Re: The opposite of "meaningless street photography"...
petersm59 wrote:
Purpose and intention are everything.
Indeed.
For some ... the purpose is to produce works that say "Look at me. Look what I did. I'm a photographer, that did this thing that others didn't do. I'm amazing. I'm wonderful."
For others ... it's more of a DeCarava thing, wrt to what the image does to / for the viewer (viewer dependent).
Here's a few (plenty of others in this work) that are both advocating for the sport, but also documenting the moment for the families. Nothing in these that will ever bring me acclaim, but that's neither the purpose, nor intent. The meaningfulness resides in what it means to others to capture something they didn't have the wherewithal to do.
MOMA / Magnum / etc. aren't going to be calling me, anytime soon for this body of work. Yet, it is a body of work that some folks find very meaningful. Others will go, "Big wup ... snaps of kids trying to hit a ball."
So, yup ... purpose / intent meets at the intersection of subjectivity (of the audience) to describe meaningfulness. If it's meaningful to the family, that may not be the same kind of meaningfulness as if the photographic world is assessing the merits of producing bodies of work, projects, exhibits, books, etc.
