The right balance
It's difficult to say, but three equal parts might be fine. I would say that processing is not that important to me. I spend probably 40% of my time shooting, 10% of my time processing and 50% of my time sharing and marketing my photos. Sure this is different for every street photographer. The important thing is that you should think about it, especially if your day does not have enough hours. Then you should focus on the area which is most important.
Don't forget the fun factor as every area should be at least some fun. If you don't like something, you may not spend too much time doing it. The down-side of this is that you may not be as good as you should in that area. There might be room for improvement to equally balance your photography time.
Conclusion
The day has 24 hours and we have to deal with this fact individually. In order to balance your time and tasks in street photography, you should think about everything. It might be better you shoot only 1 hour than the whole afternoon and process the photos right afterwards. If you don't process right away, the photos might get forgotten. Try to shoot, process and share within 24 hours.
Then the job of the day is done and you can delete the remaining photos.
Your mind will be free for the next day of shooting in the streets. I know that I also have some unexposed exposures on my computer which I should sort out and process. I’m not perfect in this manner as well, but I’m working on it.
The Future
How long will it take…?
I’m wondering quite often, how long it will take until street photography gets forbidden. There are many people who tell me, that in their country people are quite aggressive towards people with cameras in public places. There are not many laws which cover street photography yet. With the growing amount of digital cameras the crowd will shout for a law to protect their privacy. I’m not sure, if this will happen and how this will affect street photography as a culture. We should take our chances today to ensure we can more or less legally take our street photos. We don’t know how the situation will look in 5
years.
What about the future…?
How will street photography look like in the future? I guess that there will be a lot of people doing it, as there are already so many. I also think that it will get more difficult to take photos of people, the more street photographers that are out in the streets. Cameras will get smaller, faster and more intelligent.
This will not really affect the scene. There will always be different styles, different opinions, a lot of resistance because of privacy issues and a lot of discussions. The basics of photography will remain the same. It is what people do out of it and how they develop their own styles. This is the only thing which could change the whole scene completely. Maybe we will see more photos in color or there will be new styles developed, which could affect street photography as a whole.
What you can do…?
We have it in our hands what will happen to street photography in the future.
I know that I’m not the person with the biggest respect concerning other people. But we should still try not to kill this kind of photography by stalking people in public with our cameras. We should be discrete about taking photos and not step too deep into people’s privacy. Although there is already a kind of scene out there, we should stand closer together and keep sharing our thoughts and comments about this style of photography.
May this last forever…
I cannot think about a life without street photography. I hope this will still be possible for many years without problems, laws or other restrictions. Let us work together to fight for our rights as street photographers to document ordinary life in public. Together we are stronger and together our voices are heard. Let’s stand up to ensure that we can still do what we do today in many years from now.
"Street photography is art and if art
is a crime, please God, forgive me."
Thomas Leuthard
Thank you
Dear Community
This is the page to thank all of you for your support. This book would not be possible without you. You, who encouraged me writing, sharing, discussing, meeting all over the Internet and in the physical world. Although I do not know most of you, it was a pleasure sharing my thoughts with you. Maybe you can share some knowledge with others as well and “Pay it forward” in another way. As already mentioned at the beginning, I do not write this book for the sake of money, but for the sake of sharing. I like to share my knowledge and I am happy when you will become a better street photographer after reading this book. If you like this book, share it with other photographers, tell it to your friends and provide feedback to me. Do not forget to go out to “trans-form” the knowledge into your photography. Feel free to keep in touch through the different platforms below and drop me a line, if you are in Switzerland. I hope I can meet some of you one day somewhere in the streets of this world to shoot together. Thanks for reading till the end. This was not the only book; there is already a second one in progress. Stay tuned…
Thomas Leuthard
Copyright © 2011 by Thomas Leuthard
All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher ([email protected]).
Published on July 26, 2011 on http://book.85mm.ch
Going C
An uno a
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ox appr d
oach toi
Str d
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otography
Table of Contents
Table of Content
Introduction
Equipment
It’s Prime Time
My Workflow
Learn to see
Have a Plan
About Light
Composition
Camera Settings
Decisive Moment
Perspective
Post Processing
Color or B&W
Grow your Balls
Going Candid…
Safer Shooting
3 Ways to Shoot
The Law
Legalize it
Ethics
Rocking Flickr
Flickr Explore
Marketing
Copy is right
Your own Style
Some Excuses
Traveling
The Best Time
New Places
Balancing
The Future
Going Candid... Page 7