Flâneurs-Photographers and Visual Flânerie: Fundamentals of Street Photography

Abstract

This theoretical and descriptive essay presents a reflection on street photography, examining its practices and artists through the concepts of the “flâneur” and “flânerie”, initially discussed by Charles Baudelaire and further developed by Walter Benjamin (1969/1989). The essay is structured into three parts: the first introduces the concepts of “flâneur” and “flânerie” within the epistemological framework of the German philosopher, inscribed in studies on literature, exploring how street photography can be understood as a form of “photographic flânerie”. In the second part, we examine how the principles of photographic flânerie shape a diverse record of the public spaces of cities and their inhabitants. The photographic flânerie reflects on technological advances in photographic equipment, the emergence of security and electronic monitoring in public spaces, spatial transformations driven by economic shifts in urban environments, and the varied forms of sociability associated with places and non-places. In the final part, we explore the nature of the street photography registry, arguing that it is shaped not solely by chance but also by the concept of serendipity.