The story behind "American Girl in Italy"

...it was in Florence that she met Jinx Allen (now known as Ninalee Craig), a painter and fellow American. The two were talking about their shared experiences traveling alone as young single women, when my mother had an idea. "Come on," she said, "lets go out and shoot pictures of what it's really like." In the morning, while the Italian women were inside preparing lunch, Jinx gawked at statues, asked Military officials for directions, fumbled with lire and flirted in cafes while my mother photographed her. They had a lot of fun, as the photograph, "Staring at the Statue", demonstrates. My mother's best known image, "American Girl in Italy" was also created as part of this series.

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What have you learned about Street Photography?

I love lists.

Eric Kim has kindly shared 102 things he has learned about street photography.

Here are just a few:

• 3. Shoot with your heart, not with your eyes
• 13. Buy books, not gear
• 20. Good projects often take at least a year to complete
• 32. Look at other forms of art for inspiration
• 38. After a whole day of shooting, I am lucky if I get 1-2 good photographs
• 60. It is better to take an extraordinary photo of something ordinary, rather than taking an ordinary photo of something extraordinary
• 78. Photography is incredibly difficult
• 91. Never delete any of your photographs (you can rediscover hidden gems later in the future)

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Vivian Maier, Street Photographer

Wow, I haven't been this excited about a new book in a very long time. From the very first photograph I saw by Vivian Maier I knew she was going to become one of my favorites. Most photographers hope to get a 5 star image with every 25th frame click or so. It seems like Ms. Maier spent almost every waking minute photographing (from the stories of how many undeveloped negatives that have been discovered), but I feel like she had a much better average.

She was a natural born photographer.

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buy the book vivianmaier.com/book

New York, 1963 - Lee Friedlander

• Perfect timing
• It captures the diversity of culture in a city
• Feels anonymous and it makes me feel like a voyeur

image source

Are you taking yourself seriously enough?

Eric Kim thinks you should.

Therefore when it comes to street photography, I feel that our current understanding of what we do is too shallow. While I love the “one-liner” images out there and funny juxtapositions, we need to think more critically about the images we take and why we take them. It is a great thing to encourage laughter and amusement through our images—but there needs to be more.

Whether you agree or disagree, he's sparked a conversation.

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