Street Photography sucks because of the selfie syndrome
I receive more and more comments about the fact that I was right with criticizing the most of street photography we see on festivals and awards.
These judges cannot understand the very low level of a photo like this, which is worthy of someone who is just starting out in photography, unable to understand how unbalanced it is, with that completely useless character on the right. It makes me laugh. Usually I don’t make bad comments and photographers attending my workshops know this. But if you are putting in some honorable mention a photograph, well expect that you can be criticized. The content is absolutely useless, but let's leave that aside. I advocate not cropping but that is because I believe that Street Photography is above all a great opportunity to improve as photographers and in this speech is crucial the importance of framing.
Since years I reported the main issues with current street photography. Result: I was attacked and trolls appeared. I am excluded from their dynamics and I am proud with that. Festivals and awards are managed by wannabe (there is not a single organizator that is a good street photographer) and judges are always the same, celebrated names who took advantage of the first posts on internet about street photography. The others occuping the role in jury usually are people not familiar with street photography and some new kid, with an ephemereal fame in that moment. The "masters" whjen called to judge vote always the photos reflecting their style and approach (ex. here David Gibson voting for a photograph a la Gibson). Street Photography, real street photography is not the one celebrated in festivals and awards, where the gimmiks, the visual joke and unuseful "proof of what I have seen" is a continous selfie of the photographer. It appears evident that all these photographers don't care at all of people and the human condition, they are focused on themselves and anything is a big selfie, a public act of masturbation where all these images will be forgot. You can't find a genuine humanist approach here, and the emotional aspect is not present: it is just technique focused on showing their egos. But let’s watch the video by tim Huynh:
I wanted to thank the street photography festivals around the world. You are a point of reference: every time you release the winning photos we understand that they are photos that SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN because they suck.
Well, festivals are useful in that sense, better than plums!
The problem that I see even more evident is that everyone always chases the same "masters" and then everything is an anthology of silhouettes, theater of the absurd, bright colors (what a drag!), but what emerges most of all is just an enormous gigantic boredom of photos repeated to the point of torment, from year to year, from festival to festival, from award to award.
All these people indulge in a constant act of masturbation in public. This is completely useless photography, which has no purpose other than to show one's ego, not at all interested in people, in the changing society, and so they are completely unable to show the emotional in their photos. Everything relies on technical expediency and, as we see here, not even realized in a decent way. Now things are even worse than when I started having a critical attitude. And in fact a lot of people now are getting aware and they contact me to say that I WAS RIGHT. What can I answer? I was not right, I AM RIGHT!
Why is even worse now? Well, the mass has even gotten worse in the world. People don't read anymore, they don't care about quality cinema, everything has become extremely superficial and quite empty. From music to cinema it's a disaster. Do you think that constantly having your neck bowed while staring at a cell phone screen doesn't produce other sordid effects besides a hunchback?
But don’t get me wrong: Street Photography is not dead. Not for sure because of these festivals managed by people that is not able to produce a good photograph, not even under torture. And Street Photography is not dead because Bruce Gilden is at the border of failure (lol) or Alex Webb is always judge in photo awards. That is just the mainstream street photography managed always by the same people, including wannabes and the untalented. Street Photography is still alive and kicking in the gaze of photographers showing sensitivity and real interest for the human condition. There are a lot of photographers, not winning and not even ansious to participate to any festival or contest making their work that is fantastic. I know a lot of them in any part of the world dealing with difficults in shooting in unsafe places, addressing important issues such as resilience, community spirit, sense of identity.
There is a Street Photography that is good for real, but is pretty distant from the dynamics of those who took the control. Like any mainstream is crappy content that becomes popular. Street Photography, the real Street Photography is social reportage, is still that thing that I learned to love and that is still part of my life, with pride in my sould and even tattooed in my skin. I will continue to advocate for the real street photography.
Through this blog you know to count with a different place, where we share something that is not mainstream, the old school street photography, linked to the emotional, to the humanist look, to create documents that can be useful for our understanding of society and the human condition.
NOTA A MARGINE IN LINGUA ITALIANA
Da uno degli organizzatori del Pisa Festival ricevo: “Giusto per correttezza la foto che hai messo e di cui parli dicendo "i giudici non possono dare una menzione d'onore ad una foto del genere"....forse hai visto il tutto un po' frettolosamente perché questa foto, si era in finale, ma non ha preso menzioni ...al contrario di quello che hai scritto. Te lo dico perché ci tengo che fai bella figura come giornalista. Per il resto, il tuo pensiero va rispettato.. Un abbraccio Alex .. continua ad odiare il mondo !"
Accetto la correzione, ma risulta evidente il fastidio provocato. Chi mi conosce sa che ho iniziato a studiare street photography nel 2005 e dopo un anno iniziai timidamente a provare a fare foto in strada a Roma. Successivamente sono stato il creatore della prima community dedicata alla Street Photography (2008/2009), quella SPC che smosse le acque. Ho vissuto da protagonista quell’epoca un po’ pioneristica che mi vide andare a Los Angeles, essere giudice nel primo Miami Street Photography Festival oltrechè esporre alcune mie foto. Ho contribuito a quell’esplosione, in un certo senso, di quel boom che oggi vede la street photography così popolare. Uno dei primi fotografi ad abbracciare il concetto mirrorless e utilizzarlo professionalmente. I miei blog e le varie pubblicazioni tra libri e riviste influenzarono in quegli anni. REALITY REMADE,il lavoro fotografico che potete vedere nel portfolio street su questo sito fu copiato da diversi fotografi nel mondo, pur partendo da una ispirazione totalmente personale e frutto di un percorso interiore che stavo attraversando, successivamente trasportato nel lavoro di Oaxaca perchè aveva un senso profondo. In questi anni ho portato la street photography a lectio magistralis in università prestigiose, nel corso di eventi anche importantissimi, dove con me c’erano storici dell’immagine e della documentazione fotografica. Peraltro tali meriti mi sono stati riconosciuti dal FIAF nella loro storia sulla street photography in Italia. La mia posizione di critico nei confronti di una fotografia di strada sempre più superficiale e vuota di contenuto deve essere rispettato perchè mentre io ero qui facendo cose importanti a favore della street photography gli altri stavano ancora giocando con la cacca. E qualcuno, vedo, purtroppo sta ancora giocando con la cacca, solo trasportata nel mondo della street photography. Mi aspettavo rispetto soprattutto da questa persona che mi ha contattato, visto che l’ho anche pubblicata nella rivista THE STREET PHOTOGRAPHER NOTEBOOK. Ma vedo che la tendenza è sempre la stessa, un po’ da atteggiamento mafiosetto, del tipo stai attento a come parli. In passato accadde con gli organizzatori dell’Italian Street Photography Festival che attraverso vari messaggi mi fecero capire che avere un atteggiamento critico (e che sarà mai?) sarei stato estromesso dalle loro dinamiche. Come se questo mi facesse sparire. E invece, guardate, sono ancora qui e perfino più forte di prima, frutto soltanto del mio lavoro, senza dover ringraziare nessuno e soprattutto essendo libero da certe conventicole. Per concludere questa postilla: non è che criticare significa odiare il mondo, ma lo sapete come funziona in questo mondo dove le persone estremizzano e polarizzano ogni cosa. Del resto, culturalmente, partiamo da due piani differenti e quindi non ho pretesa alcuna che certi personaggi comprendano più di tanto. Sa va…sa va…
