Everybody Street.
"“Everybody Street” illuminates the lives and work of New York’s iconic street photographers and the incomparable city that has inspired them for decades. The documentary pays tribute to the spirit of street photography through a cinematic exploration of New York City, and captures the visceral rush, singular perseverance and at times immediate danger customary to these artists.Covering nine decades of street photography, “Everybody Street” explores the careers and influences of many notable photographers––a number of whom have never been documented, featuring: Bruce Davidson, Elliott Erwitt, Jill Freedman, Bruce Gilden, Joel Meyerowitz, Rebecca Lepkoff, Mary Ellen Mark, Jeff Mermelstein, Clayton Patterson, Ricky Powell, Jamel Shabazz, Martha Cooper, and Boogie, with historians Max Kozloff and Luc Sante." - everybodystreet.com Everybody street review |
In photography we have watched the film “Everybody Street”. It is a film about street photography in New York. It follows well know street photographers, such as Jill Freedman, Boogie, Rebecca Lepkoff and Bruce Davidson, around New York city as they tell us why and how they do street photography. The documentary really gives a good insight into the lives of street photographers living in New York City. It was filmed by Cheryl Dunn in 2013. She herself is a street photographer and has been taking pictures for 20 years.
I learnt that the behaviour of a street photographer is quite brave because they take risks, as in A LOT of big risks because as they are out in public spaces taking pictures of people/objects the risks are quite clear, boogie mentions once he was offered crack during a shoot with a Brooklyn gang. Street photography is always being on the move always keeping your eyes open for that perfect picture someone said its like “clarity in chaos”. This means its like finding the peace in war and the eye of the storm, something which is totally bizarre but completely sane. They says its like being a Japanese samurai warrior “don’t think, just react”. This means to just take pictures randomly whenever you see something interesting, take a picture and you never know it could be a great picture.
As Street photographers are always on the move they need portable lightweight cameras. E.g. a leica 35mm is perfect for street photography as they are small, portable and lightweight. But unfortunately they can be quite expensive and cost upwards of £1,500. So a lot of street photographers actually buy them second hand. This saves a lot of money. Mary Ellen Mark uses an SLR, as she likes to take pictures of the trains in Brooklyn she uses a Pentax SLR to instantly take a picture of a train with no blurring whilst including the foreground and background.
Street Photographers are interested in a lot of types of photos but as the name clearly states pictures from the streets, these public spaces fascinate street photographers as they can be quite interesting if you take the time to concentrate and really acknowledge your surroundings, they are interested in movement e.g. running, walking , facial movements and gestures. The theme of movement also ties in to the though of trains ,like Mary Ellen mark takes photographs of trains in Brooklyn she does this because she like the graffiti on the trains, although all the graffiti has been cleaned off all the trains and the stations have a lot more security to make sure this doesn’t happen, that’s the reason the took the photographs, she took them to conserve these magnificent pieces of artwork, its just because they re not on canvas but on metal people think they are “vandalism” or “distasteful”.
One very special street photographer named Rebecca Lepkoff (1916-2014) she was born on the 4th of august. She grew up in the lower east side of New York City. She worked as a dancer and in 1939 she worked as a dancer in the worlds fair, from this she managed to save just enough money to buy herself a second-hand Borlander camera. Fascinated by the lower east side she began to take pictures. Her first photographs were taken in Essex and Hester streets. She remembered that “the streets were full of pushcarts.” But they aren’t there anymore because they don’t exist. But then “everyone was outside: the mothers with their baby carriages, and the men just hanging out.” Her photographs included people in the streets, especially children, but also the building and the signs on storefronts.
In 1950 she photographed people at work and play in Vermont. The photos were used in the book “Almost utopia: the residents and radicals of Pike Falls, Vermont, 1950” and was published by the Vermont historical society.
Sadly Rebecca died on August 17th 2014 due to old age, she had just turned 98. She will always be remembered in the photography/street photography community.
In memory of Rebecca Lepkoff (1916-2014) R.I.P
Ben may.
I learnt that the behaviour of a street photographer is quite brave because they take risks, as in A LOT of big risks because as they are out in public spaces taking pictures of people/objects the risks are quite clear, boogie mentions once he was offered crack during a shoot with a Brooklyn gang. Street photography is always being on the move always keeping your eyes open for that perfect picture someone said its like “clarity in chaos”. This means its like finding the peace in war and the eye of the storm, something which is totally bizarre but completely sane. They says its like being a Japanese samurai warrior “don’t think, just react”. This means to just take pictures randomly whenever you see something interesting, take a picture and you never know it could be a great picture.
