The Old School Street Photography Manifesto

I believe that there is a need to think of street photography not as a series of formal and content boundaries or even as a genre of photography, but rather as an experience and a way of thinking and living photography. For this reason I have decided to propose this manifesto.

A premise

In 2012 I published my Street Photography guide where I defined in this way what we do as photographers:

Street photography is, certainly, a snapshot of urban life observed in its daily facet and that includes all its aspects: irony, tragedy, unpredictability, cruelty and even beauty.

I have always considered street photography to belong to documentary photography, but detaching myself from photojournalism in terms of intent and goals. When the observation focuses on everyday life, perhaps even on banality and apparently unimportant everyday scenes we differentiate ourselves from wanting to tell a story in which an event relevant to the media takes place. The declared or, at least implied, intent of the street photographer is to capture a scene that has in some way an artistic value. It is no coincidence that the street photographer sees the ideal landing of his/her work in exhibitions and books.

The fact that a street photo has no journalistic relevance does not mean that it does not have it from a purely documentary point of view. In fact, I believe that street photography has no rivals as a social and anthropological reflection because unlike journalism it lives spontaneous moments, often caught without intervention, with unaware subjects.

It doesn't even matter what you call it. Garry Winogrand said he did not like the definition and yet we are talking about one of the masters and precursors of a certain way of making and living photography. In Mexico, with photographers such as Manuel Alvarez Bravo and Nacho Lopez, it was rather called Vida Cotidiana (Everyday Life).

I suggest you stop thinking of street photography as a genre because precisely this generates the desire to want to set rules, thus limiting what we can do on the street. I make you 3 examples:

If we think of Vivian Maier who is considered one of the most important photographers by us who take pictures on the street, most of the time she made set portraits.

Stephen Shore specialized himself in urban landscapes where humans are pawns positioned inside the compositional chessboard, often also shot from behind.

Lee Friedlander is a photographer who photographed everything that was interesting for him.

All of us who have been chewing street photography for years have high regard for these photographers and yet for some photographers who have adopted a radical orthodoxy of what street photography is or should be these photographers would be out of the genre.

I think as educator, popularizer and street photographer that limits are for small brains. But maybe limits are made by someone in order to have things easier. Think about a street photography workshop: if you propose a workshop where all the time you state what is and what is not street photography you will mark the territory and at the same time you will propose a standardized workshop for anyone. I do exactly the opposite as educator, focusing the attention on the student, what is his/her inner voice and trrying to help them to express it through their photos. This is more difficult but also much more useful. And it allows to me not getting bored making the same workshop all the time.

So guys, I would say that in my opinion is about the experience of shooting on the street and not to make street photography as a genre, bound by rules. We make the rules and we need to respect the rules of the place where we are.

Instead, ask yourself why you like taking pictures on the street. And once you have answered that, it will be easier for you to understand yourself.

To be interested to people is something I consider fundamental to make my photos, but…maybe for another photographer is not. Maybe he is not so focused on people or he/she is just using them as elements in the frame. This is why there is not a universal code or just one goal when it comes to Street Photography. And what is working to me can’t work for others.

And this explains how we have to respect the differences of approaches and visions of other photographers.

If you ask me why I make street photography I will answer that to me is just the natural evolution of my tendency to observe people and make this a way to communicate what I think and live. At first it was just with writing, then photography became a much faster and more dynamic method of doing the same.

As a photographer I know that by taking photos on the street I expose myself. It is risky, gives me adrenaline, it allows me to really get in touch with the city: I am pretty sure that the same happens to a parkour, a skater or a BMX rider. We are metropolitan animals.

We have come to the end of this article. What? Did you think you'd find a numbered list? Oh, no ... it would have been like giving rules and that's exactly what I remarked I want to avoid throughout this piece.

Live your street, your Street Photography as you want. Take your photography in freedom because being a street photographer is all an experience you do with yourself.

This is what I learned.

This is what I teach.