Inspirational documentary and street photography

"I'm watching you" by Rafael Kos

Photography can furnish evidence of the world around us, shared with the public in the photographs used for news reports in the press, television or social media.

Those images, which can provide the essence of a news story, may be crude and technically poor, but they may also have considerable artistic value, as for example in the work of US-American photographer Dorothea Lange who had worked as photojournalist for the US Farm Security Administration (FSA) during the Depression-era, committed to the documentation of the harsh life of migrant farm workers

Street photography features the human condition within public places, and extends the documentary function to provide images which can cause us to pause and to reflect.

Perhaps its origin was in the streets of Paris in the 1920’s, when Eugène Atget used his photographic record of architecture to include also denizens of the city, extending from mainstream to the fringes of society.

Another French photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson, sought the decisive moment and established street photography as an art form, which began to evolved around the mid of the past century in many countries, in the United States notably through the work of the New York centred photographers Robert Frank – born in Switzerland who was considered part of the New York School before traveling across the US for his documentary street photography of “The Americans” - and Garry Winogrand, street photographer from the Bronx/New York who is being credited of having brought “attitude” to street photography.

Enjoy this compilation of documentary/ street photography from several talented 1x contributors.