Street photography has occupied an ambiguous position within the photographic canon for decades.
Admired, practiced, and debated to the point of saturation, it remains, paradoxically, one of the most misunderstood genres. It is often reduced to a simple functional category: photographs taken in public space. This definition, convenient but superficial, says very little about its true nature. Street photography is not defined by where it takes place, but by the relationship it establishes with reality, with time, and with the gaze.
To speak of street photography as a pure genre implies taking a clear position. It means defending the idea that it is not a byproduct of documentary practice, nor an informal branch of reportage, nor an aesthetic excuse for capturing visual coincidences. It is an autonomous language, with internal rules, a specific visual tradition, and its own ethical framework. When it is diluted into generic categories, it loses its critical force and its capacity to interpret the contemporary world.
One of the most frequent mistakes is to confuse street photography with urban photography. Not everything that happens in the city belongs to street photography. Architecture, urban landscape, or even the presence of people as a secondary element are not enough. Street photography is built on human interaction, on minimal gestures, on the tension between the individual and the space they inhabit. Its raw material is not the city itself, but the life that circulates within it.
The purity of the genre does not lie in the absence of intention, as is sometimes suggested, but in a very specific intention: to observe without directing, to record without intervening, to interpret without imposing. Street photography does not fabricate scenes or correct reality to make it more legible. It accepts ambiguity, controlled chance, and imperfection as essential elements of its language. This acceptance is not passivity, it is discipline. It demands constant attention and a deep understanding of social rhythms.
In this sense, street photography does not seek to tell complete stories. It has no beginning or end. It operates through fragments, visual intuitions, open situations. Each image is more a question than an answer. This fragmentation distances it from classical narrative and brings it closer to a form of visual thought. Photographing the street is not about explaining what happens, but about suggesting what it feels like to be there.
The question of style is central when discussing purity. Authentic street photography does not rely on recognizable aesthetic formulas or repeated visual effects. When a style becomes a norm, the genre stagnates. The repetition of framings, gestures, and formal solutions has generated an iconography that is recognizable but exhausted. The purity of the genre demands risk, not comfort. It requires abandoning the expected image and confronting uncertainty.
Another fundamental aspect is the relationship with time. Street photography is not instantaneous in the superficial sense of the term. Although it works with the present, it does so through waiting and observation. Time is not chased, it is inhabited. The image emerges when the scene reaches internal coherence, not when something spectacular happens. This slow temporality conflicts with the current logic of mass image production, but it is precisely what preserves the genre from banalization.
Ethics are inseparable from the purity of the genre. Photographing in public space implies responsibility. Not everything visible should be photographed. Street photography is not justified by the mere legality of the act, but by its visual and human legitimacy. Looking without respect degrades the image. Pure street photography does not humiliate, does not invade, does not exploit. It observes with distance, but also with empathy.
In the digital era, the genre faces a crisis of identity. Overproduction, the search for immediate approval, and an obsession with impact have blurred its boundaries. Many images are presented as street photography when they are in fact exercises in visual cleverness without depth. The street becomes a stage and people become accessories. When this happens, the genre loses its reason for being.
Defending street photography as a pure genre does not mean enclosing it in dogmas or nostalgia. It means protecting its capacity for critical observation. The street is a political, social, and symbolic space. Photographing it with rigor means accepting its complexity and resisting the urge to simplify it. Purity lies not in form, but in intention.
Street photography, in its most honest expression, does not seek likes or validation. It seeks understanding. It is a silent practice, sometimes uncomfortable, that demands real presence in the world. In a context saturated with fast and predictable images, its relevance depends on recovering that attitude. Not as a romantic gesture, but as a necessity.
Understood in this way, street photography is neither a minor genre nor a cyclical trend. It is a way of seeing that renews itself with each generation, as long as it does not renounce its fundamental principles. Its purity does not lie in the past, but in the ability to continue observing the present with attention, honesty, and depth.
