Street photography : from Atget to Cartier-Bresson /

This provocative, engaging book is a departure from standard histories of street photography like Bystander: A History of Street Photography, by Colin Westerbeck and Joel Meyerowitz. Instead, Scott (English and American studies, Univ. of East Anglia) offers an analysis of photographs in relationship to Impressionist painting and urban literature. His principal argument is that street photography is a genre distinguished from documentary by its expressive rhetoric of mobility and chance. The question the book raised for this reviewer is whether his argument for the distinct aesthetic qualities of street photography justifies ignoring its social implications. Identifying documentary as explicitly political, Scott suggests that street photography is characterized by its "detachment." Although the opposition defines the difference between the two genres, it does not acknowledge the power relations implied in the gender and class differences depicted in street photography. The discussion is otherwise well grounded in theories of photography relevant to issues of photographic perception, from Charles Baudelaire to Roland Barthes. Scott considers a range of relevant topics in French street photography, including the role of the active spectator, the symbolic dimensions of the urban scene, and the negotiation of urban spaces. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and above. E. J. VanArragon Calvin College