Street Photography for Sale

What is street photography?

The answer to this question seems at first quite simple: “it is a photograph taken in the street”. Yes but... Because there is a “yes but”, you can imagine, it’s obviously a bit more complicated than that. On the one hand, the photo of a stranger taken in a train station, a museum, at the beach, in a shopping mall, in short in a public place can also be considered as a street art photography. On the other hand, any photo taken in the street will not necessarily be considered by the “purists” as street photography. The precise definition of urban street photography varies from one author (or photographer) to another.

Philippe Blayo specifies that, even if the definition of street photography is fluctuating, it generally meets the following criteria:

• candid images (i. e. not staged);
• made in a public place;
• in which individuals are involved, directly or indirectly (photos involving a direct or suggested human presence);
• testifying of a real or supposed activity;
• not carrying a social or political message (unlike a documentary or committed photo).

It should be noted that with the current fashion for this type of photo and the development of social networks (especially Instagram), “city street photography” has become a bit of a catch-all category, difficult to define. But, after all, is it really important to put labels? Isn’t the most important thing to take your camera, go out and have fun with photography?

Street photography ideas

There are two main trends of famous street photography:

1. Even if there are as many types of street photography (like night street photography or street fashion photography) as there are photographers, we can nevertheless distinguish two main trends. The “historical” trend: street photography based on the moment. We can recall New York city street photography or San Francisco street photography. This is the essence of street photography: immortalizing an unusual “moment” in a usual setting. It can be a funny / humorous, moving, sad, mischievous moment... The street photographer then tries to bring a touch of the extraordinary in the ordinary. This type of photo tells a story (storytelling). This trend was born in the 50’s, and is still very present today. It is the approach developed by many famous photographers such as, for example: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau, Eliott Erwitt, Gary Winogrand, Joel Meyerowitz, Bruce Gilden...
2. Street photography historical current. A more recent trend: the aesthetic approach, the “artistic” style. And there are a lot of street photography tips. It is a very fashionable trend in recent years (just browse Instagram). The idea here is, more than capturing a moment, to focus on the appearance of the image, its aesthetics, its graphics (use of shadows and lights, search for interesting shapes, abstract photos...). This is the type of photography proposed by Saul Leiter for example or, more recently, by street photographers such as Allan Schaller.

Buy street photography

Today there are many places where you can buy city photos. For example, one of the most popular is black and white street photography. In addition, we can of course (as for all types of photos, portraits, landscapes, corporate...) distinguish:

• Street photography in color vs black and white;
• Digital street photography vs film street photography.

We could also distinguish the types of street photography according to the equipment used, the camera (smartphone, compact, hybrid, SLR ...) or the lens used (wide angle, 35 mm, 50 mm, fixed focal length vs. zoom...). Visit our gallery to make your purchase!