Listener supported WNYC Studios.

Ryan Lairer on WNYC Studios. And now let's continue our Centennial series as WNYC, and now let's continue our centennial series, as WNYC has recently turned 100.

It's 100 years of 100 things.

We're up to thing number 87, and today it's 100 years of street photography.

Maybe you've seen the ads that camera maker, LICA, has been running, celebrating the fact that

its handheld 35 millimeter camera changed photography and made what we think of as street

photography possible back in 1925. To talk about how street photography developed and where it's

headed, we're joined by Sam Barzill,

the creative director and co-founder of Photoville, the New York-based nonprofit,

working to promote a wider understanding and increased access to the art of photography for

all with their exhibits. More on that later, you might recognize Photoville, as our partner

in our annual Best Photography on

your phone contest that we do at the end of each year. Hey Sam, welcome back to the show. Welcome

back to WNYC. Thanks, Brian. So good to be here. Thanks for having me. So what was photography like

before the LICA gained popularity 100 years ago in 1925?

Well, if you have to imagine, like right now we think of cameras, we think of phones,

we think of handhelds, maybe a DSLR, like a camera you're like dad has or I have.

But before that, you were looking at large cameras on tripods, you know, glass negatives, or, you know, maybe if you're a reporter,

you had a Graflex, which was like a two-handed large flashbulb sort of on top of it, like,

you know, a beast. It was like, you know, probably 35, 40 pounds. It had to hold it up,

take a photo, you know, switch bulb, take another photo. It was a slog. The average person

wasn't going to go out taking photos. Yeah. Yeah. And so street photography, that term, differs from documentary photography and that it's

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