The Basics of Street Photography
A guide for new photographers
By Chandra L. Pinto Martinez
The essence of street photography is to go to untraveled, never before filmed, scenic, beautiful, and sometimes tragic places. Basically, street photography is whatever you deem to be worthy to be captured on film. Beauty is all around us just waiting for a fresh eye to capture its energy to display for the entire world to see.
In this article you will learn the basics of street photography and the importance of preparation. Let’s take a journey together in your pursuit of capturing those very special, empowering, impactful, and unique moments that you will be able to showcase to the world.
- Plan, Plan, Plan
Advanced planning is a street photographers friend! Just as if you are on vacation in an unfamiliar city, you have to plan a route that will guide you on all the scenes you want to capture. Decide the area of town you want to capture and then take the time to go out and scout that area in advance. Making note of what interests you, intrigues you, grasps your attention. Is it a unusual looking building, or perhaps an eclectic population of people in that particular area, or maybe even an amazing view in an open field. Whatever it is make note of it, name the location, address, and give it a description. This will help you come up with a title for your peace and explain in a short description what the piece is all about.
2. The Preparation
You have to always stay prepared! Make sure your camera battery is full, and if possible bring back up batteries. I have three just in case, because you never know how long you will be out. Make sure your camera lens is clean! Nothing worse than looking through the view window of your camera getting ready to capture the perfect shot, only to be ruined by smudge of the lens. So clean it the night before. Make sure you have extra memory! You will want to take as many frames as possible, to do this requires a lot of memory. Invest in several memory disks if you plan on becoming a serious street photographer, you are going to need it.
3. Become a camera junkie
Take your camera everywhere you go! You never know what opportunity will present itself to you. No matter if you are working, on vacation, plan, train, or automobile, keep your camera on your person! I have a mini backpack that I carry around with me, and I use it mostly for personal items like my wallet, lip gloss, notebook (yes a notebook because I am constantly sketching and taking notes on possible subject matters, refer back to point 1), etc. It is big enough to carry my camera body and two extra lenses, and small enough to not cause to much attention to be drawn to it.
4. Which camera mode to use for street photography
In most situations, the Auto mode is very reliable to use, but I prefer to shoot in Manual mode so that I have the ability to change as I go. Be creative! Don’t worry so much about the perfect angle, or the perfect frame size. Instead focus on letting your creative juices flow, you may be presently surprised to what you produce. The great thing about using digital is that you can review exposures immediately and adjust accordingly.
5. What type of lens to use for street photography
A short, wide lens is best for traditional street photography. The use of a long lens genially tends to isolate a subject from its environment, unless that is the look you are going for. Remember there is no right or wrong way of doing street photography, it’s all about the vision of the photographer and the subject matter you want to encapsulate. For a wider more intimate viewpoint, the use of lenses between 28mm and 50mm is best.
6. Appearance
Generally speaking, when doing any type pf photography, dark clothing and comfortable footwear is the rule of thumb. Dark clothing so that you don’t stand out in a crowd, you don’t appear flashy, and let’s face it, black, no matter the style of clothing, always seems more professional and stays clean longer than most colors. Now you don’t have to look like dark vador or anything like that, but a dark top and denim jeans will easily do the trick. Comfortable shoes are important no matter the work environment, but especially in street photography, which requires walking long distances and staying on your feet for hours at a time.
7. When NOT to take photos on the street
First you have to ask yourself a few questions in order to know when not to use your camera.
1. Is the image worth taking?
2. Are you disturbing the scene?
3. Can the image cause more harm than good?
4. Can the image put you in undo harm and/or danger?
5. Are you (although unintentional) aggravating people in your scene?
If the answer is yes to any of these question, walk away. It is not worth going through the potential drama of an argument, the hassle of a crime that could be in progress, or putting yourself in harmful situations just to capture one shot. Believe me, there will be plenty of opportunities to capture all the frames you want. So it is best to just walk away.
8. Street photography and the law
So depending on what you will be doing with the images, trying to gain permission from every potential person who could possibly be the subject matter in which you are shooting is not only highly unlikely, it is impossible. If the images are for your personal portfolio, or art show, then you should be fine, if you are selling it, however, to a stock agency, that is another story and you might want to look into the legal ramifications of that.
9. What to do when confronted
A smile goes a long way! When people spot you taking a picture of them, and inevitably they will, smile! A smile goes a long way, it shows a gesture of kindness and opens people up to dialogue. You never know what someone it thinking or going through. Try avoidance, you know that look where you think someone is looking at you but you are unsure. Just pretend you are looking in a different direction, this will cause uncertainty, and more than likely they will just chuck it up to no big deal and just go on by their merry way.
10. Learn from street photography books and photography websites.
The best teacher is life experience, but you can always use that extra input from someone who has longer life experience that you do. There are vast resources out there, many of them free, that are for photographers by photographers.
11. Learn to work fast
Don’t focus on the frame, focus on the view in the moment. This is where taking several shots will become an asset. You can always look through them later on your laptop, you will be amazed at what you see.
12. The best time for street photography
The early mornings and late evenings are particularly nice times to shoot, especially in the summer months because the natural light, either highlight or lowlight, is conducive to better looking images.
13. Where to shoot from in street photography
Depending on what you are shooting, you would want to get as close to the subject you are capturing without causing a disturbance to the natural scene. If your goal is to capture several subjects in one frame, distance is your friend.
14. Street photography in crowded places
You want to be in a crowd, not stand out in one. The busier the better, this will give you more options to get the desired look you are aiming for. Have fun with it, but remain focused! You don’t want your street outing to turn into an evening out on the town.
15. Portability
Any small portable camera is suitable for street photography. No matter if you choose a fixed lens, a kit camera, or a top of the line digital camera, one thing is clear, it is not necessarily the camera type or brand, but more so your ability to see the potential in every moment and the fortitude to capture that moment as it is happening at just the right second.
Street photography can be exciting, adventurous, and fun! Remember to take your time, let your creativity flow, don’t be afraid to capture sensitive moments, and always be prepared!
