Krav Mag(icians) and Street Photography
If a pandemic was enough to make you stop taking pictures, it means you weren't made to be a photographer. - Me, 2021
Before to start: Krav Maga is a military self-defense and fighting system developed for the Israel Defense Forces. In recent years it has become a real fashion and this has generated many teachers of these mixed fighting techniques. Many of these teachers are a scam, and several ridiculous videos can be viewed on youtube. For this reason from Krav Maga now we can talk about the Krav Magicians, where people with a dubious curriculum are offering Krav Maga courses, exploiting fashion. This new term includes exalted people, who think of the street as being on a battlefield, in fact they love all the paramilitary paraphernalia, with camouflage and berets. To make you understand even better the character of John Kreese of the movie The Karate Kid and now in Cobra Kai can be associated with the attitude of a Krav Magician. And I think also Steven Seagal can be associated to that definition.
OK, so what does this have to do with Street Photography?
In the last two years we have seen an evident decline in photography that I love and do every day. One thing that, among other things, I had foreseen well in advance a few years ago and this crisis has been accelerated by the pandemic. Today we have seen:
Many blogs that have not been updated for months if not years
Others switched to platforms like youtube because writing requires a certain skill and many people today don't even read anymore
Bloggers who were successful talking about street photography today look like Greta Thumberg, with articles absolutely not related to the theme of street photography
In general, lack of ideas and creative immobility
The situation is not positive. In the competition between photographers, creativity was nurtured and content and debates were generated. Today all this seems to have vanished or at least weakened in an evident way.
Like Krav Magia, Street Photography for a long time was used by charlatans to sell workshops that were crap. In the last two years we have seen how many of these have been wiped out. This is undoubtedly a positive result. The meteors are gone and others have revealed their true faces.
Even delegating everything to instagram alone is a mistake. I support the need to offer content and food for the mind to street photography. And this blog is an evidence.
