It's odd, but street photography seems to be hardest thing to sell. I say
odd because it is also the most difficult to do well. If you are lucky enough to capture an evocative moment - there's a good chance that the lighting, or the framing won't be perfect. But more importantly - odds are that it will be of a specific human being. And a stranger at that. Not even a celeb. Why should the celeb be so much more interesting than the stranger? Answer - because we have already invested them with our own hopes and dreams. They are - essentially - already an abstract entity. Ready-made icons.
How can we read all of this into a complete stranger? Someone who is flesh and blood and is taking the subway - just like we are. How can that stranger become iconic and allow us to clothe them with our own feelings? They are just so specific.
One thing I've noticed is that the stranger, or strangers in street photography become more iconic if they are abstracted in some way.
By this I mean other elements such as fog, mist, halos, clusters of meaning make the image palatable. Is this an heretical street photography theory?
Blurred or abstract street shots become enigmatic - and at the same time closer to traditional ideas of beauty.
To counter-act specificness - the street photographer wants to juxtapose several ideas in the same frame. Mystery - which is to say, non-specifness increases as the forms counteract each other and bring an ambiguity to the frame.
With all that being said - I am drifting back to the dream of the street.
