The Allure of Street Photography
Street photography is probably in the bones of all photographers. In a sense it is the most accessible type of photography for any of us. We can literally just walk out of the house or flat and be on the streets.
Having said that, its also the one genre of photography that makes us stop, and think… ah but what if I have a confrontation with someone, and is it legal to post images of every type of person or place I see? What permissions do I need?
I would also argue that Street photography is the most challenging type of photography there is for getting consistently good images, unless you compare it to ice climbing or severe mountaineering, of course.
In the street very few people stand still, pose, or hold the ‘moment’ for you to take your shot. The street is chaotic, ever moving and not everybody is up for that possible confrontation.
“I’m known for taking pictures very close, and the older I get, the closer I get.”
So what a number of participants in our workshops have learned is that there is no unifying definition of Street photography and each of us can photograph the streets how we want to, how we feel comfortable doing it.
Our beginner to intermediate workshops take an approach to show our participants that they can ‘capture moments’, ‘tell stories’ and / or create ‘fine art’ street images, each being approached in different ways with different mind sets, and with different levels of interactions with people. You can move in the direction of Saul Leiter rather than Bruce Gilden, but which ever way you go, here are two quotes from Bruce Gilden that sums up how we might reconsider our approach to photography…
“…some people use me as an influence. That’s fine, but you’d better be strong enough to overcome my influence, otherwise, all you’re going to be is a second-rate Bruce Gilden.”
The above quote alludes to doing your own thing and not trying to be someone else, but I do believe that imitation is a fabulous way to learn any form of photography.
“[You have to] dig deep into yourself, try to see who you are, what your interests are; and then go out and try and photograph that. Try to express yourself through your photography.”
Imitation as part of learning is a strong approach, however, developing the ability of personal expression is even more important. So we want to layer these two things by practicing and improving, by getting techniques and approaches in our ‘locker’, and in parallel learning how to express ourselves in our photography.
See my articles on Personal Expression in photography.
Below are three galleries of images that example the three approaches we have broken street photography down to, take a look, the images are accompanied with tips & comments.
