विषयसूची:
सड़क फोटोग्राफी चुनौती (मई 2024)
स्ट्रीट फ़ोटोग्राफ़ी, फ़ोटोग्राफ़ी की एक शैली जो सार्वजनिक स्थान पर रोज़मर्रा के जीवन को रिकॉर्ड करती है। सेटिंग का बहुत प्रचार फोटोग्राफर को अजनबियों के स्पष्ट चित्र लेने में सक्षम बनाता है, अक्सर उनकी जानकारी के बिना। स्ट्रीट फोटोग्राफर्स के मन में एक सामाजिक उद्देश्य नहीं होता है, लेकिन वे ऐसे क्षणों को अलग करना और कैप्चर करना पसंद करते हैं जो अन्यथा किसी का ध्यान नहीं जा सकते।
शुरुआत
अल्फ्रेड स्टिगलिट्ज़, बेर्निस ऐबट और विलियम एग्लस्टन सहित कई फ़ोटोग्राफ़रों ने सड़क पर फ़ोटो लिए, लेकिन खुद को स्ट्रीट फ़ोटोग्राफ़र नहीं माना। उदाहरण के लिए, स्टिग्लिट्ज़ ने 20 वीं शताब्दी के मोड़ पर न्यूयॉर्क शहर और पेरिस की सड़कों पर तस्वीरें खिंचवाईं, जो मौसम के प्रभाव के दौरान उनकी तस्वीरों में कैद हो गई थीं। एबॉट ने एक अलग दृष्टिकोण लिया: 1930 के दशक में उसने नीचे से शहरी वास्तुकला का दस्तावेजीकरण किया, प्रकाश और अंधेरे के विपरीत और निर्मित पर्यावरण की भयावहता पर जोर दिया। एग्लस्टोन ने रंगीन फोटोग्राफी को एक बेहतरीन कला के रूप में अपने रोजमर्रा, आम स्थानों, लोगों, और अक्सर सार्वजनिक या सड़क पर पाई जाने वाली चीजों के बड़े पैमाने पर चित्रों में उतारा। हालांकि वह उन लोगों में से कई से प्रभावित थे जिन्होंने 1950 और 60 के दशक के सड़क फोटोग्राफरों को प्रभावित किया था,वह मुख्य रूप से सड़क की भावना को पकड़ने में दिलचस्पी नहीं रखता था।
सार्वजनिक रूप से लोगों को नेत्रहीन दस्तावेज़ देने का आवेश 19 वीं सदी के चित्रकारों जैसे एडगर डेगास, औडौर्ड मानेट और हेनरी डी टूलूज़-लॉटरेक के साथ शुरू हुआ, जिन्होंने फोटोग्राफरों के साथ कंधे से कंधा मिलाकर काम किया और शहरी जीवन का सार पकड़ने का प्रयास किया। कुछ ने उनकी पेंटिंग की सहायता के रूप में तस्वीरों का इस्तेमाल किया। चित्रकारों, स्केचर्स, और फोटोग्राफरों ने गली को अपने स्टूडियो के रूप में माना, सांसारिक और शानदार, शानदार आंकड़े और विचित्र रिकॉर्डिंग। कलाकारों ने दो माध्यमों में एक स्थिर छवि में सहजता और आंदोलन को विकसित करने के लिए अपने माध्यम को सबसे अच्छा माना। क्लाउड मोनेट जैसे प्रभाववादियों ने आंदोलन को व्यक्त करने और समय के साथ बदलने के लिए अपनी रचनाओं में स्केच ब्रशस्ट्रोक की शुरुआत की।मोनेट ने भी एक ही विषय को एक ही दृष्टिकोण से बार-बार चित्रित किया, लेकिन दिन के अलग-अलग समय में यह देखने के लिए कि प्रकाश में परिवर्तन इस विषय को कैसे प्रभावित करेगा, कुछ कैमरा काफी कुशलता से कर सकता था। सबसे पहले कैमरे को एक उपकरण के रूप में देखा जाता था जो कलाकार के हाथ को बदल सकता था, लेकिन समय के साथ-साथ कैमरे की अद्वितीय क्षमताएं- इसकी तात्कालिकता और मानव आंख से अधिक देखने की क्षमता (और बेहतर फोकस के साथ) -एक पेंटिंग के अलावा एक तस्वीर सेट करें और फोटोग्राफी को एक सहायक अध्ययन नहीं बनाया, बल्कि अपने आप में एक अलग माध्यम मूल्यवान बनाया।लेकिन समय के साथ-साथ कैमरे की अद्वितीय क्षमताएँ - इसकी तात्कालिकता और मानव आँख से अधिक देखने की क्षमता (और बेहतर ध्यान देने के साथ) -एक पेंटिंग से अलग एक तस्वीर सेट करें और फोटोग्राफी को एक सहायक अध्ययन नहीं बल्कि एक अलग माध्यम के रूप में मूल्यवान बनाएं और अपने आप।लेकिन समय के साथ-साथ कैमरे की अद्वितीय क्षमताएँ - इसकी तात्कालिकता और मानव आँख से अधिक देखने की क्षमता (और बेहतर ध्यान देने के साथ) -एक पेंटिंग से अलग एक तस्वीर सेट करें और फोटोग्राफी को एक सहायक अध्ययन नहीं बल्कि एक अलग माध्यम के रूप में मूल्यवान बनाएं और अपने आप।
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. Because of the comparatively primitive technology available to him and the long exposure time required, he struggled to capture the hustle and bustle of the Paris streets. He experimented with a series of photographic methods, attempting to find one that would allow him to capture movement without a blur, and he found some success with the calotype, patented in 1841 by William Henry Fox Talbot. The calotype could capture an image in one minute, a stunning efficiency when compared with the 15 to 30 minutes required for a daguerreotype. Some of Nègre’s photographs were staged to evoke action, and some occasionally included accidents—a blur of a figure moving across the composition. Those accidents serve as some of the earliest examples of movement captured in the still image, an expression of the energy of the street.
