Book: http://www.laurenceking.com/us/bystander-a-history-of-street-photography/
This work is a chronicle of the photographic genre created from the chaotic energy of everyday street life. It grew out of a 15-year collaboration between an esteemed curator and a distinguished photographer. The work of such celebrated masters as Arget, Stieglitz, Cartier-bresson, Brassai, Walker Evans, Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand is presented here, along with extraordinary photos by complete unknowns. Colin Westerbeck’s text illuminates each image and he has also contributed a new illustrated afterword for this paperback edition, which examines contemporary street photography.
About the Author:
Joel Meyerowitz started making spontaneous color photographs on the streets of New York in 1962 with friends such as Tony Ray-Jones and Garry Winogrand. He has since become known as one of the most important street photographers of his generation. Instrumental in changing attitudes towards color photography in the 1970s, he is known as a pioneer, an important innovator, and a highly influential teacher.
Formerly a Curator of Photography at the Art Institute of Chicago and Director of the California Museum of Photography at the University of California, Riverside, Colin Westerbeck has also taught the history of photography at the University of Southern California and, currently, UCLA. He is internationally acknowledged as the foremost expert on street photography.
“Since its birth in the first half of the 19th century, street photography has transformed into an art form in its own right. Simple and spontaneous, pictures by the genre’s greats — from Henri Cartier-Bresson to Robert Frank — have served as historical documents, while speaking to something more universal and human.
This rich history has been captured in the book „Bystander: A History of Street Photography,“ a collection of over 300 images compiled by photographer Joel Meyerowitz and writer Colin Westerbeck. Originally published in 1994, a revised edition has been recently issued, featuring updated text and additional contemporary photographs.
Beginning with grainy pictures of 1840s Naples, the book travels through to vibrant images of present-day New York. Whether color or black and white, bustling or tranquil, the selected images demonstrate the genre’s variety.Yet they also show that street photographers, for all their differences, are bound together by a fascination with the everyday. The very best of them are also united by their ability to find beauty and intrigue in the seemingly unremarkable.“
„For the most part (these street photographers) have tried to work without being noticed by their subjects,“ the authors say, in the book’s foreword. „They have taken pictures of people who are going about their business unaware of the photographer’s presence. They have made candid pictures of everyday life in the street.”
