Start without a camera
If you want to start doing street photography, start using your eyes instead of your camera. Go out with a virtual frame and start virtually framing things instead of shooting them with your camera. There is plenty of time taking photos afterwards, but first you have to learn to see. The hardest thing is to see the interesting things on the street.
Train every day
You can do this exercise every day on your way to work. Look around and start framing situations, thinking about titles, looking for opportunities. There are so many situations in everyday life that you could take a lot of photos. It’s not about taking them at that time, but it’s about recognizing the beauty of life in public. Look what people do, how they act, what they wear. I love to look at humans in the wild. They are so interesting and I guess this interest makes me take their photos over and over again. It’s this interest, this hunger about humanity which should drive you. Your interest should be in the life of ordinary people, not in photography as such. This makes the difference between an ordinary photographer and a street photographer. A street photographer is a journalist of the everyday life. He captures the interesting aspects of the ordinary life in public.
"If you don’t see it, you cannot capture it.” - Thomas Leuthard
Have a Plan
Knowing what to look for
How would your eye be able to focus on something, when it doesn't know what you are looking for? The first thing on every street tour is a solid plan, what you want to focus on today. This can either be a "Color", a certain item like "Bags", a body part like "Feet" or a kind of composition or light situation (e.g. "Backlight").
Getting ideas
With this information on
your mind you will walk
differently through the
streets and you will ob-
viously look differently
at the things you will
see. You can look at
other people's photos or
at fashion magazines to
get ideas about your
project. You may just
stand around in the
streets and look at peo-
ple to get an idea, what
you would cover in your
next project.
Be different
There can be simple ideas or there can be different ones. If you want to make your photos more interesting, you may think out of the box. You should try to be as creative, different and crazy as possible. Here’s some out of the box in-put. Have you ever shot…
…a dog while it was peeing?
…a dog straight into its face with a flash?
…people’s portraits while they were eating?
…rushing people at a railway station?
…hands doing different things?
…weird leg positions?
These are some examples to activate your brain on finding your next topic.
You should not do the things others have done already. Find your own ideas, start small and get bigger over time. There are so many ideas out there.
Make a list
It helps to make a short list with criteria which you have to stick to. This would be a short concept of boundaries which you have to follow for every photo you take. It will make your selection of motives much easier. Such a list could look like this:
Shoes
Interesting ones only
Standing people only
Camera on the floor
From the back
Close
Don't ask
50mm
Open Aperture (e.g. f/2.8)
Square
Color
A series of 10 photos
With this list in your pocket you go out. You will only focus on interesting shoes. You will look where people stand, you will try to figure out, how to get a shot without being noticed. You will figure out which settings are the best.
Especially the autofocus might be hard to control, if you don't want to lie on the floor looking through the viewfinder.
Lean equipment
When you have a solid plan, you know what you want to shoot and then you also know which lens you will need to carry with you. I often see people walking around with big bags in the streets. This should not be the case. You just need one camera and one lens as you have one project you want to shoot. It’s very important that you don’t carry a lot of equipment with you. When I shoot candid portraits, I use my Nikon with a 50mm. When I shoot other kinds of street photos, I use my Lumix GF1 with a 20mm lens.
About Light
Photography would not exist without light. It is all about light, although in the streets you don't have much choice to steer light. You can still prepare a lot, not to make any mistakes. First of all you choose the right daytime before you go out to shoot. Here is some advice on light situations (morning and evening sun is much softer):
Sunny (difficult)
Although everyone likes sunshine, in street photography sunshine is very difficult. Especially when you want to shoot portraits, it’s too bright in the direct sun. You will see hard shadows on the person’s face which is not nice. When there is direct sunshine you may shoot silhouettes or shadows, but no portraits. You can play a lot with shadows…
Rainy (not nice)
People don't like rain and photog-
raphers would not go out as the
camera could get wet. On a rainy
day people will not take so much
attention to their environment as
they normally do. They are busy
not getting wet. And the harder
the rain the better it might look.
The only problem might be not
getting wet and that you will have
enough light. Increase your ISO
value to compensate low light. But
definitely give it a try in the rain...
Cloudy / Foggy (perfect)
I love it when it's cloudy or foggy. Then the fog or the clouds act like a big soft box and the light is much softer than at full sunshine. You don't have to both-er too much about where the sun is coming from. So you can focus directly on your objects you want to shoot. To start as a beginner in street photography you should choose cloudy days to practice. It will be so much easier and you will get better photos.
