10 Street Photography Advices
I was asked many times to offer tips about making street photography. With over 10 years of experience, I think I can recommend something to you.
I am going to give you some advices that maybe are considered dated by someone. I don’t care. I come from the old school. With pride. I started this thing called street photography when there was no digital. And I did it unconsciously, without having the definition of street photography in mind.
Street Photography is the most difficult and at the same time rewarding genre that exists. Don’t think about money, it feeds your brain and your soul. In difficult times like this that we are all going through, it reveals even more its therapeutic value. Street Photography, the real Street Photography I mean, is Zen meditation with a lot of traffic around.
To be a Street Photographer is an attitude, a state of mind, a way to live. It means to be deeply connected with the city, its streets, the people filling it.
Before to give you my 10 advices, let me share with you the leit motiv of Street Photography:
CONTENT
FORM
ENERGY
In my opinion when you don’t have these 3 elements you will not have a memorable photograph. I can’t think a good street photo without these 3 elements.
STREET PHOTOGRAPHY IS CENTRAL TO PHOTOGRAPHY (Joel Meyerowitz)
Street Photography is based on rhythm.
A Street Photographer needs to have a sense of rhythm to recognize photographic moments with dynamism and energy. This is a crucial point because it is thanks to this ability that we differ from other types of photographers: by sense of rhythm I mean a photographer who is really immersed in the street dimension and therefore, thanks to becoming a direct expression of the metropolitan environment, is able to read the situations immediately. Every street photographer is required to have an ability to preview a scene that will soon take place: the street photographer is the jazzman of photography because he works and creates with improvisation.
So here we go with the 10 advices based on my experience:
Study first
I am sorry, guys but I can see a lot of people who have not studied and don’t know photographers and this is very bad. How you pretend to say that your photos are good and not crappy if you don’t know that a certain image, much better than yours, was made 70 years before?
Erase the idea of a beautiful and perfect photograph from your mind
That is not what street photography is about, and it is the mistake that I see many people make. Most of the greatest street photos of the history are pretty far from the idea of perfection.
Avoid following too much what others are doing
If it is good to have a visual culture also of current photography, the point is to bring out your inner voice and show what you have and are. The social network and the groups can be positive to stay in touch and sharing ideas with other people but not good when they create visual approval.
Always experiment and close yourself in your comfort zone.
To become a good photographer, the attitude is to always keep yourself as one who is just starting out. Example: If you've never tried the flash on the street, buy one, give it a try.
Use a real camera, not a smartphone
I know perfectly that this advice will be seen by many as the classic thing said by a dinosaur. Again…I don’t care. To make real photography you need to use a real camera. Because there is a difference which is given by physics. And the laws of physics cannot be replaced by computational photography. I am sorry for the new dudes. And this brings us directly to point 6…
Experience with film photography
The best photography school? It is always the same: analog photography. It doesn’t matter if you use a point & shoot or a Leica. To be an aware photographer and grow up you have to experience with film.
Going full manual with your camera
Guys, this is straight from the heart. And I don't care that they recommend anything else. To take your photography to the next level you need to work in manual, trying to remove as many automatisms as possible. If you are not interested to make nerd photography like those geeks out of here, you have to control the things for real. I mean: manual exposure and manual focus. Because Aperture priority is a compromise. And also AF is. If I want to control the focus point and offering several planes within one image, I need to go with the zone focusing technique.
Kill the idea of heavy editing
Despite I can appreciate some photos of celebrated street photographers worldwide I can't share their taste with editing their images. When I see a photo excessively retouched I think back to the words of Ernesto Bazan who told me that when post production clearly emerges it is because there is a sort of photographic insecurity on the part of the photographer regarding the images. In add to this I think that is also a matter of bast taste. And maybe digital corrupted many gazes to the point that they don't know look at a natural photograph. In fact I tend also to make a distinction between a photograph and an image. I don't like the term image, image could be also a graphic digital creation. A photograph is a photo if you know what I mean. When I see a post production making a photo a cartoon or a posterized image I don't enjoy it really.
Fill the frame
Yes, I know that many suggest the idea of get close! But believe me that is not the point. You can have the guts to getting close to your subjects and still making a boring photo. Street Photography is not just about getting close, despite someone started to think this because all the time in the last years that is the message. We the street photographers usually work with focal ranges going from 28mm to 35mm and yes, you have to get close many times to fill the frame to tell your story, but…go to see the work of Lee Friedlander, Garry Winogrand and Joel Meyerowitz: they showed so they showed us how to fill the frame with wide shots, perhaps meeting harmony and rhythm and meeting order in chaos.
Enough of the old town
Are you a photographer or a tourist? Certainly the center of a city can give you many opportunities and it is a pleasure to photograph there. A pleasure that not even I give up. but a city is also its suburbia. And yes, there may be greater risks, but you won't be afraid, are you? And remember that a city for a street photographer is a pulsating body, which offers countless opportunities and cannot be limited to a few blocks of downtown.
As a Street Photographer who is always on the street taking pictures, every damn day, I photograph everywhere. All over these years I managed to achieve several goals thanks to my street photography: I went to shoot in Los Angeles, California, Leica Camera AG hired me for a work on assignment that was published in a catalog distributed worldwide, photographers from any part of the world came to Mexico City to take a street photography workshop with me, I exhibited my photos in many galleries in the world and photography brands collaborate with me in several projects. Street Photography for me is a way of life, my lifestyle. I have tattooed on my left arm Street Photographer because this is what I am. I am still working hard to get a better photographer and a better person, believing that the two go hand in hand. When I relaunched my website with this new blog and a new graphic design, I decided I had to put even more effort into offering things to the entire community of street photographers. Today as you can see on the shop I am a street photography publisher. Please consider to support my efforts and purchasing my publications. I am paying the photographers featured and I would pay them more.
