Is street photography dying?
Lately I’ve noticed something on PortraitMode: fewer posts are coming in. Not a cliff, not overnight, but a steady dip in submissions. That got me thinking. Is it only on PortraitMode or are others affected by this as well? What I found surprised me.
Street Photography YouTube
Take Faizal Westcott, one of the more recognizable names in street photography content. He’s sitting at over 260,000 subscribers, a number that took years of consistent, genuinely good work to build. But scroll through his recent uploads and the views tell a different story: 10K here, 20K there, 50K on a good week. For a channel with a quarter million subscribers, that’s a rough ratio.
And he’s not an outlier. Across the genre, plenty of well-established creators are seeing the same pattern: big subscriber counts built up over years, but current videos pulling in a small fraction of that audience. Some have stopped posting on YouTube entirely. Compare that to the prime-time energy street photography content had during Covid, when people stuck at home were bingeing photography YouTube like it was a new hobby they’d discovered. The contrast is hard to miss. Channels that used to feel like they were riding a wave now feel like they’re paddling against one.
So… is it actually dying?
No, but it is fluctuating.
Street photography has never been a genre that grows in a straight line. It had a golden era with the Henri Cartier-Bressons and Vivian Maiers of the world, decades where it was a niche pursuit for people with a Leica and a lot of patience. Then digital cameras and Instagram opened the floodgates and suddenly everyone with a camera (or a phone) became a street photographer (I don’t mean that in a negative way).
A genre with this much history, this many people who genuinely love the craft of catching a fleeting moment in public, doesn’t just vanish because YouTube view counts cooled off or a content platform saw fewer uploads. Sometimes it’s the main character of the photography world, sometimes it’s working quietly in the background while portrait photography or AI-generated-everything eats the spotlight.
What might be driving the dip
I don’t have a single answer, but a few things are probably compounding:
Short-form content has eaten a lot of attention that used to go to longer YouTube videos. And there’s a general sense of platform fatigue, people are tired of posting into the void on apps that don’t reward genuine engagement the way they used to. None of that spells extinction. It spells a genre figuring out where it lives next.
I want to hear from you
This is genuinely just my read on it, pieced together from watching our own numbers and poking around YouTube. I could be wrong.
Are you shooting as much as you used to? Posting as much? Watching as much street photography content? Drop a comment below, I’d love to know if you are seeing what I’m seeing.
Keep shooting 📸
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15 Comments
No Street Photography isn’t dying…. But bad street photography is killing it. I’m sorry to say that 90% of the photos submitted are just snap shots with no thought whatsoever. People must understand that street photography isn’t just going out and taking a picture on the street and adding some corny caption with the photo. Another big factor especially on this site is the amount of submissions that each person is allowed. If this site allowed 1-3 submissions per day people would think more about their submissions rather then uploading a load of utter rubbish. I use the Lamography site, and that still gets lots of ultra bad submission but…. Its intentionally because it’s looking at imperfections not perfections in the work. Also if people aren’t getting the likes, they stop submitting… But the reason they don’t get the likes is because their photos are so bad. So at the end of the day the problem lies with the 90% of deluded members that haven’t a clue what steet photography is about… A cat isn’t street photography neither is a bird, a tree, a portrait etc etc…It’s the 90% of amateur snap shot brigade spoiling it for the 10% of photographers who understand photography, how to take a photo and most of all what street photography really is.
Thank you
I agree with you. Street photography is a skill – and if I look back at my own photos from the beginning, it’s actually horrendous. I’m sure many here are still learning and simply enjoy going out and shoot street photography.
Good photos get the likes, but that’s true for all platforms across all genres. I see how that can be discouraging but it’s simply the nature of it. The only way out is to become better and not everyone will bother. That’s also the downside of not having an algorithm here. Everything posted gets the same visibility, good or bad, so the flood of average shots is more noticeable than on platforms that quietly filter it out for you.
On the submission limit: we currently allow 10 photos per day, and I honestly doubt tightening that further would change much. That won’t suddenly make people better photographers. Though, 5 photos per day might still be more reasonable?
Thank you for your input on this! 🙂
I’d also like to point out that another reason for not many submissions may be down to the portrait mode app also. It’s an absolute nightmare….it constantly signs you out and for some reason now I can’t submit any photos using the app as it’s saying “image resolution too low.Your photo should be at least 1200 pixels wide’. My photos are 1mp and I’ve tried several photos I loaded up over the last few weeks and it’s rejecting them also. Not everybody uses a laptop or pc these days and a photo app that runs right it crucial .So until this poroblem rectifies itself I also cannot upload any more photos. Id like to point out this isn’t an individual problem as my friend is experiencing the same thing…it started today for some reason and we’ve both uninstalled and reinstalled the app….it stay the same .
Thank You
I forgot to mention the phones used are android
Hey Paul!
We have addressed the logout issue with the most recent update (a few days ago), and it didn’t happen to me since. The min-width/min-height requirement was implemented roughly a day ago and is basically just enforcing what has always been in the guidelines. Can you confirm that your photos are above that threshold? 1mp might be a bit on the lower end and not meet those requirements.
We are going to run some tests on that now.
Edit: We ran some tests and everything is working as expected on our end (both Android and iOS).
spot on mate ..
