Street photography translation

[e.gang]

Hi,
I'm looking for the right translation for " street photography"
On internet I find this :
Tōri no shashin
通りの写真
It should be the title of a book of photo I've made in Japan this summer
Any advice would be very nice as I wouldn't use a wrong sentence
thanks
Emmanuel

 

[Lothor]

Hi,
I'm looking for the right translation for " street photography"
On internet I find this :
Tōri no shashin
通りの写真
It should be the title of a book of photo I've made in Japan this summer
Any advice would be very nice as I wouldn't use a wrong sentence
thanks
Emmanuel

I think you can probably get a better translation than that. The translator has translated street in the sense of road, such as Oxford Street in London.
Maybe
町の写真 (machi no shashin). Machi means town, but is often used in the context of street, e.g., machikado = street corner.
Would 町の撮影 (machi no satsuei) = street photography be better? I more often see 撮影 in this context.
There are plenty of regular posters with better Japanese than me, so hopefully someone will be along in a while with a more definitive answer.

 

[e.gang]

Thanks
I’ve Made a first draft of the book cover
So I ´ll be waiting until I m 100% sure !

 

[joadbres]

Although it is long in terms of the number of characters, and may therefore be hard to fit on your book cover, the direct transliteration of the English term: ストリートフォトグラフィー conveys very well the types of pictures that you have taken.

If that title is too long and unwieldy for you, you could try something like 街角撮影 (machikado satsuei, "streetcorner photography"), which is a way to express the same idea without using words borrowed from English.

If you do a Google image search of the above two terms, I think you will see that the first is a better match, as the second tends to focus on pictures of fashionable young people. But it's still a good translation, I think.

 

[joadbres]

Follow-up:

I don't think that you need to put the Japanese title on your cover twice, but that is a style preference, and is up to you, of course.

 

[e.gang]

Great !
Thank you ! Sure its kind of repetitive but il like the vertical style
Maybe I could use both of your proposition ?
One on the box and the long sentence on the right ?

 

[Majestic]

No, that would be confusing. Also, as Lothor says, 通りの写真 is, "a picture of a road", however in this case 通り (tōri) is confusing because this particular form is often used as a conjugation of the verb 通る (to pass by) and is commonly found in compound verbs. So just out of the blue 通りの写真 doesn't make too much sense, and definitely doesn't convey the idea that you want it to convey. So forget about the auto-translation and go with Joadbres's suggestion;
ストリートフォトグラフィー

 

[joadbres]

If you write
ストリートフォトグラフィー
vertically on the cover, note that the dash-like characters (the 4th and 13th ones) should themselves be turned 90 degrees. The software you are using to design the cover should have a way to handle this automatically for you if Asian font support is installed. Alternately, you could first set it up correctly in a word-processing software which has Asian font support installed, and then copy and paste. You can always just manually cheat it, too, if nothing else is working.

 

[thomas]

Where can we see more of your street photography, Emmanuel?

 

[e.gang]

Great advice, thanks !
I’ll post a link of the book internet version here !
So you could have a look

 

[Toritoribe]

Other choices, not as a literal translation but as a natural Japanese, are;
街角の風景
or
街頭風景
(the focus is more on what you shot).

 

[e.gang]

HI Toritoribe
you write :
街頭風景
(the focus is more on what you shot).

But do you mean ?
街頭風景 + 撮影

I understand it's not easy to translate "Street photography" to another language !
It is true in french (my mother tongue) !
When you translate it to "photographie de rue", it means nothing except that's its a photo of a street !

 

[Toritoribe]

No, just 街角の風景 or 街頭風景. The words such like 撮影 or 写真 are usually not used for the Japanese title of photo book since it's obvious and therefore redundant. If I see a book of the title 街頭風景撮影, I would interpret that it's a book about how to take those kinds of photos.

 

[e.gang]

Dear friends of Jref
You can find here the link to see my book of pictures in Tokyo and Kyoto.
Thank you for your advices.
E.

Street Photography No1 by e-gang - Issuu

 

[Toritoribe]

Sorry, but the position of the line break is wrong. It should be;

ストリート
フォトグラフィー.

What you did is actually;

Stree
tphotography.

I, a native Japanese, don't feel "the original/elementary/primitive/primordial image of Japan" from photographs of streets, though.

 

[e.gang]

Oups yess
Thank you Toritoribe.

About the sentence : It is a reference to a book Called "Chronique Japonaise" (from N. Bouvier, swiss writer)
Which book has been translated to :
日本の原像を求めて

Chronique japonaise - Street Photography No1 by e-gang - Issuu

 

[johnnyG]

...

Chronique japonaise - Street Photography No1 by e-gang - Issuu
...

The last few shots there do look like street photography, but I can't really see what is called "the decisive moment" in most of them. To me, they look more like photos of streets.

Also, maybe just a technicality, but are you aware that:

In Japan permission, or at least signification of intent to photo and the absence of refusal, is needed both for photography and for publication of photos of recognisable people even in public places. 'Hidden photography' (kakushidori hidden, surreptitious photography) 'stolen photography' (nusumitori with no intention of getting permission) and "fast photography' (hayayori before permission and refusal can be given) are forbidden unless in the former permission is obtained from the subject immediately after taking the photo. People have rights to their images (shōzōken, droit de image). The law is especially strict when that which is taken, or the taking, is in any sense shameful. Exception is made for photos of famous people in public places and news photography by registered news media outlets where favour is given to the public right to know.[50]