ABSTRACT
This chapter takes Daguerre’s photograph of Boulevard du Temple as the basis from which to explore the history of street photography by considering key tendencies in the genre – that of the candid photograph of unwitting everyday subjects, documentary photography of the street, and renditions of the empty street that harken to the earliest years of the medium and are still prevalent in practise. The nineteenth century saw major historical, social and political events documented in photographs that featured street views as an incidental by-product, but it was topographical views of exotic and faraway places sold by the millions as stereoscopic views or cabinet cards that captured the public imagination. The 1930s to the 1950s saw the rise of the candid photographer or commercial street photographer, stimulating a new craze in snapshot pictures and celebrating everyday citizens. A new generation of photographers scoured the streets of London, New York, Tokyo, Sydney, Paris, or Rajasthan looking for the overlooked.
