Types of street photographers: the invasive one
Each street photographer, with time, develops his own technique to face the street. This technique is generally developed through a combination of necessity and experience. However, it is no less true that there are certain categories, attitudes or styles of photographing the streets and what roams them that are common to a certain group of photographers.
One of these categories is the invasive photographer. Paradigmatic examples of this type of street photographer are Bruce Gilden and Mark Cohen, known for carrying a camera in one hand and a flash in the other, blinding and invading the living space of the poor victim who happens to cross their path. It is true that both began to develop this aggressive photographic style in the 1980s. Those were different times, very few people walked the streets with camera in hand, so there was no animosity towards the photographer, but rather surprise and even a certain degree of curiosity.
People are now much less understanding of this kind of attitude, not least because nowadays basically everyone walks down the street with a camera. It makes you shudder to think what it would be like to walk down Madrid's Gran Via or London's Oxford Street surrounded by hundreds of Bruce Gilden impersonators. An example of how things have changed in this respect is the case of Tatsuo Suzuki who was stripped of his brand ambassador status by Fujifilm in 2020 following criticism for using invasive photography techniques on anonymous people.
I am not one to judge anyone, but it has always been clear to me that this invasive style is not for me. I'm a rather introverted guy and I'm very much in favor of live and let live. I like to get close to photograph the subject that catches my attention, but I do it trying not to be noticed and without disturbing. For this I usually use a spontaneous mix of contemporary dance and theatrical interpretation. An unobtrusive camera with an inconspicuous lens also helps, as do electronic shutters that allow for silent capture by not generating drive noise or ultra-fast autofocus, although sharpness is not an issue that concerns me too much as I discuss in this blog post.
In 1982 German filmmaker Michael Engler filmed the documentary "CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE USA" with: Robert Frank, Duane Michals, Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander, Thomas Roma, Alfred Stieglitz, Harry Callahan, Lisette Model, Ralph Gibson, Mark Cohen, Joel Meyerowitz, Stephen Shore. On the author's YouTube channel, you can see the excerpts dedicated to each photographer. Here is the link to the one dedicated to Mark Cohen.