A WEBSITE DEDICATED TO THE ART OF CANDID STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

Humanist and Social Photography by Alex Zafer

What exactly is a flâneur?

It comes from the French noun un flâneur [ahn flah-NUR]—EMBLEMATIC OF  19TH CENTURY FRENCH LITERARY CULTURE it means the stroller, the passionate wanderer, observer of the city.

The most notable application of flâneur to street photography probably comes from Susan Sontag in her 1977 essay, "On Photography". She describes how, since the development of hand-held cameras in the early 20th century, the camera has become the tool of the flâneur:

"The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitering, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes. Adept of the joys of watching, connoisseur of empathy, the flâneur finds the world ‘picturesque."