Eugène Atget, another early street photographer, documented the streets of Paris in the late 19th and early 20th centuries before they were demolished and rebuilt according to the new city plans implemented by Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann. Atget made albumen prints using a large-format view camera that he lugged with him throughout the city. In contrast to Atget, photographer Charles Marville was hired by the city of Paris to create an encyclopaedic document of Haussmann’s urban planning project as it unfolded, thus old and new Paris. While the photographers’ subject was essentially the same, the results were markedly different, demonstrating the impact of the photographer’s intent on the character of the images he produced. Atget’s goal was to document old Paris before it vanished, regardless of what replaced it. Given the fine quality of his photographs and the breadth of material, architects and artists often bought Atget’s prints to use as reference for their own work, though commercial interests were hardly his main motivation. Instead, he was driven to photograph every last remnant of the Paris he loved. The mingled passion and urgency of his mission shine through, resulting in photographs that narrate his own experience of the city, qualities that anticipated street photography of the 20th century. Atget’s photographs were not mere documents or experiments with new technology. They reveal the city through his eyes. His work and fundamental understanding of photography as an art form served as inspiration to generations of photographers that followed.
Photography on the move and the Leica
The next generation of street photographers, though they likely did not refer to themselves as such, was ushered in by the photojournalism of Hungarian-born photographer André Kertész. Street photography as its own genre originated as an offshoot of photojournalism. In fact, many early street photographers started out as photojournalists or fashion photographers and often continued to perform those roles for a living while they pursued their art during their off-hours. Kertész was working in Paris beginning in 1925, and by 1928 he was using a Leica, a handheld lightweight camera that offered both mobility and greater anonymity.His street scenes of Paris sometimes captured people at close range in a manner not seen previously, exhibiting his bold risk taking and strong intuition about the camera’s capabilities. Though using a medium and a technology that were still in their infancy, Kertész mastered the ability to capture spontaneous activity without sacrificing thoughtful composition. Early in his career, he associated with abstract, Surrealist, and Constructivist artists, especially Dutch painter Piet Mondrian, whose abstract, geometric canvases likely had a significant impact on Kertész’s measured approach to composition.
In the 1930s Hungarian photographer Brassaï (born Gyula Halász), began to gain a reputation for his night photographs, using a technique he learned from Kertész while they were both living and working in Paris. Unlike his peers, Brassaï used a larger-format Voigtländer camera with a longer exposure time, forcing him to be more calculated and thoughtful in his practice than he might have been if using a Leica. (It is thought that he may not have been able to afford a Leica at that time, but he did, however, use one in the late 1950s to take colour photographs.) Brassaï’s photographs of the Paris underworld illuminated by artificial light were a revelation, and the compilation of the series that he published, Paris After Dark (1933), was a major success.
French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, an admirer of Kertész, is often credited with bridging art and documentary photography. Cartier-Bresson was a champion of the Leica camera and one of the first photographers to maximize its capabilities. The Leica allowed the photographer to interact with the surroundings and to capture moments as they happened. Its relatively small size also helped the photographer fade into the background, which was Cartier-Bresson’s preferred approach. While discussing his work, Cartier-Bresson coined the phrase “the decisive moment,” which resonates particularly well with the street photographer’s aim: taking advantage of that split second in which the elements of a photograph come together with clarity. It is because of this fundamental understanding of the art of picture taking that he is often credited with rediscovering the medium all over again roughly a century since its invention. He took photographs for more than a half century and influenced generations of photographers to trust their eye and intuition in the moment.
In the United States just before World War II, several photographers, including Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Berenice Abbott, were starting their careers and beginning to more clearly define the potential of photography as it would be practiced in full force a decade later. It was during that period that street photography really began to take form as a unique subgenre of documentary photography. During the Great Depression, photography was becoming ever more present in books, newspapers, and magazines as well as in gallery and museum exhibitions. Evans, Lange, and Abbott, among many others, were making sense of contemporary circumstances, not only the economic struggle but also modernization and the growth of cities and industry. With advanced photographic technology, they took to the streets in cities, towns, and rural areas across the country to document the people and places that encapsulated the American experience.
