Street Photography: Readers and Texts

Theme Table of Contents
VJIC Table of Contents

Roberto Muffoletto is director of VASA and is editor of VJIC. He earned his MFA from the Visual Studies Workshop/ University of Buffalo and a Ph.D. University of Wisconsin, Madison

Fourth essay in theme.

In the first three essays I offered a portal into thinking about the discourses and narratives of a practice termed “street photography”. I suggested in those texts that street photography, and photography in general, engage complex relationships and decisions that determine behaviors and practice. These decisions are made at the individual level as well as the social.

The behaviors of image makers are in many ways steered and formed by the dictates and expectations of the social world. In general the dictates, the guidelines, are disseminated through media, social networks, exhibitions and education. I pointed you towards the texts found on various YouTube channels as a reference to popular texts on street photography. Even though most photographers would say they record the images they wish, I have suggested in earlier essays that those “wishes” are the products of discourses and models of behavior provided by and through various platforms. In short, the platforms disseminate behaviors, expectations and values. I believe we need to question and unpack our behaviors and values to understand our expectations and their sources.

The terms “good” and “bad”, “acceptance” and rejection” fit well here. Unpacking these terms begins to identify and reveal assumptions and guiding definitions informing practice. Terms also engage notions of power. This is an important element to consider. Power is embedded in classrooms and teachers, competitions, critiques and voices. Power is the voice of authority that an individual gives themselves over to. To say that there is “good” or “bad” photography falls back to how the teacher/curator/judge/reviewer applies their own criteria. A criteria used to justify a behavior and influence the behavior of others. It is important to keep in mind that value terms like “good” and “bad” are the products of a social historical process that is not a straight or clear line. All the reader has to do is consider the world of painting and its debates over emerging forms like cubism, surrealism, impressionism and others. At the turn of the 20th century photography witnessed a shift from pictorialism to modernism (Alfre3d Stieglitz provides us with a good example with his shift from pictoralism to modernism). All of these shifts fueled debates over what is art and what is photography and is it an art form. To better understand these debates and shifts in photography we need to look at curated exhibitions, publications and monetary rewards needs to be considered. (A good read is Robert Hirsch’s “Seizing The Light; a Social and Aesthetic History of Photography“, Focal Press, 2024.)

This brings us to the focus of this essay as we continue to inquire into the nature of street photography.

Meaning

It is safe to say that all photographs have intended meaning, they are made. Photographs, like anything created, are codified social products or objects for consumption and dissemination. They are the products of intent (consider hunting and fishing). As discussed earlier in this theme, photographers make many decisions before and after the “click” of the shutter. (I would include programmed recordings as well for decisions had to be made relative to the frame and the timing of the exposure, it is not random, for random is an intentional act.) What guides or steers decisions are notions of what a photograph is and looks like.

We need to recognize that our visuals (images) have meaning in that they refer to ideas, experiences and concepts that exist outside the frame of the image. Just as letters by themselves are meaningless marks. Letters forming words within a system of notation only mean or refer to ideas/concepts found within the social/culture and historical. Learning a new language (spoken, visualized or written) requires the learner to recognize the markings, notations and sounds which attach them to concepts providing meaning within that system of notation. All meaning exists within systems. It may be sufficient to say, that for our purposes, found within the frame of a photograph are references, or pointers, to concepts and ideas that exist independent of the image and image maker.

In short, the image is part of a system of notation which refers to and stands in place of ideas and concepts. The photograph is not the object rendered, but a representation of it. The question is: “What is it?” I photograph of a person is not that person but a representation referring to that person. Consider a photograph of you, a selfie if you wish, that does not look like you. Your first response may be to say that is not me, it does not look like me. The “likeness” is of another, the likeness does not talk about who I am only what it represents. The idea of something looking like something is part of the foundation for the construction of meaning. An image (visual or sound) refers to the social, cultural and historical world outside the image’s frame. That world provides a definition to (in this case) the visual. A street-wise person reads the street for meanings: is it safe, will I find what I want, should I walk or run away, should I make a photograph. Depending on the social economic status of the photographer the street will be read differently.

Readers and Texts

Reading images as references or representations brings us back to street photography. The photographer reads the environment, the street, and either “hunts” or “”fishes” for what she refers to as meaningfulness. The photographs may be published in a book where they become documents or hung on a gallery wall where they become Art.

The images act in semiotic terms as icons, signs or symbols. Icons have a visual connection with what it represents or refers to. I photograph of Uncle Joe looks like Uncle Joe but it is not Uncle Joe. Signs are abstractions. Consider that road signs do not show a representation but in an abstract manner refers to the road. A symbol deals with “thought”. The image of the area is a symbol, representing urban decay. Furthermore, place two signs together, a shield and a lion, and you have an emblem with its own references and associations. In this manner photographs refer to meanings outside its borders. A single photograph of a person may act on all three levels: icon, sign or symbol. The photograph is a representation whose meaning is dependent upon the viewer/reader of the image. With this in mind, a photograph does not mean anything until we say it does. This is an important point to consider. Our experience of the image is formed by what we bring to it, our understanding, what we know and purpose of looking. The question then becomes who and what informs the “we”?

All photographs “refer” or “represent”. The photograph of a person on the street is seen or read in reference to other objects within the frame, its context. How we read an image, how we make meaning of it is the challenge. What the photographer understands, what she has responded to, may not be the same for other viewers of her images. In fact her “reading” of the image through her editing process may take on different meanings from what she first understood. The photograph is then seen in the context of other photographs and not the street where they were made.

The photographer is the first reader/viewer of their own work. It is important to note that “we” read photographs, we decode them, to understand them. It is not what a person says but in combination with how they say it that matters. Others will view/read her images and construct their own meaning different from the photographer’s. How many times have we said to our viewers “you do not see it, it is so clear to me, it is right there”. Your viewers are making sense of their experience, creating meaning by connecting it within their own historical frame. For example: when you write a love letter you become a poet and a romantic who hopes the receiver will understand it in the same way you intended. You have encoded your message with sweets and proclamations, waiting and imagining a reply. In the same way cross-cultural gestures and comments may have different meanings from what is intended. Enjoy this short

In the context of street photography the photographer is always editing their efforts to arrive at some perceived goal. Where and when one stands determines the possibilities. What one knows and how one reads the moment determines the frame of the image. Only when the image is experienced on its own or in the context of other images is it abstracted from time and place allowing for its own experience. Viewers of street photography view the results of a range of decisions within a conceptual and epistemological frame. The photograph, it is believed, means what I say it does.

The video conversation on her street photography is with Judith Rodriguez in Argentina and Roberto Muffoletto (VASA). The conversation took place on August 22, 2018.

View Judith Rodriguez’s VASA Exhibition

In this essay I spoke about a framework for reading images as a semiotic playground. It is the play between making and reading or vision and interpretation. No matter if you are fishing or hunting you read text before and after you record the moment. On one side of the moment you are the creator of meaning, on the other side of the moment you are the reader creating of a meaning.

It is important to address the idea that a photograph mean nothing until we say it does.

The reader of images includes the photographer before and after the image and the viewer.

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Street Photography: Readers and Texts

Editor