What is documentary photography? The street photography culture has become a kind of popular weird performance art appreciation on the whole network. The long guns and short guns in the busy business district, and the awkward posing with the local flavor tag, have made it hard to think that street photography is actually a very important theme and expression in documentary photography.
Bresson, a master photographer, has put forward the most famous "decisive moment" point of view. His favorite style of photography is to capture the moment of ordinary life. You can seize the appearance and connotation of things in a very short time, and through this strong sense of reality, make it permanent. The well-known picture of Marilyn Monroe holding down her skirt was taken by Bresson inadvertently. From this frozen moment, people always remember Monroe's elegance, and thus created a precedent for street photography.
Since the development of street photography, various artists with different styles have extended to different genres, including documentary reports, fashion clothing, humanistic life, etc. Because of the unique creation method and strong appeal of street photography, it has become an important part of photography major in many art colleges.
What is documentary photography? LCC London School of Communication There is a major of literary photography and documentary photography, in which many practical courses related to street photography are offered. LCC said that techniques and equipment are secondary in this subject. The purpose of the course is to hope students to use their own subjective feelings to record the evolving life and create permanent images that can change people's understanding of the world.
It is an excellent way to appreciate and analyze the unique style and creative way of street photography works of outstanding artists, whether as a future learning direction or a correct understanding of street photography.
Today, we will also introduce the street photography works of three photography masters in different styles. They think about the world, observe the world, care for their hearts and construct themselves from the photography media language itself, and hope that students can feel the unique artistic charm of street photography!
Liu Tao, a street master - "It's not that my photos are so good, but that others are not present, I am present, it happened, and I just passed by."
Source: Visual China Author: Liu Tao
In addition to being a photographer, Liu Tao is also a worker who copies water meters. Adhering to his love of photography and the composition basis of learning cartoons when he was young, since 2010, he has spent 4-6 hours every day after work wandering around the city streets to find materials for street photography.
Source: Visual China Author: Liu Tao
The themes of his works mostly come from the most daily life of the common people. Through some absurd coincidences or dramatic deviations, the dull life of his photography works presents a funny comedy effect.
Source: Visual China Author: Liu Tao
Because of an accidental opportunity, Liu Tao's works were shared on the Internet and received the attention and love of many people, and therefore were recognized by professionals. Later, they were reported by CCTV, Time, BBC and other domestic and foreign media. In recent years, they were also invited to participate in major film exhibitions in Germany, Japan, France and other places.
Source: Visual China Author: Liu Tao
After becoming famous, Liu Tao's life has not changed much. He is still a water meter worker, and the scenes of life and work still revolve around the streets. He also published a photo album called "Walking", which wrote: "The street is where I explore the meaning of life, and photography makes me look forward to life.".
Many people think photography is a job that relies heavily on novelty and external feedback. Liu Tao doesn't agree with it. He thinks that novelty needs to be created by himself. He is in the same block day after day, not because new things have inspired his creation. It is precisely because boredom makes him more sensitive to the observation angle and events. For him, the most trivial life is the source of inspiration for street photography.
Senshan Avenue, "waste film" art - "most of the things that can directly impact my brain are actually all over the streets and roads."
Senshan Avenue's work City Street
Source: tuchong, com
Moriyama Avenue is one of the most influential photography masters in Japan after the war. With its unique style in street photography, Moriyama Avenue expresses the reality of Japanese society in the way of lens, and integrates its own views on life into it. Moriyama Avenue is also known as the pioneer of street photography.
Most of Moriyama Avenue's works are black and white images, and a large number of features such as light leakage, out of focus, coarse particles, blurring, etc. are considered as "waste pieces", depicting the real pieces of this world full of nihility but actually existing.
In his more than 40 years of creative career, Moriyama Avenue has only one theme in his works - urban streets. He believes that street photography is the only way to truly convey the unique charm of human sophistication. Moriyama has also been using "wild dogs" as a metaphor, wandering in various cities in Japan, photographing people, things, events and scenes encountered on the streets.
Senshan Avenue's Wild Dog
Source: tuchong, com
In Moriyama's view, the traditional photography aesthetics of deliberately taking pictures or post decoration are too artificial. Only what is captured at the moment is the most authentic restoration, and can reflect the most exquisite and vivid feelings.
Intuition is the style of photography that Moriyama Avenue has always respected, which has also become the reason why he is controversial. Some people criticized his works as meaningless and "waste films". To this end, he also responded that "all styles in the world are worthy of doubt, but the logical ideas of photography and society are different". In his opinion, photography should be independent of other art forms and even social customs, and photographers should maintain the most independent way of expression.
As a top photography master, Senshan Avenue also mentioned his experience in learning photography in many interviews. In his opinion, there is no shortcut to photography, and talent is also the result of practice. The most important capture ability in street photography also needs to be accumulated through countless times of observation and practice. So when we observe his works, this strong visual expression is precisely due to his full passion for photography and unique perspective of creation.
Today, with the continuous development of photography technology driven by automation, Moriyama Avenue's works have such a strong sense of originality, individualism and artistry that he has become a classic street photography master praised by countless people.
From the inside page of the album "Senshan Avenue"
Source: douban, com
Martin Parr, capturing natural prejudice - "I like to use reality to create novels. I use photography to capture the natural prejudice in society, so that you can see the other side of the story."
From the album The Last Resort
Source: artnet, com
Martin Parr/Martin Parr, the most famous documentary photographer in the UK, is also the current chairman of Magnum Pictures. Commerciality and artistry are best balanced in his photography works.
In his early years, he was famous for a group of photographic works recording the real life of England's upper class society. Parr explored social themes such as consumerism and serious polarization between rich and poor from a humorous and unconventional perspective, which also gave readers a unique perspective to see the world.
From the album The Last Resort
Source: artnet, com
After graduating from RIT, Parr has been engaged in photography in the field of fashion, and thus has come into contact with the most authentic upper class society. Influenced by the "New Color Photography" movement in the United States in 1984, Parr brought this gorgeous approach to documentary photography.
Different from other street photographers, Parr believes that documentary is actually a very "subjective" thing, and how to express the truth and frame the truth is up to the photographer to decide, so how to see the inside of things and reveal the truth also depends on the photographer's own critical thinking and professional quality.
Parr's photography seems casual, humorous and easy to move, but this does not mean that there is no depth. On the contrary, through the pictures, we can see Parr's so-called subjective documentary, which shows a different realism with its own unique views.
Alice in Wonderland
Source: artnet, com
After becoming a photography master sought after by the media, Parr also began to involve in other broader art fields, such as commercial exhibitions, film production, fashion editing, advertising and communication, and other related fields. In this way, his works also went beyond the classification of types in photography to become more comprehensive and commercial.
From the album Japan Tokyo
Source: artnet, com
Compared with other art majors, photography is a major subject that we do not often share dry goods. The reason is that the first art college has different styles and different emphasis on enrollment requirements and curriculum, which is difficult to summarize one by one; Secondly, as the three artists sharing today said, photography is a very "self" discipline, and the basic qualities of photographers, such as knowledge, aesthetic literacy, artistic thinking, can even play a more critical role than technology and equipment.
Therefore, it is very wrong to say that the threshold of photography is low and there is no zero foundation for photography. Skills and ideas are indispensable in the creation of professional photography works, which is similar to pure art in many ways, and can also be said to be a branch of pure art.
What is documentary photography? Street photography? Today we have introduced so many things. If you want to do a good job in the cultivation of artistic thinking in photography collection, knowledge storage is very important. If you want to get started and take satisfactory photos, you need a process of accumulation. It is the hard truth to read more books and see more promising works!
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