By Paula Barron


Street photography was born in the 1930s, on the streets on Paris. It came about due to the invention of 35mm roll film and smaller rangefinder cameras, such as the Leica. Pivotal to the popularity of the medium was Henri Cartier Bresson, who discovered the importance of finding and capturing the "decisive moment" on film. Many other famous street photographers followed in his wake, including William Klein, Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander, Robert Frank, Joel Meyrowitz and many others.

Before the invention of 35mm film, cameras were enormous clumsy things that were difficult to shoot off the hip. They could only take one photograph at a time before needed to be reloaded with film, making the decisive moment difficult to capture. However, The New York press photographer Weegee The Famous used a 4x5 Graphic Press Camera to photograph crime scenes in his native city. He had an uncanny knack for being at the right place at the right time and his status became legendary among photographers of the era.

With the invention of 35mm film came many young street photographers, who shot from the hip and captured decisive moments that were ground-breaking, challenging and even disturbing. Henri Cartier Bresson was arguably the fist to really utilize the new format, and his images are now considered works of genius. One particular photograph, titled Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare portrays a man lumping over what look like broken hoops. This image is considered to be Bresson's statement about Europe and impending World War 2.

Robert Frank created one of the most important photo-books of all time, titled "The Americans" in 1958. This is a series of black and white photographs taken by Frank during a road trip across North America. The photographs are full of symbolism and does not paint a rosy picture of American culture. Crosses, American flags, cars, hot dogs, cigars all grace the images. The book was unsuccessful when released and many people saw the Swiss Robert Frank as an outsider who was cynical about American culture. It has since become one of the most important works of street photography ever produced.

In the 1960s William Klein began shooting the streets of New York with a high level of energy and exuberance. His photographs are shot off the hip and are often quite disturbing, with motion blur that created meaning and feeling in the photographs. At the same time Garry Winogrand was also shooting the streets of New York, and he produced some of his most famous work in the zoos of Central Park and The Bronx.

Most of the street photographers of the 1930s to the 1960s photographed in black and white, but in the 1970s color photography finally became accepted as an artistic medium. It took sometime to get going and initially the use of color film was greeted by the same kind of disdain as Bob Dylan going electric.

Joel Mayrowitz and William Eggleston used color in street photography, Joel Mayrowitz believed in presenting the world in as much detail as possible and so wanted to shoot in color. He also turned to large format 8x10 inch cameras in order to capture as much detail as possible.

The American photographer William Eggleston took many wonderful color photographs of the South of the United States. His subjects were always the mundane and unexciting aspects of life, but they were photographed so beautifully they were considered works of art. William Eggleson is considered to be one of the most important famous street photographers.




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