Night (special)
Some people might say that at night you cannot shoot. That's not true. In cities there is a lot of light pollution, meaning too much light; it will not get dark during the night anymore. On Time Square you could read a newspaper in the middle of the night. Use this problem as an advantage and go out at night.
Look where the light comes from and use it in your composition. You may use a tripod not to shake your camera too much. Make shots of still objects or compose with motion blur. It’s a completely different experience to shoot at night.
Correct light situation
Be sure that you are not taking your photos in wrong light situations. Always know where the light comes from before you take the shot.
If you want to see faces, have the light in your back (Portrait).
If you want to see forms, have the light in your front (Silhouette).
Light is always there, play with it, use it, include it into your photo. The better you understand light, the better your photos will get.
Tripod or not?
Increase your ISO value to compensate low light (or use a tripod). In the streets a tripod may not be handy, except for motion blurred shots or long time exposures. Find a way to put your camera on a solid surface to prevent using a tripod.
Conclusion
Try out different light situations in order to learn how it works and where the difficulties are. The more you know about light, the better you get and more convenient you feel. You should go out at different times of the day to get an impression of the different light situations. It's important to understand l
ight, as without it, there would be no photography...
Composition
The one and only thing
For me composition is the only thing to make an interesting photo. Many people think they can make a difference by knowing their camera, making manual settings or knowing all the old masters of photography. The only thing for a good photo is composition. There is so much you can achieve.
I like it on the floor…
A lot of photographers don’t
really think about their cam-
era position at all. They shoot
from their normal eye level,
which is what we see every
day. This everyday view
makes a photo boring. While a
new point of view can spice
up your photos, without a big
effort. Just go on your knees
or put your camera on the
floor. This already helps in
certain situations to get an in-
teresting view on something
average. To shoot children or
dogs you have to go down an-
yway. You should even try it
from the lowest position pos-
sible: the floor. You will see an
interesting difference. The
same you can say for the
bird’s perspective. The only
problem is that this is much
harder to get.
Depth of field
With a fast lens you can play around with the DOF (depth of field). This helps you to blur the background in a portrait or point the eye to a certain area on the photo. Although I normally say that the camera is not that important, a good lens with an open aperture can help you making good photos. Already a cheap 50mm f/1.8 would be a very good choice. You will be able to do a lot of things with such a 50mm lens on the street. This would be a good investment.
Internalize it
You cannot know enough about composition. For me this is a topic I cannot get enough of. I always try to internalize it. On the street you often don’t have the time to think about composition. You just have to press the shutter button within a fraction of a second. If you have not internalized the whole composition topic, you will miss it. You may center your object too much, cut off the feet or miss some other important aspect of a good photo.
Conclusion
You can make an interesting photo from a boring subject, but you can also make a boring photo from an interesting subject.
Camera Settings
Forget about it
Too many people think a good photo has something to do with manual camera settings. The settings are not really relevant to a good photo. Today’s cameras are good enough to set everything themselves. So why not try focusing on the composition and leave the camera working on the exposure. You will not lose anything, when you set your camera into P mode.
Trust your camera
At the beginning you may have difficulties to keep track of all the things you have to do while taking a photo. Why not trust your camera and not think about the settings. There are still enough things you have to consider before you can press the shutter release button. You will learn enough about exposure after a certain time.
Use Mode P
If you are a beginner, don’t think you are a better photographer, when you shoot in manual mode. At the beginning you should just use the P mode and you are more than fine. On my Lumix GF1 I don’t use anything else than the P
mode. It works great and I don’t have to think about anything. Don’t think that you are a worse photographer by using the P mode. It’s not the settings which make you a good photographer.
Use Mode A
After a certain time you may have your camera under a certain control and can move over to the A mode. The aperture priority mode I use very often and it is useful to steer the level of depth of field of your photo. For my candid portraits I always use Mode A with an aperture of f/4 while the camera sets the shutter speed.
Use Mode S
The shutter priority mode I only use when I want to create motion blurred shots. When someone is walking by an interesting background, I can motion blur him. I use a shutter speed of about 1/20 for a walking person. You have to use a tripod or have to ensure that you don’t shake your camera.
