“The marvels of daily life are exciting; no movie director can arrange the unexpected that you find in the street.”

--Robert Doisneau, French photographer,
(1912-1994)

Street photography, long a tradition of photojournalists, historians and artists, has lately become suspect. As reported by TimesOnline, street photographers now face suspicion over concerns of pedophilia and terrorism. A new poster campaign by the Metropolitan Police encourages Londoners to call a hotline if the look of a photographer displeases them:

“Thousands of people take photos every day. What if one of them seems odd?”

--poster campaign by London Metropolitan Police, which also helpfully points out that “terrorists use cameras for surveillance.”

This makes as much sense as the duct tape defense employed by Tom Ridge’s Homeland Security which designed to protect us against the 9/11 weapon of choice: box cutters. Both beg for mockery and BoingBoing, on cue, posted a set of parody posters. The Onion should be weighing in any day now.

The Times spoke with Matt Stuart, who has been photographing London’s streets for 11 years: “For his efforts, Stuart has picked up a little collection of pink stop-and-search slips, souvenirs of practising a century-old art form in a city increasingly paranoid and authoritarian.”

Is this the future? It seems ironic that street photography should be a target when The Authorities are already filming us in airports, banks on public transport and at city intersections. What’s one more photograph of you, me or them crossing the street? As long as I’m not in my bathing suit, I’m okay with it.

In fact, some of the most famous photographs in history were taken by street photographers – Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Diane Arbus. The LIFE Magazine shot of the jubilant sailor dude kissing the random nurse on V-J Day? That’s two total strangers making out in the street to express sheer joy and we might have missed that if Alfred Eisenstaedt handed been wandering around the street that day. (The photo is widely known as “the smack seen ‘round the world.”)

And speaking of famous kisses, who hasn’t purchased one of Robert Doisneau’s prints from a local Z Gallery? Every college kid who wanted to seem sophisticated had that Parisian kissing couple on his or her wall. It’s one of the most famous photographs in the world but initially, it was just a very human moment in a very public place, now frozen in time forever.

Fact is, few of us live our lives entirely out of public view. The street is where the culture is developed and reflected back at us through commerce, architecture, fashion, body language, advertising and the recognizing of our fellow humans – a favorite family sport called “people watching.”

Historically-speaking, shots of random street scenes are invaluable to our understanding of one another and where we’ve just come from. How folks got around town, how they dressed, where they shopped, the headlines of the day, trendy hairstyles – the candid street shot is a crucial mirror, a necessary snapshot of our collective experience in shared spaces.

How else could we possibly understand what a summer in Harlem circa 1938 could possibly look like? How else can we grasp a wild and woolly San Francisco street scene in 1968? Personally, I do not know the joy of a fire hydrant fountain during a sweltering summer in the Bronx but I have seen the celebration around it. Thanks to a photograph, I can conjure a good guess at the indescribable relief it must bring to the neighborhood kids who are dancing and dripping around it, giggling with delight.

Then there is the Native American belief – still alive and well in many cultures – that an unwelcome photograph can steal a person’s soul:

"The process of stealing an element of life through a photograph does cause, in my spiritual opinion, a degree of damage in the life force photographed. The life force may not know it, in the case of surreptitious street photographs made of people who are unaware they are being photographed, or the life force may fully consent to it in an emotionally suicidal way, such as may be the case with an under-age homeless drug-addicted girl who might ‘consent’ to being illegally photographed as part of a child pornography publication in order to earn some money to feed her habit.

Let me be clear in what I saying: I spiritually believe that the photograph of the homeless person and the abused child taken with or without their consent captures a particle of their living essence. The photographs taken of them steal an element of their souls. The theft of the pieces of their souls harm them to a degree."

-- James W. Bailey, experimental artist, photographer and imagist writer from Mississippi

You might think this philosophy very outdated but it was only a few years ago, I was reprimanded by three Native American ladies in Santa Fe, N.M. for taking photos of an outdoor market where they had their stalls. I explained that I only wanted to capture the variety of the jewelry (true) and they agreed to let me proceed, as long as their images were kept out of the frame.

