20 STREET FILM PHOTOGRAPHERS YOU NEED TO KNOW!

Our friends at Analog Forever Magazine asked us to come up with a list of twenty street film photographers. Below is our approach and justification toward coming up with the photographers followed by the list!

Introduction

Street photography is one of those terms that can imply an array of styles. Teaching myself photography in Japan, I always associated it with the more encompassing Japanese understanding of it all being “snapshot photography.” Which certainly saves a lot of time in trying to reconcile labels for everything from pictorial realism to Vivo & Provoke through to say a Hiromix that all share this commonality.

It is with this, I approached this list perhaps challenging the western notion of street photography or certainly its hardcore elements into what it is understood here as simply going out into the world (in this case) with a film camera and shooting off the cuff. A lot of famous Japanese street photographers will confirm this in insuring you they are not professionals…a funny insinuation to most.

I was asked to do this list on behalf of the Japan Camera Hunter team and so for me it made sense to predicate a lot of my selections based off my Visual Interview series I have been doing for over half a decade. From there it is influenced by my geographic locations between Tokyo, my native Baltimore area in the US, and Stockholm & northern parts of Europe where I have worked. In general though, a lot of this just stems from being in various photo communities since beginning my own journey in 2009.

Street photography has always been a rather passionate genre with an ever passionate community. I have experienced countless heated discussions on what it all constitutes and saw the reasons behind the claims. Approaching several photographers became difficult for concerns for who else was involved or unfortunately just not following through after repeated requests.

This would hopefully explain why some obvious photographers may not appear, but also through my own naivety I had assumed a lot of photographers were film photographers but in fact had been shooting digital or switched due to the ever increasing film prices…a very valid point. I also avoided legacy photographers in favor of active ones. These factors drastically reduced my initial list resulting in what you will see below.

In all, it was a real labor of love with a certain cloud hanging over it. The very nature of top lists brings upon criticism. We are a passionate, often tight knit community with several divisions, but my hope in this list is to expose lesser known photographers and reaffirm some that probably need no further introduction. At the end of it all, we share a commonality in the love of film and the process it demands.

The List (in no particular order)

Closing

This is our list! To see the blurbs on each photographer and sample images click here and see it on the Analog Forever website. We hope you enjoyed our list and discovered some new photographers along the way. It was certainly a massive undertaking. As always JCH exists as a platform for the film community and big thank you to all the photographers who participated.

-JF