Street Photography Posts Roundup

Another post to organize past posts...
Street photography is my favorite by far. Here is a roundup of some of my street photography posts:

• In April 2009, I did an intro on street photography for that month's theme.
• When you are just starting out, the hardest thing about street photography is getting up the nerve to take photos of strangers. My first tip is to take photos of people who don't mind the attention and my second tip is to try taking photos at public events like demonstrations.
• When I was in New Orleans, I conducted an experiment in street portraiture. My goal was to ask 10 random strangers if I could take their portrait. Guess what? People are pretty nice.
• Also in New Orleans, I tried some street photography at night.
• In Paris, there is never a shortage of public events. The 2009 Techno Parade became the subject of several posts. Earlier in the day, a bus stop told quite a story. By the end of the day, things got a little more dangerous. My "10 seconds at the Paris Techno Parade" captured an adrenaline-filled experience. At the end of 2010, I decided to do a full write-up for JPG magazine and the essay was featured as story of the week for the first week in 2011. I think that essay best captures what I felt in the moment.

• Another favorite is the post I did about a riot that broke out in front of our apartment in Paris. Various blogs and forums around the world linked to the post—many of them for the wrong reasons, if you ask me. The comments on that post got pretty heated.
• Other, less volatile moments include Dora the Explorer getting punched, a graffiti artist at work, candids from a Paris photo show, and a zombie parade.

(Conceptual) Projects

 Adding a little public display of affection to a straight-laced BYU campus.

For some, the term "conceptual photography" has a negative connotation. The current Wikipedia definition is relatively neutral:

"Conceptual photography as a part of conceptual art, a photography genre in which the artist makes a photograph of a concept or idea. Usually the conception of the idea precedes the realization of the photography."

The strict genre definition, then, quickly leads to academic philosophical existentialist debates (but then, doesn't everything?): Which comes first, essence or existence? Sartre be damned, I can never remember and don't really care. For the purposes of this ongoing compilation of posts, I am taking the broad view that all projects are conceptual once they are organized. Whether the idea preceded the photos or came from the photos isn't at issue in this list. The idea of this post is simply to get back to re-organizing the sidebar of my blog. That said, here are some posts that might inspire your own projects in some way:

• An intro to "concept" from when it was part of the now-defunct "monthly special"
• Inspiration from John Baldessari: a master of ideas
• When I was playing around with the idea of "photo within a photo" I did a two part post about turning my not-so-romantic surroundings into Paris (check out part 1 and part 2—they still make me laugh) and another post about remembering the orchards that were lost when my neighborhood was built.
• My love of street photography led me to create a Blurb book called Manif (short for "manifestation"—the French word for demonstration). You can look at the whole book in this post—just be click the view full screen box (the four diagonal arrows) in the lower right.
• My biggest project to date is the years-in-the-making ABC Paris project. It's interesting for me to look back at the origins, and then see how it ended up getting featured on Design Sponge and Black Eiffel, which resulted in a four-year contract with a company in Vermont. And of course, how can I not do some shameless promotion for the prints that you can buy.
• Another "project" (more like two things I made for a post)—OK, so idea for a project—is the "personality pie chart." I did one of my son Lucas and one of a friend in France. It could be fun to do something with later. Feels very commercial to me.
• A "things scrawled on wood in Paris" project is a casual ongoing project that looks at the kind of graffiti people did before there was spray paint. I have much better photos since I did the post—perhaps a follow-up will be in order.
• My long term Utah-based project is about State Street, and although I haven't done a real post about it yet, these "commute" photos came from a couple of hours of shooting.