Street Photography is documentary photography with ambitions to become art

With this sentence I think I have summarized the main drive of those who make and live this type of photography.

It is not always successful. Indeed, to tell the truth, there are very few occasions when this happens. But the intent is that and it is what moves us street photographers compared to other photographers.

If we look at the history and who started the genre it is just like that. Of course I am referring to the NYC scene in the 60s with Garry Winogrand, Joel Meyerowitz and Lee Friedlander, with Tod Papageorge, Bruce Gilden…the street photographer wanders the city with a distinct mindset, capturing apparently unimportant things, absurd and ironic aspects, a particular gesture or expression…and he does so by living in the moment, in what he encounters and, if you think about it, even the same action of the street photographer is different, sometimes bizarre, he accelerates his pace or slows down, leans down, looks behind him, stops at the traffic lights even when this marks green.

The motivations that push us on the street can differ from photographer to photographer, each with his personal story and therefore with his reason for being with a camera in the metropolis. A way of living and being in the world. An existence marked by a camera. And that way of life pulsates with art. Or rather, of artistic inspiration.

The street photographer feeds on intellectual inspirations: usually at home he has a collection of photography books with all the major photographers or at least those who inspire him. If he also photographs on film, everything is ordered by dates and places, in an almost obsessive way,

And then the street experience also ends up changing her way of dressing. He wears particular clothes, shoes must be comfortable and in general everything is functional to allow him to work without hindrance while taking pictures.

I believe that rather than engaging in an idea of genre and what it is, we should think about the essence of the experience, about what it makes us say, OK I'm a street photographer. Everyone photographs or should photograph according to their feelings, without mandate constraints or aesthetic and technical impositions. This is why I say that it is more important who you are as a photographer, or as a photographer and how you experience the street.

This is why I say that Street Photography is documentary photography with ambitions to become art. As a street photographer I want my audience to think more profoundly about the meanings behind the images I realize.

We have a particular attitude, For this reason I think in respct to other photographers the Street vPhotographer is another kind of animal. A metropolitan animal who knows how to stay on the street, respecting its rules and capable of translating into images, photographic moments, that particular sense of place and of what happens in that given moment in front of him and his camera. Street Photography as calling. Our cameras are our companions of everyday to document the everyday. Even this fact alone is a piece of art.