Trying to Make a Simple Portrait

I love my Granddaughters! I really do! Sometimes though it's a mission to try and make a simple portrait. On our way back from picking them up at Cape Town airport we stopped at Primi Piatti, a restaurant chain that you cannot really go wrong with. The stairs leading up had a beautiful brick wall to use as a backdrop for some nice quick portraits. So I thought. LOL! After many tries struggling with flipping hair and "two fingered puckered posers" and "duck faces". And, "my hair is not right." I finally got one image that I really like. The one you like is up to you so I posted them all.

Is it Street Photography?

Last evening I attended a meeting of the Miami Street Photography Group. There were quite a few people and the discussion was interesting and disturbing at the same time. There was an expectation in the group that street photography must be pure as shot with no manipulation, cropping, or the appearance of Street Portraits. While I appreciate the group and is possibly the best photo group in Miami, I fundamentally disagree with the premise. We are in an era where we are the photographer, and the lab all in one. I know based in my photographic education that great street photographers such as Walker Evans, Margaret Bourke White, and Robert Frank cropped and manipulated images albeit in a darkroom to refine the vision they had for the final product when the actually made the image. Technically, based on the discussion last night the aforementioned masters would mistakenly not be classified as Street Photographers because of the environmental portraiture below. I walk down the street or visit public places, and I make images. That is the only reason I need to call myself a Street Photographed.