Lately, I've been getting a lot more interested in Street (or whatever you want to call it). I went to an exhibition in The Hague when I was there a few years ago, it was all photos taken in the 1950s and 1960s, just life on the streets, people going about their daily business, "this is how they lived back then" kind of shots.
And I really liked it, both as a photographer and audience. As photographer I could enjoy the lighting and the mood, the expressions and the composition and all that.
But as someone who didn't live in The Hague in the 1950s (being 30 years before I was born on the opposite side of the world), I could appreciate the scenery, the buildings that had changed, the ones that hadn't, the post-war poverty that a lot (including my dad and his 13 brothers&sisters) lived through, the fact that both then and today there are people riding the same Oma Fietsen to the same spot to eat the same raw herring (and now i've gotten myself hungry).
Anyway, that was one of my "i wanna do this stuff" moments. For people (even if it's only me) in 50 years to be able to look back at something I took and think, "wow, so much/little has changed", and "did it really used to be like this?".
I work out in an industrial estate and drive through some pretty dodgy suburbs to and from work, the views I see are more remeniscent of what I'd imagine 1940s Segregated South USA to be like, not in 2012, 4km from the centre of Australia's 5th largest city. (actually, I took a photo of a church the other day out there, it could have fit in either of the 'test of time' or (out in the) 'sticks' assignments, but i didn't like the resulting shot. As i took the photo I half-imagined that a 10 year old Ray Charles might be walking out of the place right then).
Anyway, that's what's been becoming important to me recently, I feel that this kind of stuff should be documented (ok, so maybe it's Documentary photography, not Street), especially to show that although we're one of the best (non-scandinavian) countries of the world to live, high incomes, economy is one of the few still growing, and yet there's all this poverty still going on.
I've even bought myself a Bessa L (i'd call it a rangefinder but there's not rangefinder, nor a viewfinder, just ttl metering hyperfocal point&shoot) and 21mm Skopar to go with it, to be a bit more discrete (it's not the kind of place i'd be walking around with $3000 worth of digital around my neck, i'm also practising shooting from a moving vehicle whilst driving).
So, back to the original point. Denise's trashcan photo sits exactly in with where i'm thinking right now. That stuff needs to be documented. And as others have said, maybe by documenting and showing it, people might wake up to what's happening and change might come about. Think about some of those famous photos that did that. The screaming naked girl in Vietnam, running away from her napalmed-village. The kodakchrome refugee girl huddling in a corner. I can't think of any others right now, but I'm sure there's some non-war ones. That photo of the cop giving the guy shoes, that's also in the same vein. It made people sit up and take notice, maybe not of the poverty but also the random acts of kindness that happen and never get reported. So in that way i've got nothing against that photo (or at least the idea of that photo).
But then, it's what happened after the photo that's the thing. Yes, I can understand that the homeless guy in that cop photo feels a bit miffed. Worldwide attention, the cop is famous, he gets nothing (well, at least he got a pair of shoes, even if he doeesn't wear them). But what of the photographer?
"the Police Department posted the photo of him and Mr. Hillman, taken by an Arizona tourist, on its Facebook page."
An Arizona Tourist, how nice. Not even a name? Did he/she give unconditional rights to the police department for the photo? Did he/she get any royalties from it being reprinted? Yes, the homeless guy has a right to feel exploited, but he's not being exploited by the photographer, for all we know the photographer is being exploited too. The only people cashing in on this shot are the newspapers and whoever is reprinting it and making a buck.
But that happens every day anyway, whether it's a Street shot, landscape, or a horse. Read this from the point of view of a photog who had his photo stolen and re-posted everywhere. That's different, of course, because he earns his bread from photography, and at least he was the only one who got hurt (i'm sure the subject didn't mind too much).
As for the subway, that's definitely in the Princess Diana kind of grey area. Her story was the most tragic, it's quite probably that it was the photogs that caused the crash, not least that they made her life hell before it anyway. Did that guy in the subway have enough time to think "hmmm, wow, I can make money from this shot", then pull his camera out, frame, shoot, then run towards the guy? Was he 2m away with a wide-angle, or the other end of the platform with a 300mm? If he had his camera out already, he would still have had to put it down to help. Had he acted differently, would he have gotten there in time anyway? What about everyone else on the platform, where were they in all this? Maybe he is telling the truth and he thought his flash would alert the driver? (everyone acts differently in split-second things like that)
And most of all, why are we talking about the photographer at all, wasn't he pushed? Why aren't we decrying the actions of the pusher?
So to me that all depends on the circumstances, which a) I don't know, and b) are probably his word vs anyone's, before i can decide whether or not i hate the photo, or the photog.
Of the newspaper that printed it? How is this shot different to the napalm girl? Both shot a few seconds before (potential) death. OK, the napalm girl shot helped change public opinion of a war, i don't think this subway shot will. But it might, we won't know for many years. (I should probably mention at this point that no, I personally don't like the thought of this photo, so I'm not going to view it in itself).
The way the newspaper reported it and the headline "Doomed, pushed on the subway track, this man is about to die." is more deplorable than anything that could possibly be in the photo. That's definitely in the same vein as the Princess Diana shots. And it's we the public to blame, for lapping it up (well not me, I don't buy women's magazines or newspapers, but that's besides the point).
But then sometimes it does have a happy ending. The story of the napalm girl for instance. The photographer got the shot, but then drove her to hospital and saved her life. Read this for the full story.
You never know what's going to happen to your photos, and whether you've got control over it (ask any teenage girl who's taken a naked shot of herself and sent it to her bf). If you don't want to be exploited, or your subjects to be exploited, don't take the shot. If the photo tells a story that is more important than the feelings of the individuals involved (including yours), then take the chance. It might change the world, it might not. You might get rich and famous like Steve McCurry, you might change the course of a war or at least save a life, or you might end up like just another Tourist from Arizona.
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