As Street photographers are always on the move they need portable lightweight cameras. E.g. a leica 35mm is perfect for street photography as they are small, portable and lightweight. But unfortunately they can be quite expensive and cost upwards of £1,500. So a lot of street photographers actually buy them second hand. This saves a lot of money. Mary Ellen Mark uses an SLR, as she likes to take pictures of the trains in Brooklyn she uses a Pentax SLR to instantly take a picture of a train with no blurring whilst including the foreground and background.
Street Photographers are interested in a lot of types of photos but as the name clearly states pictures from the streets, these public spaces fascinate street photographers as they can be quite interesting if you take the time to concentrate and really acknowledge your surroundings, they are interested in movement e.g. running, walking , facial movements and gestures. The theme of movement also ties in to the though of trains ,like Mary Ellen mark takes photographs of trains in Brooklyn she does this because she like the graffiti on the trains, although all the graffiti has been cleaned off all the trains and the stations have a lot more security to make sure this doesn’t happen, that’s the reason the took the photographs, she took them to conserve these magnificent pieces of artwork, its just because they re not on canvas but on metal people think they are “vandalism” or “distasteful”.
One very special street photographer named Rebecca Lepkoff (1916-2014) she was born on the 4th of august. She grew up in the lower east side of New York City. She worked as a dancer and in 1939 she worked as a dancer in the worlds fair, from this she managed to save just enough money to buy herself a second-hand Borlander camera. Fascinated by the lower east side she began to take pictures. Her first photographs were taken in Essex and Hester streets. She remembered that “the streets were full of pushcarts.” But they aren’t there anymore because they don’t exist. But then “everyone was outside: the mothers with their baby carriages, and the men just hanging out.” Her photographs included people in the streets, especially children, but also the building and the signs on storefronts.
In 1950 she photographed people at work and play in Vermont. The photos were used in the book “Almost utopia: the residents and radicals of Pike Falls, Vermont, 1950” and was published by the Vermont historical society.
Sadly Rebecca died on August 17th 2014 due to old age, she had just turned 98. She will always be remembered in the photography/street photography community.
In memory of Rebecca Lepkoff (1916-2014) R.I.P
Ben may.
Zoe Strauss |
This picture was taken by Zoe Strauss. What i like about this picture is how the girl in the picture looks like she has been caught off guard. She has a surprised look on her face as to say "oh no!". i also love how bad her make-up is adding to the humour of the photo. The girl is right in the middle of the picture her head is the center point, Strauss did this to attract your attention to her face and the expression on her face.
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Street Photographs: Outside Set 1
For this series of photos I thought hard about a perfect environment to capture the true essence of street photography, A few places came to mind e.g. Westfield shopping centre in Stratford, Brick Lane in Hackney or Oxford Street. After careful deliberation I decided on Oxford Street because it happens to be one of the busiest streets London. This is perfect because there are a lot of people on the street, this gives me numerous opportunities to take interesting street photos and explore that specific genre of photography. When I took photographs on the underground I tried to incorporate the yellow poles because i feel that they cut the image into pieces which relates to the rule of thirds
Street Photography: Outside Set 2
The above pictures are photos which i have taken on my I phone 5 and they are all around London from Oxford Street to Greenwich park. I took these photos over the period of a week in order to document the different places i had visited. I decided to focus more on trying to not include people, or at least not make them the focus of the image. This shows a different aspect of street photography to my other set of photographs . This hasn't got much focus on people( which is typical in Street Photography). I show different areas of London to show its versatility as a city.
My favourite is the one taken of The Shard. I took it whilst moving on a train carriage, however I feel it looks taken from the roof of a smaller, inferior buliding. The only give away is the train lights reflected into the glass but I look the look this create, It adds a more modern aesthetic to the image, making it look altered. The Shard also seem to go on for as long as time its self as the building width hardly changes within the image. Its a good indicator of just how grand the structure is. But at the same time it doesn't take up the whole image.
My favourite is the one taken of The Shard. I took it whilst moving on a train carriage, however I feel it looks taken from the roof of a smaller, inferior buliding. The only give away is the train lights reflected into the glass but I look the look this create, It adds a more modern aesthetic to the image, making it look altered. The Shard also seem to go on for as long as time its self as the building width hardly changes within the image. Its a good indicator of just how grand the structure is. But at the same time it doesn't take up the whole image.