I don’t blame you for not understanding it. Street photography has been beat and stretched so much in the last couple decades that what most people say or think street is isn’t what it was traditionally. It’s a victim of it’s own principles.

Traditionally, street was antithesis to the early days of photography when photography was taking direction from the painting world and it’s principles. The idea was to create order out of chaos. Put a frame around a moment as it unfolded. That chaos, only existed in that moment (the decisive moment) and could not be recreated.

The juxtaposition of people and their expressions, set against an unscripted backdrop of forms and signage, that sometimes balanced or counter balanced the overall scene made each frame unique. Good street photography is quite hard to achieve and without a deep understanding of how to analyze an image the complexity of it is often lost on people. Those that say it’s just a snapshot are missing what is really happening and need to look deeper.

Most of what is considered street today is not street in the traditional sense. Long lenses, set up shots, heavy post production, etc. Isn’t what street was ever about.

However, because street broke all the rules originally, I guess you could make an argument that what passes for street today is the evolution of that early revolt…

IMO you have to see good street photography first and get an idea of what it is supposed to be before looking at what it’s become to really make up your mind (and your own interpretation).

I would look at Henry Cartier Bresson, Gary Winogrand, Elliot Erwitt, Robert Frank, Walker Evans, Lee Friedlander, and Joel Meyerowitz.