Displaying items by tag: street photography

A new exhibition at the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts, explores the history of social photography through a selection of images from the institution’s permanent collection. Spanning from the mid-twentieth century to the present, “The Social Medium” touches on a number of photographic genres, including social documentary as well as street, celebrity, and portrait photography.

The exhibition at the DeCordova explores how developments in photographic technology -- from the invention of the portable film camera to the rise in popularity of Polaroid cameras, digital cameras, and cellphone cameras -- have influenced the art of social documentation. 

“Bruce Davidson/Paul Caponigro: Two American Photographers in Britain and Ireland,” at the Yale Center for British Art, is a strange but memorable pairing. It joins the Magnum photojournalist Bruce Davidson, best known for his aggressive New York street and subway photography, to a spiritually minded landscape photographer in the mold of Ansel Adams and Minor White. And although its title suggests some shared expatriate experience, a split quickly develops.

The curators, perhaps acknowledging as much, divide the third-floor galleries neatly down the middle. At times, it seems as if Mr. Davidson and Mr. Caponigro are re-enacting a classic contest in 20th-century photography, a competition between the meticulously technical, landscape-driven Bay Area School of Adams and Edward Weston, and the spontaneous street photography of Mr. Davidson’s mentors, Cornell Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson (who is said to have remarked, “The world is falling to pieces, and all Adams and Weston photograph is rocks and trees.”)

On June 27, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will present the exhibition “Garry Winogrand,” the first retrospective of the pioneering American photographer’s work in 25 years. Widely regarded as one of the most important photographers of the 20th century, Winogrand captured moments of everyday American life in the postwar era. He produced much of his best-known work in New York City during the 1960s, becoming a major voice of the tumultuous decade.

Known for his energy, honesty, and sense of humor, Winogrand shot business moguls, politicians, hippies, athletes, famous actors, and everyday people on the street, at rodeos, in airports, and at antiwar demonstrations. He traveled from his native New York to San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, and the Southwest, creating an expansive visual catalogue of America’s rapidly changing social scene.