There are very few books written on the history of street photography. However, the best book that I know: “Bystander: A History of Photography” is superb. The book was co-authored by photography curator and historian Colin Westerbeck and the legendary street photographer Joel Meyerowitz. The two collaborated for many years on the book, with Westerbeck doing most of the writing and Meyerowitz giving guidance and helping edit images for the book.
I picked up my copy a few years ago, and was amazed to see how in-depth and expansive it was on the history of street photography. I used it as a reference for an online course I taught on street photography at UC Riverside Extension in 2011, and learned many insights from the book.
I wanted to write this article to share some of my personal insights which I learned from the book and the history of street photography. I hope you enjoy it. Also if you see any typos, grammatical errors, or unclear points- please leave a comment below.
Considering this is a long article (31 pages long), I consider you to either save it to Pocket or to Instapaper and read it in bits and chunks. You can also download a .doc file of it, or a PDF of the article.Â