“Nobody’s looking at each other. Everybody’s glued to their phones.” The preponderance of mobile phones made street photography unsexy according to Joel Meyerowitz, but then, hasn’t one of the tasks of street photography been to record the world as it is, warts (phones) and all? The world keeps evolving and street photography remains in tandem with it.
Today’s street scene differs markedly in its cohesiveness, and documenting it should mirror this change. Technology has been the main driver, lending an air of unreality to human interaction. People react more readily to the personal experience of mobile phones and media paraphernalia before interacting with other people. Such habits have altered the look of the social street scene and has instilled the sense of a walled community. A pervasive “absence presence” is evident, with Individual feelings appearing subordinate to a feeling of detachment.
Perhaps the influence of digital technology on the street scene is already illustrating a boundary between the real and virtual worlds, giving a real city the look of a science fictional one; a precursor of a time when we’re no longer able to discern what is human and what isn’t?
