All About Photo - Street Photography Contest Call for Entries

• All About Photo

• Deadline: September 30th, 2025

• Category: Street Photography

• Prize: $1,000 + Publication + Exposure

• Entry Fees: Yes

• REGISTRATION: CLICK HERE

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, street photography is defined as “a genre that records everyday life in a public place.” While the definition is concise, the practice itself is expansive, dynamic, and deeply tied to human experience. From the very inception of the medium, photographers have been drawn to the vitality of public spaces. Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre’s 1838 daguerreotype, View of the Boulevard du Temple, is one of the earliest surviving images of a city street, foreshadowing the genre’s enduring fascination with capturing the rhythm of urban life.

The growing accessibility of photographic equipment in the 19th and 20th centuries allowed practitioners to explore their surroundings with increasing freedom. Figures like Charles Nègre and Eugène Atget documented Paris with sensitivity and precision, while Alfred Stieglitz and André Kertész emphasized the artistry of spontaneous encounters. Later, Berenice Abbott chronicled New York’s transformation, Henri Cartier-Bresson introduced the concept of the “decisive moment,” and Brassaï revealed the allure of nightlife. In America, Walker Evans and Robert Frank created powerful narratives of social identity, Diane Arbus challenged notions of normality, and photographers such as Vivian Maier, Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander, and William Eggleston brought fresh perspectives that continue to inspire today’s practitioners.

In the present day, street photography thrives not only in galleries and books but also across digital platforms and social media, where it resonates with global audiences. It serves both as an art form and as a collective memory bank, recording gestures, fashions, interactions, and emotions that might otherwise pass unnoticed. More than simple documentation, it is a way of interpreting the world—of revealing the beauty, complexity, and humanity embedded in the everyday. Street photography, in this sense, is both a mirror of society and a timeless dialogue between observer and subject.