Customer Reviews

Street Photography Now

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Street Photography Now provides terrific insights into the minds of 46 street photographers from around the world. In form, it is a coffee table book, but that term is far too limiting.

Each photographer receives about 4 or 5 pages of coverage. Many of the photographs exhibit great humor. Some of the photographs exhibit clear signs of pre-visualization, so if you've heard the terms but don't quite get it, you might get some guidance through the examples offered here.

The short essay that accompanies each photographer's work provides insights into the photographer's aesthetics--why they do it and what they are trying to accomplish. There also are several longer essays scattered throughout the book. The book is obviously not intended as a "how to" manual, but anyone who roams the streets looking for photo opportunities will find some ideas to experiment with.

As far as quality, the color reproduction and printing are excellent, as is the layout. A lot of thought and planning went into assembling this book. In short, this book is a must for any street photographer or anyone else who enjoys the aesthetics of street photography.

I may have to wait a long-time, but I hope the authors consider doing a second volume. Better yet would be an annual survey, as in Street Photography 2011.

Anyone who's tried street photography will know that its probably the hardest photographic genre to do well. Thousands of pictures may result in only one or two keepers. This excellent book is full of wonderful examples of photos that work well. An inspiration!

f you have any interest in Street Photography, either as a practitioner, or as someone who is interested in it as an art form, you owe it to yourself to get this book. The photographs are first rate, and the interviews are all interesting and thought provoking. I highly recommend it.

How do you separate your enthusiasm for a book's content from your dismay over the authors' publishing ethics. I think this is a great book. It has wonderful photos and absorbing essays on each photographer. It masterfully portrays the unique genre of street photography and the aesthetic choices photographers who roam the streets make. The problem is, it doesn't properly cite specific content that originally appeared in a well-known street photography blog [...]. Although the site is listed in the book's bibliography, quotes from the site are republished without appropriate citation. Had I known this beforehand, I might not have bought the book. And now that I have the book, my enthusiasm for it is somewhat dimmed.

One of the best books on street photography I've seen/read in a while. Delightful, thought provoking, some truly masterful images and great stories.

This is a very disappointing representation of what street photography currently is like. It seems as though a group of individuals who were associated in one way or another via possibly the internet, came up with the idea for a book and solicited the work from a number of magnum photographers to give the publication some weight. However, the over all representation is misleading because about 70% of the content is of unsatisfactory quality and should not have been under consideration as actual street photography in the classic sense of street photography which the book initiates in its early profiles and by inclusion of the magnum photographers. A photography collection such as this should be an honest reflection of someones greatest achievement in the context of an even greater body of work. If this book did that then the supplied or chosen work as the photographers best images indicates that the rest of the images would individually be of lesser quality but as a body of work be overal higher consistency, then it speaks volumes about the editorial clout of the authors. I think its was considerably rash of the authors to name it as they did. It really doesn't take much effort now to find master quality street photographers out there in the world of the internet especially with places like flickr etc. It feels as though the authors had more 'pull' then clout.
I really cant recommend this book, its a terrible reflection of the art of street photography and an insult to good street shooters and at worst a disgrace to aspiring social documentarists everywhere.