Being a street photographer.

The Pigeon Girls

These two girls were more than happy for me to take their picture, which made it a whole lot easier..

Some time ago i took a break from photography. I felt that i had lost all enthusiasm, it was becoming more difficult to do the style of photography i enjoyed for a number of reasons (lack of money mostly, either from hiring models, buying props and outfits, or travel and hotel costs for faraway landscape shoots). I ended up selling a lot of my equipment (including some gorgeous old film cameras and all of my lighting rigs).

Then, one day, while browsing Youtube, i watched a clip of someone taking the most unusual street pictures. At first i was taken aback by how awful they were. This person had a massive following and huge number of views, but the pictures they were showing seemed so, pointless and amateur. However, the person themselves, was engaging and very commited to the pictures they were taking. These were pictures of the most simple and ordinary things. You would call it street photography, but so much of it seemed to be a shadow on a wall, some grass, someone walking from a shop, sunlight through a window. And then, it clicked.

These pictures weren’t awful at all, they weren’t random and they weren’t pointless. The photographer was finding something interesting and beautiful in otherwise ordinary scenes. They were also very well taken, composed and edited.

Before long i found other people with similar themes, it opened a new world for me. I always had a love of abstract images, especially with my model shoots, where i admired photographers such as Guy Bourdin. For some reason though, i hadn’t thought to use those same ideas for other photography styles.

Saul Leiter was my initial fascination. I don’t think i shoot in a similar style, but i do try and draw inspiration from his incredible work. William Eggleston is another one i love for obvious reasons.

I still don’t think i know the name for this style of photography, and i admit i wander in and out of it, sometimes afraid to fully commit, and still looking for “the big subject” rather than seeing whats in front of me, but i am trying to improve.

This leads me to the topic of street photography. A lot of the style that i have now fallen into, does involve being out in public taking pictures of people. My preference is actually for people to be side on, or walking away from me, or otherwise not looking at me or directly in front of me, i just like that sort of look. However, i do also enjoy photographing people, and their look or expressions or just being engaged in their own lives, and sometimes you need to be pretty much standing in front of them. This, is a scary experience at first. When i did model photography for all those years, the subjects were there to be photographed, and took full part in it, out in the streets though, the people generally don’t want a camera stuck in their faces. There is always the danger that someone takes offence or gets angry.

Fortunately there have been no angry incidents so far. I have found that by being obvious and not trying to hide too much, people understand what you are doing. If i was sneaking around and being evasive, snapping a picture then running away, i suspect they would be far more suspicious and likely to wonder what i’m up to. And so, my technique is to have my camera in my hand, taking lots of pictures of everything around me, and when a person wanders into my view, it doesn’t seem unusual that they would also be in one of those pictures. If they look at me i smile, but quickly move to the next picture. It seems to work, so far.

Of course, a large amount of my current images don’t need people to be in them at all, or they only feature in the background. I enjoy both styles.

Hopefully i can improve and continue to enjoy my photography, certainly i am loving it for now and have so many ideas i want to try out. Please do feel free to get in touch with your own stories and thoughts.