Entries in documentary street photography (38)
Share Article 
Leica - Witness
Leica has released its first ad campaign in 10 years.
Our world deserves witnesses.
Enjoy.
Burma
Robert Frank 1924-2019
"Black and white are the colors of photography.
"To me, they symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected.
"Most of my photographs are of people; they are seen simply, as through the eyes of the man in the street. There is one thing the photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment.
"This kind of photography is realism. But realism is not enough—there has to be vision and the two together can make a good photograph. It is difficult to describe this thin line where matter ends and mind begins."
- Robert Frank, photographer, 1924-2019
Feel Experience With Camera
How many tourists see only through their phone camera? Millions, said Rita.
She is a tour quide, archeologist and author of Ice Girl in Banlung. She continued...
They feel the experience of 8th century Angkor artistic splendor only with their cameras, cold impersonal little tools. Their experience is defined by camera. Obscura.
Do you remember Li, the trek leader in Sapa, Vietnam talking about Hanoi day trippers with cameras? How she said, it’s fucking hilarious? Same here.
For the majority of tourists it’s not about understanding the Khmer people, culture, food, art, music, and language. It’s about feeling with a camera. They are in a big fat hurry.
Rita (L) and friends
They’ve learned through hard fast lessons to trust the machine. It is their weapon against mediocrity and boredom and shallow emptiness. They don’t comprehend the intricacies of the machine. They believe it can and will save them. The machine controls them. They gratefully accept this reality.
They press optical machines tight against their faces, piercing retinas, flickering lids. Point and shoot. They lower the device and stare with hard lost eyes at the image of their faded memory. They judge it. Crimping. Evaluate. DELETE.
Shoot again. Point. Shoot. Delete. Repeat. A snapshot. Snap a shot. Preserve this moment forever. Quick. They must go. They must move to the next great big thing. They are in a hurry. Death is closer than white on rice.
The tuk-tuk driver is impatient. He wants more money for his time. He waited when tourists slept, while they screwed. He waited as they stuffed eggs, watermelon and soft bread into tired bored faces. They ate like animals. They point and shoot. They delete.
Hurry. They have no time to see their obscurity. This loss, this sense of amnesia envelops them. It accompanies them through radioactive meltdowns. It is a dark cloud of forgetting. They remember to forget. They are on a Homeric quest of infinite proportions and magnitude.
Their memory card is full. They attach electrodes to a cerebral cortex and press the DownLoad switch. Memories of Apsara dancers, elephants, monkeys, celestial deities flicker on a screen behind their eyes.
Avalokiteshvara - the Bodhisattva of Compassion smiles.
Khene in Laos
Musician and his handmade Khene in Nong Kieu, Laos.
He said they are played at funerals and flutes are played at weddings. He said it is difficult to impossible to make and only ten men in Luang Prabang can make it. Neither his grandfather or uncle could make it.
It has a haunting, beautiful sound.
Playing his flute.