Review: London Street Photography
On a chilly Friday morning not so long ago I got up unpleasantly early and stumbled out bleary eyed into a fetid bus crowded with other unfortunate victims of the ol’ nine to five. Unlike them however I wasn’t going to work, but was instead heading to the Museum of London for an early morning preview of a new exhibition exploring the history of street photography in London. From the early years of photography when shooting street scenes was a public spectacle itself involving cumbersome plate glass cameras and long exposure times, through to the unobtrusive iPhone wielding street photographers of today, the exhibition covers an enormous range of styles and subject matter and includes work by no less than 59 photographers.
I should say right now that I’m not a fan of street photography, for reasons I’ll probably get around to discussing another time. For the purpose of this article these reasons are unimportant because despite my prejudices I still thoroughly enjoyed the exhibition. It stimulated me as photographer, but also as a historian and as a Londoner.
Historically it makes for fascinating viewing. Photographs are displayed chronologically, and as you move around the room you witness London changing and developing across a century and a half. Some locations appear several times and you can see them metamorphosing, becoming more and more like they are today. Other elements also evolve, the style of clothes become more familiar, the number of non-white faces grow, and we see British culture becoming increasingly influence by American trends and brands.
Also shown are pivotal moments and periods in the capital’s history. Particularly interesting for me were the photographs of the racial and class tensions of the 1970’s. Photographs of skinheads in the streets, for example, seemed hard to connect with the London I grew up in only a decade and a half later. Other photographs were more familiar, one of a black man and a white woman kissing seemed to sum up the relationship between London and its immigrant population, unbreakable and mutually supporting.
The photography itself changes drastically across the exhibition. There are technical innovations, as cameras get smaller and exposure times faster, with resultant changes in how photographers approach their subjects. We also see subject matter change, particularly in the inter-war period, as photographers shift their focus from capturing fairly generic street scenes to highlighting the capital’s inequalities. Then compositional approaches change, as an influx of émigrés escaping from occupied Europe bring with them a more modernist style of photography visually at odds with the quite formal style that had held sway since the 1860′s and which it rapidly displaced.
What surprised me most was the technique involved in of some of the photographs. Street photography has something of a reputation for rough, even crude photographs. The need to get the shot often very quickly and surreptitiously can inevitably lead to compromises in technique. Some photographers play to this, for example by intentionally over rating films to heighten grain and contrast, emphasising the grittiness of the street and their own obliviousness to a photographic cliché . Some of those in this exhibition however were undeniably beautiful. George Reid’s for example are really stunning, shot with a plate glass camera with beautiful control over exposure and depth of field, and clearly carefully planned and executed.
This said some of the photographers in the exhibition were noticeably weaker than others, and particularly amongst the photographs from the ninteenth century through to the early twentieth century at least a few seemed to have been included more for historical interest than their photographic merit. None the less this is an exhibition with much to offer, whether to the budding street photographer, social historian, or born and bred Londoner.
London street photography runs until September 4th 2011 at the Museum of London and is free.
