Sharp photos are great—like classical music, they demand more attention, objectivity, and a discerning audience. Blurred photos, on the other hand, are like pop music: casual, subjective, and effortlessly appealing to the masses. I embrace both styles. Especially in this scorching summer heat, a bit of blur mimics the shimmering haze, amplifying that sizzling seasonal vibe.
I don’t like composition. I’ve been deeply afflicted by the rule of thirds—I always instinctively place the subject at the one-third point. But, admittedly, it doesn’t look bad… It seems that even though I want to be different, not all rules need to be broken.
Street photography is about linking the unrelated, or connecting the related. When they come together, I know the photo has bridged the gap—bringing you, in front of the screen, into my world.
Some critics claim street photography is outdated—”overdone,” “irrelevant,” and “just a shrine to dusty legends.” They dismiss HCB as a privileged dilettante, reduce Frank to a “hipster cliché,” and sneer: “Why buy photo books? Scroll online!”
But Time Doesn’t Exist, Does It?
By their logic, history itself is obsolete—a moldy artifact unworthy of study. Yet to me, the “old” ways of seeing feel endlessly fresh. What’s so groundbreaking about the critics’ beloved “contemporary” or “avant-garde” photography? If anything, their worship of novelty reeks of insecurity. You mock my reverence for classics? I’ll laugh at your cult of ignorance.
Street Photography Isn’t Performance Art
Flipping through a photo book—the texture of pages, the thrill of stumbling upon a frame that electrifies your nerves—is a ritual as intimate as losing yourself in a favorite song. It’s not about dissecting techniques or flexing intellectual muscles. If critics mistake this joy for pretentiousness, maybe they’ve forgotten what raw connection feels like. Sure, performance gets stale—it craves shock value. But street photography? It’s never been about the show.
Street Photography Is Photographic History
A great street photo acts like a visual time capsule. It jolts you into pondering humanity’s quirks—the fleeting fashions, the quiet rebellions, the collective anxieties baked into an era. Take masks post-2020: imagine a kid in 2077 staring at these images, bewildered by our faces half-hidden. That’s the magic.
Street photography doesn’t just document life—it smuggles questions across generations. And if that’s “outdated,” then let’s stay gloriously behind the times.
I walked alone with my Minolta 100mm-200mm f4.5, the kind of lens that feels like an old friend—light, unassuming, yet always ready to show me something new. The sky was a deep, unblemished blue, the kind of blue that makes you think of forgotten jazz records spinning in a quiet room. I looked up, as I often do, and there it was: an airplane slicing through the emptiness, leaving two white contrails behind, like the faint traces of a memory I couldn’t quite place. Not far off, a flock of birds circled in the high air, their wings catching the light in a way that felt almost deliberate, as if they were writing a message I’d never decipher. I stood there, the shutter clicking softly, feeling the weight of the moment settle into me—a strange, gentle happiness, like the last note of a song fading into silence.
Singers age, but music stays,
Forever young in endless days.
Yet photographs, they bear the trace,
Of their time, in every space.
Though you attempt to abstract the scene,
The era’s mark will still be seen,
Like gravity, it binds it tight,
To its time, with all its might.
Hey there, I’m Little White, a clever pup who loves lounging on the couch and watching the world go by. Recently, my owner took me out for a sneaky stroll to the streets, and wow—what a treasure trove of photo opps! Tonight, I squinted out the window, streetlights twinkling, as the night turned those cyclists and motorbike riders into my very own “moving stars.” Check out that pic—folks zooming by on bikes and scooters, racing through the intersection like they’re late for the next big adventure… or maybe just trying to beat the traffic light! I couldn’t help but wonder—humans, with all that speed, would you need me to lick your bruises if you wipe out?
The real laugh, though, is that dinosaur balloon tied to the fence at the crossroad! It’s slouched over like it’s saying, “Hey, pup, I’m lazier than you—wind blows, and I just sway. Pretty cool, huh?” I stared at it, nearly cracking up—clearly the inflatable “roadblock star” is putting on a deep, thoughtful act. The cars whiz by like a shiny river, red and green lights flashing, while people hustle through life—some grinning, some frowning. I come and go here, watching them live, laugh, and worry, and it’s like I’ve picked up a bit of life’s meaning myself. Maybe tomorrow I’ll nudge my owner to get me a camera to snap these street “actors”—though, of course, the real star should be me!
Winter is nearly gone now, though the cold lingers, a faint sharpness in the air, and the city seems to carry its own kind of chill, distant and reserved. I’ve been careful, I suppose, in keeping myself apart, a little different from others, though I hardly notice how it happens—how my eyes catch the small, strange things that slip through the cracks of the everyday. This evening, the sun hung low, its light broken by a thick seam of clouds, and it felt almost unreal, like something from a film—perhaps that black hole in Interstellar, silent and immense. I reached for my camera, quickly, as if I could trap it, that fleeting moment when the world seemed to pause and whisper something I couldn’t quite grasp.
