What is the proper subject of street photography? Some people seem to equate street photography with stalking the homeless. Maybe they think photography isn’t authentic unless it’s gritty, and it isn’t gritty unless it portrays suffering. Who knows? I’m no mind reader. Personally, I find myself conflicted over the question of shooting vulnerable people. On the one hand, it feels exploitative. I prefer not to gain my advantages on the backs of other people. On the other hand, I recognize the value of photography’s role in social documentation. However, without a commentary to accompany the photograph, a photographer’s intention is often ambiguous.
One way to analyse a photograph is to address the triad of power relationships that it produces (amongst subject, photographer, and viewer). Ask: who gets to determine outcomes in the production of this image? Did the subject give permission? If not, did the photographer accord dignity to the subject? Is the viewer cast in the role of voyeur? Does the image manipulate their emotions in an obvious direction? Or does the image create space for the viewer to draw independent conclusions?
One rationale for surreptitious shots of the vulnerable is that it increases their representation in the media. Somehow, we magically enhance the social position of the marginalized by using photography to make them more visible. If we took shots only of professional white men in suits, our photographs would produce a distorted view of the world in which professional white men in suits appear more important than other people.
Well, yes and no. I think each photograph has to be considered in its own context. A surreptitious shot of a vulnerable person is quite a different beast than a surreptitious shot of a professional white man in a suit. As social documentation, both shots might have legitimacy. But the latter has about it a whiff of subversion, snatching power from power. The former has about it a whiff of exploitation.
Perhaps my opening question is misguided. Perhaps the proper subject matter of street photography is beside the point. Instead, it may be more fruitful to ask: how has the photographer behaved in the production of this image?