The right exposure
I think it’s more important to get the right exposure on your shots than the mode you are using. Some lenses are brighter than others. I normally use matrix measuring with an exposure correction of -0.7EV on my Nikon with my 50mm lens. This is something you have to try out and get comfortable with. I don’t think you have enough time to change your settings during a shot. You have to know upfront what is working best in most of the cases.
Talking about ISO
ISO is a difficult thing. Especially on crop factor cameras. You should know how high you can go, not to get too much grain in the photo. This is different on every camera and I try to stay away from higher ISO values. For me the limit is at ISO 800. I don’t go higher except when I really have to get that shot.
Decisive Moment
The right moment
Before you can press the shutter release button, there must be the right moment. At the beginning, this might be a bit difficult to judge, but after a certain time you will know it by heart. You build a certain instinct when you should take a shot. It’s all about practicing and experience.
Shoot a series
You may take a series of photos in order to get the decisive moment. At least at the beginning you may not be sure when it’s the right moment. Then you keep shooting and decide on your computer which photo is the best. In the digital age this is not an issue anymore.
Get experienced
The more you shoot in the streets, the more experience you get. From my personal experience I can say that you will build the right sense for the right moment. You will start seeing things before they will happen. You will know when it’s time to press the shutter release button.
It’s not always luck
Some people say that it’s all just luck. Sure there is also luck when you shoot in the streets. But I think that luck comes with good preparation. Sometimes I see things while processing a photo which I have not seen while taking the shot. In the end it’s important what is on your photo and not if you have all seen and composed yourself. I even think that the subconscious mind is also working for you while shooting in the streets.
“Luck is what happens when
preparation meets opportunity.”
Seneca
Perspective
You can make a difference…
When you want to make a difference and taking you off the crowd, you have to choose a different perspective. We as human beings are seeing our life on about 1.70m (depending on your body size). This is a fact. Everything which we see from this perspective is common and therefore boring, not that interesting. This is reason enough to change your point of view (POV). There are only two ways of changing your POV. You can go either higher (like a bird) or lower (like a frog). Since going higher is more difficult than going lower, I take more shots from the floor. From the floor is very simple and the effect you get is interesting and unique. You can shoot nearly everything from the floor.
Get down to the floor
I love shooting from the floor. Especially nice shoes or dogs look much more interesting when you are on "eye level" with them. It's all about perspective. I like it especially, when you see ordinary things from an extraordinary perspective. You should try it out and crab on the floor for a whole afternoon. You will see that the world looks completely different. You can also just place your camera flatly on the ground; you don't have to look through the viewfinder.
The only problem is the auto focus, which sometimes focuses on the background instead of the object. But often you can still use your viewfinder. It depends on your effort.
Make a series…
Try to make your next shot mo
re interesting by changing your point of view.
You will see that your photos will look differently. Make a whole series with floor shots and you will love this perspective, I can tell you. It must not be only shoes, but also dogs, legs or whatever you see, crabbing on the floor…
Post Processing
Forget about Photoshop
A lot of photographers think that they need Adobe Photoshop to really be a good photographer. Sure it’s the best tool to process your photos on the market. It is also the most expensive and most complex one. In street photography post processing is not as important as in beauty or fashion photography. You will not be a better photographer using Adobe Photoshop. I remember a comment from Siegfried Hansen (one of the best street photographers in Europe) in a forum that he is using a 10 year old version of Adobe Photoshop Elements to process his photos. And even there, he uses some automated processes only. He works with his excellent eye and the rest is not relevant to him. Very interesting to see…
The least amount of time
In my opinion you should spend the least amount of time possible in front of your processing software. This time is wasted as there is only a small amount of improvement you can achieve on your photos with processing. Or in other words the main tasks of this process should be automated. Another thing is to ensure that you use the same style of processing to get your own style. I don’t have a style at the moment to be honest. I change from B&W to color and vice versa.
What is the best tool?
There is no best tool in processing. The best for me is a tool which helps me automating and which also can be used to organize my photos. I use Apple Aperture in the latest version for that. It’s about the same as Adobe Light-room. There I can organize my “keepers” and sort them by the city they were taken in. I always remember the city, when I look at a photo. For me this is the best solution and I use Photoshop very seldom, but not for my street photos.
Going Candid... Page 2