Bystander: A History of Street Photography Hardcover – Illustrated, November 7, 2017

Great history of street photography!If you want to be a good street photographer; learn your roots!Tons of photographs, pretty much ALL the iconic images of the genre. The text is scholarly but flows nicely.One of my favorite photography books of all time

A must have for every street photographer.

A substantial and essential overview of the history and development of street photography. It's academic but only in the loosest sense.

First off, I am a big street photography aficionado, so I grade this book against the dozens of others in my collection. If you only read this book, your opinion may differ.Previous reviewers mention the layout of the photos, and I agree that it does seem random, often leaving vast areas of unused page space, and then multiple photos jammed into the same area. At first I thought this was to avoid double page speads, which I hate because I feel the seam can ruin the overall composition, but no, there are several of these double page photos. The layout aside, I am able to compare many of these images to the same photo as they appear in my other books, famous photos by the stars of the genre, and there is something missing in the reproductions in this book. There is a thinness, a lack of contrast in many of these photos. I can see the difference like night and day when viewing the same photo in other books side by side. This is not terrible, but the art is not represented at its best potential, which could be misleading to those who are just exploring this photography for the first time via this book.As for the narratives, I loved reading the reminiscing on Gary Winnogrand, and his process. There are some great explanations about the thought processes of the act of street shooting through out many decades. These add to the value of the photos.

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A wonderful cornucopia of photographs and some superb, informative writing about the history of street photography. Very good value.

An excellent resource for information and inspiration.

Bystander does not stand on the sidelines. Instead, author Colin Westerbeck dives deep into sometimes shallow waters as he seeks to represent a street photography that is many things, but most decidedly pure of any "taint" of postmodernism. Westerbeck clearly wants to "save" street photography in a world overladen with images and an art history that has all to often ignored street photography as a genre. His ardor however sometimes results in churlish takedowns of artists that are, quite simply, naive (see his discussions of Jeff Wall and Cindy Sherman). Nevertheless, tiresome as it sometimes is, this is an interesting book. The chapters focusing on Atget and Cartier-Bresson are fascinating, if revealing a disinterest or, perhaps, a lack of awareness of post 80s art historical discussions of Romanticism, Victorianism, Modernism, and so forth. So take much of the commentary with a grain of salt. Other reviewers have rightfully criticized the decidedly narrow scope of a book calling itself a history of street photography (Japan, for example, is ignored). This is why it's handy to view the book more as a polemic of it's time. Imperfect as it may be, there is really no alternative. And, it's filled with entertaining writing--how often can anyone say that of a book produced by an academic? Currently priced in hardback for 40.00 and change, the book is a steal. Buy it, if only for the lovely reproductions that yes and alas sometime stretch across the gutter.