One of the interesting things about street photography as a genre (at least as I understand it) is that most of the “great masters” seem to have picked up street shooting as a diversion from their more constrained professional photographic careers (almost as a response to the “be a specialist” advice). The early French photographers seem to have gone out in a Duchamps’ Fountain, Dada kind of way — no rules, nothing off limits. Whatever looks interesting is worth photographing, whether a prostitute or a flock of pigeons. It’s a documentary photography approach that seems absent from most of today’s street photography.

I absolutely agree that most of what we see out in the wild calling itself street photography isn’t all that interesting. Street photography is one of the more abuse-prone genres, especially in this age of “everyone’s got a camera all the time.” And as much as I love going out and taking pictures on the street, the general lack of historical consciousness of most street photographs I see around me does make me love it a little less.