Street photography
Related: documentary - street - photography
Definition
Street photography generally refers to photographs made in public places — not only streets, but parks, beaches, malls, political conventions and myriad other settings — often but not always featuring people going about their everyday lives. In one sense it can be thought of as a branch of documentary photography, but unlike traditional documentary its chief aim — or at least its chief effect — is seldom to document a particular subject, but rather to create photographs which strongly demonstrate the photographer's vision of the world. Good street photography often ends up being good documentary photography without really trying, especially after the passage of a few years, but unlike documentary it seldom has an explicit social agenda or rhetorical intent. It tends to be more ironic and distanced from its subject matter. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street photography [Feb 2006]
Documentary photography
Documentary photography usually refers to a type of professional photojournalism, but it may also be an amateur or student pursuit. The photographer attempts to produce truthful, objective, and usually candid photography of a particular subject, most often pictures of people.
Usually such photographs are meant for publication, but are sometimes only for exhibition in an art gallery or other public forum. Sometimes an organization or company will commission documentary photography of its activities, but the pictures will only be for its private archives. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_photography [Mar 2006]
Tom Wood: Photie Man (2005) - Manfred Heiting (Editor), Tom Wood (Photographer)
Tom Wood: Photie Man (2005) - Manfred Heiting (Editor), Tom Wood (Photographer) [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Book Description
For 25 years Tom Wood lived in New Brighton, just across the river Mersey from Liverpool. He became known locally as "photieman" because everyday he was out on the streets with his camera. Most of the pictures collected in this book were taken within a 5-minute walk from Wood's home. The work focuses on the inhabitants of the town and its regular visitors, from Liverpool daytrippers to clubbers who attended the Chelsea Reach nightspot. Roberta Smith from the New York Times writes that "Each of his images seems to diagram a specific emotional exchange [and] are surprisingly individual in their composition and nuance. Neither ironic nor intrusive, they provide a poignant sense of the carefully disguised insecurity and age old rituals of youth." Wood presents over 170 dazzling color and tritone photographs of cocky youths, friends, lovers, fathers, mothers, and babies that provide insight into the area, its inhabitants, and the rites of passage inherent in growing up.
--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom Wood [Feb 2006]