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Features

Rant: Shooting Pretty Women from Behind on the Streets Is Not Street Photography

Chris Gampat
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07/18/2018
3 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Leica M9 at Bryant Park (15 of 27)

Last Updated on 07/19/2018 by Mark Beckenbach

In street photography, you should really check your intentions.

I once was told by a man as enamoured with street photography as I that he admired a photo of a lone woman in a park looking away at something. “I wonder what she’s looking at,” he said. “She’s sort of really fixated on something.” Whatever she may have been fixated on, a part of my mind wondered what the hell he was talking about. In the most abstract sense of the image, it was nothing more than just a woman staring off at something, perhaps watching her kid/pet run around, waiting for someone to catch up, or just standing there. It was the mind that went somewhere else, and as far as how the image was shot it didn’t seem like the photographer really cared so much about her expression as he did just the fact that there might have been a slight sense of attraction.

I have seen and been pitched similar photos before. There was a time when I was pitched an entire series of peoples’ backs on the street as they walked away with a note from the photographer saying that he completed this series in wonderment of who they were.

Now let’s admit something; everyone has shot this stuff. But not everyone uses the shots as mainstay portfolio pieces. This is far different from taking photos of people from behind to check your zone focusing or for practice when the real thing you want comes around. Instead, when it’s done to women from behind, there is a sense of voyeurism about the scene. Sometimes I feel it’s due to an attraction to the woman photographed, but with an equal part of shyness preventing the photographer from going up to and talking to them as the world is moving on. For the modern street photographer, I urge you to try harder and to strive to make better images that not only push you, but also push yourselves to be better than others.

The reason why I shot this photo has more to do with my liking the way the light hit her vs anything else. If this were an image of an old man or a couple, I would have still snapped the photo.

With all of this, I want to harken back to a piece I wrote a long time ago about intentions and street photography as it pertains to photographing children. Children, for many street photographers, is a territory most won’t go due to fear of how the photographer will be treated. But in the piece, I argued a different ethic:

Before you attempt to take a photo of a child in public, you should ask yourself a couple of key questions. For starters, ask yourself what your intentions are. If they are in any way voyeuristic, then stop. Stop right there and don’t even think about taking the image. But if you genuinely love the scene, the lighting is just right, the emotions on the child’s face are wonderful and genuinely elicit a feeling, and you are documenting a very human moment, then by all means go ahead and press that shutter button. Again, this all has to do with your own intentions.

This same ethic I think should be applied to everything you do as a street photographer. Your intentions should always be checked. If what you’re doing is in any way predatory, then you need to put the camera down. If there are genuine and good intentions before you pick up the camera and put it to your face, then please proceed to continue making frames. This ethic should apply to the treatment of everyone, not only children. If there is a genuinely great reason why you’re photographing a pretty woman from behind, then do it. If there is no genuine reason, then please stop. It’s bad for all of us.

 

children ethics images Photography street photographer street photography women
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Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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