Explore Trailblazing Street Photography in 'Faces in the Crowd' at MFA Boston

"Shore was among the first to adopt color photography as an artistic medium, traveling throughout America to document quotidian scenes of life in rural towns and big cities alike. His work followed behemoths of the medium like Walker Evans and Robert Frank and set the stage for others who emerged in his footsteps, including Alec Soth, Nan Goldin, and Martin Parr, among many others."

"Shore is included in Faces in the Crowd: Street Photography at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which explores the ever-evolving techniques and approaches that photographers use to document people and daily life. Seminal works from the 1970s to the 1990s by Shore, Garry Winogrand, Helen Levitt, Dawoud Bey, and Yolanda Andrade, among others, are complemented by more recent contributions to the genre by artists like Parr, Luc Delahaye, Katy Grannan, Amani Willett, and Zoe Strauss."

"Today, smartphones with powerful digital cameras have made photography more accessible than ever-and also completely transformed the medium. With people always unabashedly filming-taking photos, making videos, posting to social media-in the city, "photographers are now less concerned with surreptitiously capturing an image and much more likely to collaborate with their subjects in the street," the MFA says. The difference between snapshots and art is perhaps partly in intention, although that line is often purposely blurred."

Stephen Shore pioneered color photography as an artistic medium, traveling across America to document quotidian scenes in rural towns and cities. His work followed earlier figures like Walker Evans and Robert Frank and influenced later photographers such as Alec Soth, Nan Goldin, and Martin Parr. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston exhibition Faces in the Crowd surveys street photography from the 1970s to the 1990s alongside contemporary practitioners. Smartphones and social media have increased access to photography and transformed practices, making photographers more likely to collaborate openly with subjects. The distinction between snapshots and art often depends on intention and can be deliberately blurred.

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