Street photography now

The street photographer can be a recorder, an intruder, or a commentator on the lives around him. The streets displayed in these photographs vary from New York to Delhi, from Sydney to Seoul, from the late-night binge drinkers in Cardiff, Wales, to the weblike structures of urban Tokyo, but they all capture the same immediate experience: images of the commonplace elevated and transformed by the intuition of the eye behind the camera. The contemporary photographers presented by Tate Modern curator Howarth and photographer McLaren offer insights into the sometimes disturbing and intrusive genre, but one not without respect for public life. An interesting sidebar is the discussion of the current atmosphere of suspicion of lurking strangers and concerns about invasion of privacy. The book finishes with a useful list of resources (websites, etc.) as well as a select bibliography.VERDICT The photographers¿ biographies reveal enormously varying life experiences, but they all have the same passion to capture a fleeting moment, a city in a state of constant change, or a chance encounter with the bizarre or the beautiful. An excellent addition to the literature of contemporary photography.-Paula Frosch, Metropolitan Museum of Art Lib., New York (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.