest. That’s where art comes in. To hold us and the world accountable and tell what others don’t. So the real question we should be asking is this: can anything be done in the name of art?
That last question is as old as art itself, and something to write about maybe another day. But one thing is quite clear, we need honest photography in a world where everything seems fake. As a society, we need something to remind us that we are all human, that under our apparent differences we all like to laugh, talk, enjoy the sun and the rain, and everything else that drives us out in the streets to enjoy this life. I hope me and other street photographers are there to help us remember.
“What inspires me is this incredible world that we live in and all the different ways that people live their lives”
