Street Photography - where I'm coming from

I'm taking a ten-week summer class in street photography at the art school continuing ed program where I spend a ton of my time. This is a bit of a mild summer for me there as I'm not logging huge hours in the print studio or the 3D shop, but focusing on other things including Steem. One thing I use these classes for, though, it making sure I spend time interacting in person with other artists. I had done natural light portraiture and studio portraiture there before, so I thought street made a lot of sense as a way to progress.

We're two weeks in and have just gotten our first shooting assignment, and I'll probably be posting results as we go along, so I wanted to document the base state first - my experience and level of street photography going into this class. That should make it easier to look at the photos as the class progresses and see how much I'm learning. So these are five previous street or street-esque photos and my thoughts on them, in chronological order.

OK, so this street is a river, sue me. I still think this is very much in the mode of street photography, in that it's a candid photo of some people in their everyday experience. These bargemen are preparing to work their charges through a Mississippi River lock, but they're pretty relaxed about it. This is one that's never made it quite into my portfolio, though it might if I ever get a street photography section. I immediately thought of it and went looking for it to make this post.

This is in the Underground City of the Montreal Metro system, in 2014. I stood against this wall for a long, long time waiting for the corridor to be empty for just a moment. This is one that's more an architectural photograph with a busker to draw interest than a portrait, really; I'm not sure there's much special about the busker except his willingness to keep playing to no audience. I've been trying off and on to capture some of the essence of the vast system of pedestrian tunnels beneath Montreal without a lot of success, and that's one of the things I hope this class can help me get closer to.

In Minneapolis we have an annual all-night art festival called Northern Spark in the summer. This year's is tomorrow, and I may have to make a point of going, since I'm awake, even though I have a million other things to do.

This photo is from the 2015 edition, a silhouette portrait of experimental musician David Andree performing in the grey photo studio at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

I thought the way the lighting here was focused on the equipment rather than the performer was fascinating. Plus I love silhouettes and jumped on the opportunity to get an unusual one.

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We talked a little bit in class today about photographing kids being a tricky ethical subject, one that can lead to confrontation, and that's not something that really matches my own experience. But I realized later that part of that is the kids I'm interested in photographing are pretty much never kids who have helicopter parents. These young men aren't enjoying their ice cream bars on a little porch, they're two or three stories up. (In Turku Castle, which doesn't have well-delineated floor structure.) Their mom, who was sitting near me on street level, probably wasn't going to freak out over me taking a photo of her kids if she wasn't going to freak out about them sitting on that ledge in the first place.

This is another one from the same trip, in Reykjavik. And again, parents who are perfectly happy with their kids using Leif Eiricsson as a slide probably are not likely parents to be upset over some rando tourist taking a photo of it.

I particularly like this one for the contrast of a sense of playfulness with a sense of grandeur. This is one of Reykjavik's most notable public squares, the one just outside of Hallgrimskirkja. The statue is of their national mythic hero, and also a substantial diplomatic gift from the United States.

It's also, apparently, a pretty fun slide, as this girl and her brother were going back and forth for quite some time.