In addition to loving street photography for its subject, quotidian human behaviour, I love street photography for its photographic character. There is a gestural quality to a good street photograph, a sense of turning into the moment, of the camera sliding or swinging into place to capture a scene as it unfolds, of being there in the middle of things with the photographer working the camera.
I enjoy this extra (if subtle) element in street photos which I think is more prominent in this genre of photography than in others. Sure, all serious photographers have a visual style or visual signature of their own. And you could argue that other genres each have their own characteristic, charged point of view, particularly fashion photography. But while I'd typify fashion's POV 'confrontational', and landscape's 'contemplative', it's the 'gestural' POV that pleases me most.
In this photograph two girls wait for their chaperone to buy ride tickets; one looks in anticipation at the entrance to the ride; the camera follows her gaze along the line of people waiting for the ride; she leans a little, perhaps fidgeting with anxiousness or excitement.
I can't remember for sure, but I imagine I leaned a little in the same direction as the girl, the better to see what she was looking at, to manoeuvre the line-up into the composition, and in sympathy with her excitement. The photo makes me feel that I did.
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