Street Photography Now Project

kutting · 10-04-2010

I didn't see this posted anywhere else on the forums and thought it maybe of interest to other RFF members:

"The Street Photography Now Project is a global hunt for new talent in street photography.

Each week from 1 October 2010, a leading contemporary street photographer will issue a new instruction, written to inspire fresh ways of looking at and documenting the world we all live in.

You will have six days to upload one photograph in response to each instruction. To do this just join the Group for that week through this Flickr site. You may respond to as many instructions as you wish.

The project will run for 52 weeks, at the end of which one photographer will be awarded £1000 worth of Thames and Hudson books for the most significant contribution the project. Their work will also be shown on the Wall for All at The Photographers’ Gallery in London

For more information visit streetphotographynowproject.wordpress.com/

To sign up to receive each instruction by email the moment it is issued email signup@photonet.org.uk

The Street Photography Now Project is a collaboration between The Photographers’ Gallery, London and Sophie Howarth and Stephen McLaren, authors of Street Photography Now (Thames and Hudson)."

kutting · 10-04-2010

It sounds like fun.

chrismoret · 10-05-2010

Great initiative!!

SimonSawSunlight · 10-05-2010

sounds cool, not sure if I should join the fun though...

jsrockit · 10-05-2010

Cool, thanks for the tip.

Pirate · 10-05-2010

Simon would win, hands down if he entered.

Um, it says to follow the instructions, but there are no instructions. What's up with that??

yanidel · 10-05-2010

Great, I am in, great challenge to follow.
Pirate, read the Bruce Gilden statement on the home page, that is the instruction.
http://streetphotographynowproject.wordpress.com/

Pirate · 10-05-2010

I read that, it's a quote, not an instruction. These people need to learn to use the English language properly.

yanidel · 10-05-2010

Well, instruction has several meanings, one of them is :
- an imparted knowlegde, a lesson

Pirate · 10-05-2010

I agree with that, but what they said sounds more like voicing a thought - which also can be interpreted as instruction if it stated so. If they had said "Follow this thought to make your photo" I could see it as instruction. The way they worded it just really threw me and for some reason is still very irritating. My problem, I know, and I don't know why it's bugging me the way it is.

SimonSawSunlight · 10-06-2010

ok, ok, I submitted a photo...

Pirate · 10-06-2010

Darn it!!! The rest of us just lost.....

SimonSawSunlight · 10-06-2010

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pirate

Darn it!!! The rest of us just lost.....

bu**sh**

I'm not even sure if what I submitted there makes any sense

atlcruiser · 10-06-2010

I saw this as well...

I followed links, went to the home page, flikr page #1 and #2 and was still a bit confused about how to join and what to do.

Got frustrated then decided to start a new project on my own.

The idea is great; the excution seems a bit lax

Neare · 10-06-2010

1,400 participants so far for week 1. There will be good competition in there, I'm in!

Pirate · 10-06-2010

This really sucks. Between work and getting ready to move, I don't have any time to take pics, especially for week 1. Have to see what I can do about week 2 coming up.

daninjc · 10-06-2010

Not a big fan of this project. There will be very good shots uploaded, but with thousands semi-random submissions each week, they will be completely lost and taken out of context. Even some amazing photographs like our Simon, that are able to tell stories and a build a street philosophy in their work, just to risk be overlooked. It's kind of a waste...
What's the point of that? If it's just fun, that's cool, but i wouldn't take it very seriously.
I'm curious to know what brings you guys to submit there if you did. I'm open to change my mind!!!

atlcruiser · 10-06-2010

Quote:

Originally Posted by daninjc

Not a big fan of this project. There will be very good shots uploaded, but with thousands semi-random submissions each week, they will be completely lost and taken out of context. Even some amazing photographs like our Simon, that are able to tell stories and a build a street philosophy in their work, just to risk be overlooked. It's kind of a waste...
What's the point of that? If it's just fun, that's cool, but i wouldn't take it very seriously.
I'm curious to know what brings you guys to submit there if you did. I'm open to change my mind!!!

In many way I agree...perhaps we could start a similiar project here?

ashrafazlan · 10-06-2010

I wouldn't enter if my goal was to win...rather I'd participate for the learning experience.

SimonSawSunlight · 10-06-2010

Quote:

Originally Posted by ashrafazlan

I wouldn't enter if my goal was to win...rather I'd participate for the learning experience.

yes, for the fun of it. you don't enter these kind of things because you want to win them, but don't complain if you do win!

kutting · 10-06-2010

I'm in it for the challenge.

