…I hate to burst your bubble: but that shot isn’t that difficult to take. I can go to a rugby game and get the ball in flight with a single shot every single time. Bruce has been shooting since 1968. This would be easy for him, let alone any other photographer who had been shooting for a few years, to capture. Just because you’ve only seen him shooting in a certain way doesn’t mean he is incapable of doing anything else.
…the thread isn’t about you. He was obviously talking to the OP.
It was more difficult than you imagine. It’s a 560mm lens, manually focussed. The composition is perfect. Note the diagonal lines formed by the legs and arms. Of course a certain amount of luck is involved in that happening (the arms and legs), but it’s not *all *luck.
My point was that ‘taking pictures of people in public’ doesn’t have to involve being a jerk with a Leica and a 24mm lens shoved in people’s faces. It can be all kinds of photography, and what I do is a hell of a lot more difficult than what he does. I am trying to show the OP that there are a lot more options than he imagines.
…mate: I live in rugby land, I shoot rugby all the time, that shot was not more than difficult than I could imagine. The “composition is perfect” is your opinion: it certainly isn’t mine. The diagonal lines is something that you are fixated on: but it really isn’t something that is prominent in the image. You are entitled to love everything that you shoot. But that wasn’t a difficult shot.
I think the OP realizes that. If you want to push the boundaries as an artist: people make certain decisions and some of those decisions means pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. It is easy to avoid interaction with your subject at 350mm. Its not so easy to avoid it at 24mm. You don’t have to act like Bruce to get interesting images at close range.
I don’t necessarily try to avoid interactions, but in many instances the use of different focal lengths opens up completely different options. I happen to own more long lenses than a lot of people (90, 180, 250, 350, and 560mm lenses). Most people don’t own much in the way of long lenses, and their photography is adapted to what they own. If all you have is a 28-75 zoom, your photography will tend to adapt itself to that range. That ‘street’ photographer does the same thing. He has a Leica with a wide angle (looks like it could be a 24mm to me). I have 8 lenses in all, from 21 to 560mm, but I find myself using the long lenses now more than I used to. Sure, I could walk up closer to people and use a 28mm or 50mm, and occasionally I do that, but I do like the effect of the longer lens. All the people in the photos saw me and knew I was there. I don’t generally find that startled or irritated people are particularly interesting subjects. This absolutely adorable child was just a few feet away from me, but she was engrossed in the Roman soldier mime statue and did not really notice me.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ornello/6231857434/
The child was taken with a 180mm lens; the statue mime was taken with a 21mm.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ornello/6231854418/in/photostream/
I don’t choose lenses on the basis of ‘comfort zone’ but rather to achieve a certain effect. It’s all about t images. I don’t care about me.
My motive is this: I don’t want that guy to be considered the exemplar of the candid photographer. I can’t stand that kind of shit. He’s a one-trick pony: shove a camera in peoples’ faces and snap.
This seems to be mostly an American phenomenon. Makes me ashamed.
…what you are missing is that the OP is doing an art project. You don’t have to prove your way is right. You are absolutely correct in what you say. But adopting your methods won’t achieve the goals the OP is seeking to achieve.
If I were to undertake a paparazzi style art project: it wouldn’t be because my goals were to capture photos of adorable children. This isn’t about you. I have a preference for the longer lens myself and nearly all of my event stuff is shot with it. Most street photographers choose to use the shorter focal lengths because it allows/forces them to get up close, not because its the only lens they have got.
An art project could use photos of the same *sort *as mine (or yours, perhaps), I am sure. That’s what I am trying to point out.
…street photography is most definitely not an American phenomenon: and the likes of Bruce Gilden are exceptionaly rare. Henri Cartier-Bresson, Eugene Atget, Robert Frank, Vivian Maier: these are names you should be proud of, not ashamed of.
I am well aware of them. He is not of that class (and I don’t call them ‘street’ photographers, but ‘human-interest photographers’). He is doing something completely different. Also, it is not illegal to have some aesthetic sensitivity in doing candids.
…art comes from the heart: from the soul. I can take perfectly composed perfectly exposed images all the time: but they have no heart and they aren’t art. I’m working to change that. My images at the moment make me money: and I’m perfectly content with that.
I understand. I long ago decided that I didn’t want to be a pro. I aim at a much higher standard than that. I did work for a while in commercial photography and hated it. If you look at my images you will see lots of ‘heart’.
Generally speaking, no, if you do not use the images commercially.
The OP has fooled you all. There is no Keyser Söze!!!
Photographers disagreeing about the definition of a genre on the Internet? Well now I’ve seen everything! 
I’m not a fan of Gilden’s style either. The guy’s an asshole and a bully and his shots mirror that personality.
My absolutely favorite street photographer (and photographer in general) is Garry Winogrand. Just so many fantastic shots that he took during his career and a large amount of his work was never even exposed or developed during his lifetime.
Though I don’t like Gilden as a photographer, he has my favorite quote about street photography: "If you can smell the street by looking at the photo, it’s a street photograph.”
Personally, my definition is any photo taken in public that gives some sort of glimpse of human nature. Interactions between strangers, or lovers, or friends, or any photo that tells a human story, whatever that story is.
This photo caught a nice expression on her face but is exhibiting a bit of what I mentioned up thread regarding the flattening out of an image due to the long focal length. There isn’t much depth in her face, especially in her neck area. It seems to go cheek to shoulder all at about the same depth. I’m not saying it’s not a good shot, it is, but if you’d been closer with something under 50mm, I think it would have been even better.
Well, I appreciate your comment, but I disagree. The ideal focal length for faces is about 80-180mm in the 35mm format. I like the very effect that you are talking about. Besides, the photo could not have been made with a 50mm lens, as the child would have reacted. I was just far enough away that she didn’t. I sat down by the Roman soldier statue mime and waited. I let the kids come up and took a few when they seemed to be interested in the mime and not in me. It takes patience, and in this case it paid off splendidly. This is one of my all-time favourite photos, and I have been doing photography for 50 years now. This I the lens. It is very compact an light-weight., and has gorgeous colour rendition.
I will say that you use your zoom to better effect than many I’ve seen. Mostly when I talk about using zoom in relation to street, it’s because people don’t want to get out of their comfort zone so will shoot a scene from far away and zoomed in, so everything ends up flattened out. I’m not talking portraiture so much as composed scenes with multiple people doing something. For example, this shot of minewouldn’t have been nearly as interesting if I had been further away with long lens.
Quite possibly true!
And yes, you are right, I don’t use long lenses the way most people do. I doubt whether anyone else would have taken the girl with the snake that way.
I agree that for portraits, a long lens is ideal. My 50mm on a crop body is really great for this (since it’s what, around 70-80mm full frame equivalent?). It helps avoid a lot of distortion that makes faces look weird w/ big noses and what not.
I disagree that you wouldn’t have been able to get that shot of the little girl (or at least one like it) from close up though. Sometimes the best candids are taken w/o lifting the camera to your eye. Just learn how to frame blind and you can get all kinds of close-up of people without them noticing. Actually, I think it would have been better if you’d opened it up a bit wider so we could see what she was looking at and giving her a bit more room in the frame would help compositionally a lot.