Street Photography for the Purist

And be patient.
And have the ability to pounce like a fucking cat when the mouse makes the wrong move or pauses just long enough.
Because in that instant where the mirror is in the way of your eye, that’s when the moment really happens.
Only with a rangefinder do you know if “you nailed it.”
Nailing it feels good.
And, believe it or not, not nailing with a rangefinder it feels good too?
Why’s that?
I believe that the moments we don’t get are meant to teach us things. We should reflect on these missed moments.
Taking a digi-cam photo and stripping the saturation in a photo manipulation programme such as PhotoShop is not street photography.
Just so you know.
Hate me.
Whatever.
I don’t care.
Street photography is defined by what the greats did back in the twenties and thirties and forties and fifties. It’s black and white. It’s made with a
rangefinder.
If it were discovered and defined in the nineties or even last-fucking-year with colour film or colour sensor and shot with an SLR, then so be it.
But it wasn’t.
The icons of the couple kissing, the boy leaping over the water, the welcoming of U.S. soldiers into the streets of Paris ... they were all made with
black and white ... and ... shot with rangefinders.
Most specifically, Leicas.