‘Oh wow nice hat! I think we should encourage more people to wear hats again…’ that’s what lead to this photo.
The phrase ‘take a photo’ could not be more apt, what we do when we take a picture of someone is very personal because we are literally taking a part of their lives and preserving it, and suddenly its no longer their own, it’s shared to the you, the photographer, who in turn may share it with others.
Street photography is like that; it captures the interesting in the mundane in order to share the wonderment of life. We therefore have to be sensitive about our approach, the polite thing to do is to take an interest in the lives of our subjects and engage with them, it often brings out the best of people when you form a bond, no matter how fleeting it may be.
We often say rules are meant to be bent or broken, however there is one hard and fast rule to street photography, and that’s don’t use a long lens and snipe from a mile away, if you do that you may as well put on some dark glasses and a mackintosh.
If you go up to someone and say ‘hi, how are you,’ you won’t stand out, and chances are you’ll just get a throwaway comment in response. The trick is to put the onus on the person you want to shoot, casually compliment them on what has caught your eye, they will feel it rude not to respond, which gives you an opportunity to start talking.
Even if your camera isn’t a wallflower when somebody is at ease with you, they are more likely to be at ease with the camera, the result will be able to capture your subjects behaving more naturally and candidly.
It could be said, perhaps slightly unpleasantly, street photographer requires you to be a bit flirty if you wish to get the best from your subjects.
The phrase ‘take a photo’ could not be more apt, what we do when we take a picture of someone is very personal because we are literally taking a part of their lives and preserving it, and suddenly its no longer their own, it’s shared to the you, the photographer, who in turn may share it with others.
Street photography is like that; it captures the interesting in the mundane in order to share the wonderment of life. We therefore have to be sensitive about our approach, the polite thing to do is to take an interest in the lives of our subjects and engage with them, it often brings out the best of people when you form a bond, no matter how fleeting it may be.
Above: There can be remarkable diversity in places such as the Southbank in London
Above: Photos like this make me feel as if one is spying on them
We often say rules are meant to be bent or broken, however there is one hard and fast rule to street photography, and that’s don’t use a long lens and snipe from a mile away, if you do that you may as well put on some dark glasses and a mackintosh.
Above: The guy with teaspoon spectacles
If you go up to someone and say ‘hi, how are you,’ you won’t stand out, and chances are you’ll just get a throwaway comment in response. The trick is to put the onus on the person you want to shoot, casually compliment them on what has caught your eye, they will feel it rude not to respond, which gives you an opportunity to start talking.
Even if your camera isn’t a wallflower when somebody is at ease with you, they are more likely to be at ease with the camera, the result will be able to capture your subjects behaving more naturally and candidly.
It could be said, perhaps slightly unpleasantly, street photographer requires you to be a bit flirty if you wish to get the best from your subjects.
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