That’s basically it. I’m a bit tired of seeing the constant flow of random snapshots, so I end up logging in less. There are periods I shoot less and/or don’t shoot anything I find even mildly interesting or that is street, so I don’t post. A lot of guys post anything just because and I don’t think it’s the best way to go about it.
Yes matey
We as you know can accept that on the Lomography site we go on because there is no specific category for photos unless it’s a competition. But this site is meant to be a designated street photography site and it gets abused by snap shot photographers that basically haven’t got a clue. I’d honestly delete 90% of the photos I see uploaded these days, it’s actually quite embarrassing that the people uploading them actually think they are steet photography or even slightly good photos.
It’s difficult to properly address the tension between allowing the less experienced practitioner to develop and improve against keeping the quality of content at a high level (read that as filtering out the shots of a car, a cat or the girlfriend’s birthday trip to the zoo(!)). I am not in it for likes, but I often do a double-take when I see that sometimes even the worst examples (i.e. a bad photo that’s also not in any way a street image) get likes.
I don’t know how you deal with this other than ruthlessly culling the offending posts and/or offenders (a big time commitment) or placing a barrier to entrance like asking new members to submit a couple of their best images for review before they are approved (another time commitment).
Hey Chris!
We actually had that process in place at the very beginning where users first had to submit photos to be accepted. We ditched that because the barrier to entry was too high (and nobody signed up).
Now, users can report photos – and if they’re against the guidelines, they’ll be deleted. Some get overlooked in the process for sure, and almost nobody uses the report feature. So it’s pretty much entirely on me to go through the latest submissions.
It’s really hard to strike a good balance with this. In fact, unless we want an algorithm, I don’t currently see a good solution. I’m honestly almost blind to “bad photos” at this point going through so many submissions. It’s great that you guys are bringing this up again.
Hi David, thanks for your reply.
So, it’s on us to report what are basically breaches of the rules then? I can help with that!!
It’s basically a joined effort. While I go through submissions to feature or remove photos, the reporting feature is great to use because it sends me an email with the link to the photo in question immediately.
If you’re using the app, you can simply long-press on a photo which gives you the option to report. On the website, I believe you either right-click the photo under the Explore page or open the photo and use the “Report photo” link.
Disclaimer though: oftentimes users get the benefit of the doubt, unless there are super strong arguments for the photo not fitting the guidelines. You can check out the guidelines here: https://portraitmode.io/submission-guidelines/
Thank you for offering your help, that’s very much appreciated! 🙂
Hello, when I joined, I initially thought that submissions would go directly to your profile and wouldn’t be shared publicly. And if someone chooses to share their work publicly, they can do so by assigning categories (main board or profile?). If possible, this could reduce the number of general submissions that do not meet the site’s criteria.
Though I’m very interested in street photography, I consider it the most challenging type and the hardest to understand. Given my current location, practicing it is also quite difficult. As for our skills, we all have to start somewhere; they don’t develop overnight, and it takes years of practice to develop a good eye. Most of us are still learning, and hopefully, people will improve over time, contributing better shots in the future.
So, I apologize for breaking the rules with my submissions. And for now, I will do a self-check, review my past entries, remove anything that doesn’t belong, and be more mindful of future submissions. Thanks again for allowing us to participate and share what we love to do.
I don’t think street photography is “dying” perse, it’s definitely over saturated with a lack of understanding composition and patience. Most what I see is either snapshot style run and gun (which I am accused doing as well early in my work) or they’re chasing the next “trend” such as the “cinematic” look. As for YouTube photographers they definitely have the added pressure of pumping out content, which results in chasing view counts instead of putting out great work. I used to watch Faizel’s videos often when he put out more thoughtful content about his work. Now it seems like him and the group of other bigger named photographers are constantly traveling to “photogenic” countries (Japan) where all their photos look similar with a similar color grade or preset. Where as the “greats” like Henri, Herzog, Haas, Vivian etc they photographed the same streets/neighborhoods over and over and over again always finding something different or new that catches their eye. Maybe that’s what is missing? The patience to photograph a street corner a 100 different times in a 100 different ways instead of bouncing from one thing to the next. That’s just my opinion, I could be totally missing mark.
I don’t know if it is dying, and to be very blunt, i do not care that much. I’m one of those that jumped to street photography during covid. Lock downs in my country (Chile) were a thing, had to ask for permission to go to work, no gatherings, no funerals, no nothing. So yeah, i’m super “new” to this world.
I also know about the great names of this art and their work and, yes, most of us newcomers are nowhere near because our time is different to the times and struggles of our icons. Let’s say, if i have the time and resources to go to a more “photogenic” country (Japan, Taiwan, S.K., etc. you name it) i will do it, since overthere i can walk at 3 am in the morning without getting rob. Good luck with that down here in South America.
So yeah, we are in a very weird moment i think, but as everything, some people will stay for the love of it, others will just go away.
have a great day everybody
Most of the street photography is just photography with no substance. Proper street phtotographers are still creating work of the highest class but obviously they are not YouTuber — so you don’t hear to see their work that often. I think, most of the YouTuber taking snapshots on the street think its street photography and due to their higher number of followers they get stuck in that bubble and thus don’t give proper attention to their work to improve.