The best advice I can offer any street photographer is to dabble in the dark arts and quickly develop a magical potion that makes you temporarily invisible. In the absence of that, I advise you to tread lightly, show respect and blend in whenever possible. It is said that Cartier-Bresson would wrap a large handkerchief around his camera and pretend to blow his nose while he took the picture, or would wrap the camera's body in black tape. Sneaky bastard knew what was up.

Most importantly, knowledge is power. Read up on your rights as a photographer – know where the line is. Basically, if you are out and about and can see it, you can shoot it. There are some limits — using a zoom lens to photograph someone who has a reasonable expectation of privacy isn't cool. Also, keep in mind that taking a photo and publishing it are different acts with separate concerns.

Here are some helpful links to get you photo-rights-educated:

Your Rights and Remedies When Stopped or Confronted for Photography - the straight poop from a lawyer dude

Photography and the Law: Know Your Rights - which also includes a very helpful '10 Legal Commandments for Photography' - ideal for those of us who (unfortunately) think in bullet points

Excellent article by Andrew Kantor, USA Today, on how, where you and your camera can and should go

Meanwhile, I've discovered a few sites that, in my mind, really capture the spirit of the street photographer. These folks love where they live and appreciate what they see. Bless ‘em!

Kitty, an architect living in New York, shares her beloved Gotham with us through random street photographs and ponderous posts on New York Portraits. Her profession gives her an edge when photographing the city – Kitty’s got a keen sense of angles and space and the results are immensely pleasing. I especially appreciate her mostly optimistic post titles, especially: “Working Toward A Complaint-Free World” and “There’s A Moon Out Tonight.” Incredibly romantic, all of it.

“One of my favorite public spaces in New York has to be the main room at Grand Central. Passengers headed toward upstate New York and Connecticut wait for their trains here. With large windows letting in daylight and majestic stairways on either end, the space makes a dramatic first impression. Never mind the blue ceiling painted with constellations overhead …”

--Kitty, New York photographer

If anyone understands the need for art on our streets, it is the street performer. Photographer Shawn Grimes nurtures his respect for this brave souls with his blog Shutter On The Street - A Photographic Exhibition of Street Performers. As Shawn explains, “Anyone who is providing entertainment to pedestrian traffic is a potential focus for my work.” He aims to post a new photograph each Friday along with a quick blurb about street performing. Shawn’s project began in the spring and will wrap up in this fall.

“People go to the theatre with the purpose of being entertained. They are seated and corralled and forced to focus at the stage before them and there is a set price for viewing the show. In contrast, street performers must draw their crowd from unsuspecting passer-bys. People will interrupt their shopping, touring, or other plans to stop and watch a street performer. Many street performers lose the advantage of an elevated stage and are positioned at the same level as their audience. Patrons must be magnetically drawn in by the performer’s presence and convinced to donate a sum of money relative to the entertainment received … This site will feature photographs of all types of street entertainers practicing their art before their captive audiences and give you, the reader, a chance to learn about their craft.”

--Shawn Grimes, photographer and street performer fan

One of my favorite street scene photo blogs is ReallyJapan – so many colors! So many layers! I just want to dive right in – with or without my kimono. Some Italian dude named Ruben has been living in Tokyo for the past two years and wakes up every day photographically turned on by his adopted city – and it shows.

“I prefer to shoot decaying urban landscapes, air conditioners, pipes and small streets - that's partly because I don't feel comfortable taking photos of people on the street (but I'm trying to improve) and partly because I LIKE this kind of subjects. And Japan is an ideal place for that (even if right now in China or Hong Kong that aspect is much more evident). Tokyo is an interesting place, the mix between old and new is very immediate, and generally there's a large gap on what is aesthetically acceptable here in Asia and in the western world.

Usually in Italy there are strict rules about how to put up buildings, the color they should be in relation to the neighborhood and so on. But here in Tokyo, "functionality" comes first, so huge pipes can be just outside a building, or air conditioners can be attached everywhere... That's what I really find fascinating here, and that's what I like to shoot.”

--Ruben, photographer living in Tokyo