I went out twice in the past week and I'm still not sure what Mr Gilden meant by "the smell of the street" I tried both literal of figurative interpretations and just posted the picture I liked the most.

It certainly made me think, and I think it prompted better results than my usual random snaps, so I'll give #2 a go next week.

John Elder · 10-13-2010

If you read carefully, any pics submited can be used by the Street Photography Now project free of charge, seemingly without limitation.. So , assume you are Bresson and enter your best 52 images, The project can, technically, make a book consisting soley of those photographs. The usage of the images is too loose for me to enter. I don't want to lose control of my best street shots to a competition.

jsrockit · 10-14-2010

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Elder

So , assume you are Bresson and enter your best 52 images, The project can, technically, make a book consisting soley of those photographs. The usage of the images is too loose for me to enter. I don't want to lose control of my best street shots to a competition.

OK, let's assume that there is a minute chance that you make your best images during the 52 weeks and submit a masterpiece each time (or even once)... that does not mean you will never be able to use your photos again... they are still yours. It just means that if they want to make a book after the whole year is over, they want to be free to do so. Your scenario is so over the top. A "Bresson" doesn't need to enter this.

Brian Legge · 10-13-2010

I'm not interested in joining a new group each week. Nor am I likely to follow through on keeping with it for 52 weeks. Those points alone were enough to kill my interest in it.

ederek · 10-14-2010

Quote:

Originally Posted by atlcruiser

In many way I agree...perhaps we could start a similiar project here?

We could always post here based on the current Topic of the Week, even allow older images not taken during the assignment period? A revolving topic w/nw thread..

Last week the challenge was 4-legged friends. I thought back to a trip to Taiwan maybe 9 years ago, and pulled this image from the archive, taken with a Canon P&S. It wasn't quite as remembered, and the blown sky bothers me more than ever, as well as the car behind the bull's head. This bull was retired and now the man's pet, who was taking him for a walk.

Regarding a pic from the current time period, snapped this pup sporting a pig costume last weekend at a local parade:

Quote:

Originally Posted by yanidel

Great, I am in, great challenge to follow.
Pirate, read the Bruce Gilden statement on the home page, that is the instruction.
http://streetphotographynowproject.wordpress.com/

Yanidel - I enjoy your blog, some very nice images you've been sharing with great captions and commentary. Hope you don't mind me quoting a rather large chunk from your Lesson #2 learnings?? I think they're spot on!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yanidel's "Instruction #2" at "http://blog.yanidel.com/"

Unless you are very lucky or go to the zoo, your chances to see an elephant in a corner of the street in Paris are pretty low. Therefore I decided to look out for dogs for the last couple of days and I did learn quite a few things :
- dogs are small in relationship to humans, so one needs to get close, actually very close in most cases. That is not easy as you can’t anticipate the animal’s reaction.
- you have to willing to go low, as low as the ground to get to the same level as your subject. Indeed, shots from above will result in pictures with no depth and therefore it will be very difficult to include the surroundings. Thus be ready to look silly as you crawl on the ground.
- talking about surroundings, this is a street photography excercise and there is often a very fine line between a portrait and a street shot. If the picture is only about the dog, lacking any interaction with its surroundings, then it most probably will fail as a street photography picture.
- I started with the 60mm focal, then went on with the 35mm, to finally use exclusively the 24mm today. I found long focal to result in many chopped head and little surroundings. I found the 24mm to be the most effective though it meant getting even closer to the dogs.
- full frame sensor is not an advantage here. Indeed when getting very close (less than 1 meter), I had troubles to get large depths of field, even with a 24mm lens. So many of my shots had the animal partly in focus while the surroundings were blurred. It is part of my style but it does mean that the surrounding will often have substantial blur.
- manual focus was a nightmare. Dogs are like kids, they change tempo, path and love to turn their head inexpectedly. I even had to whistle a few times to get their attention.

Here's the image to illustrate how true the learnings were for me:

Yanidel's Lessons applied to image above:
1) get close - Check
2) get low - Check (camera was on the ground)
3) surroundings - Fail (feet with cool laces don't cut it, composition sucks)
4) wider focal length helps - Fail (think this was a 75mm)
5) Depth of field and focus - Fail (focused quickly but didn't focus ahead of dog, so by the time I put the camera down and pressed shutter, it was back-focused)
6) Manual vs Autofocus - Fail (missed the shot, AF might have helped, but I could have had better anticipation with MF). At least the manual exposure was spot on!

The nice thing about these projects for me is the lessons learned, and insights gained. The reflection helps, and who knows, maybe I'd do better next time...