A small guide to Street Photography PT. 17

Going deep into my vision and approach…

I think you can find a lot of street photography guides that offer the same general guidelines, and many propose also workshop in that way. I think it's not the right way. Like a photo coach who has been doing it for a decade, I think that a valuable teaching cannot be separated from really sharing your experience. It is not a question of having to imitate myself. What many do not understand or perhaps do it on purpose because it is easier this way is that there is no universal method of understanding and making photography. I can recommend you some tips and ways to live street photography but I just can prepare you. You know, however, that you are called to resolve in order to meet and reveal your inner voice through photos.

Got to this point of my small guide to street photography you already have the knowledge bases, maybe you already made some assignments I proposed in PT. 12 and you are making yourself an experience on the street. So I'm talking to someone like me, who loves the street and loves to take pictures on the street. We share a pleasant obsession. It is like in John Waters movie PECKER. Don't tell me you haven't seen it yet? Come on, bro, what are you waiting for?

“I tried to mimic Winogrand’s shooting technique. I went up to people, took their pictures, smiled, nodded, just like the master. Nobody complained; a few smiled back!

I tried shooting without looking through the viewfinder, but when Winogrand saw this, he sternly told me never to shoot without looking. “You’ll lose control over your framing,” he warned. I couldn’t believe he had time to look in his viewfinder, and watched him closely.

Indeed, Winogrand always looked in the viewfinder at the moment he shot. It was only for a split second, but I could see him adjust his camera’s position slightly and focus before he pressed the shutter release. He was precise, fast, in control.”

Mason Resnick - “Coffee and Workprints: A Workshop With Garry Winogrand”

These words, man. These words written by Mason, a photographer I published several times on my magazines, are gold. He was able to illustrate what a good photography teacher can do in a student. I like to think I can produce the same on you, exactly how I am able to do with my students.

Again, let me share photos with you in order to give you more of my experience as a street photographer. All the photos you see here were made in 2018, realized directly in black and white. JPG straight from the camera as I used to work. It doesn’t matter if we talk about street photography or commercial work. I never shoot RAW, I go directly JPG because I know what to do and to me works perfect. It is my way to work, but you may have a different idea. This is good because is always up to you. As I said there is not a universal method and there is just the thing working for your photographic vision. OK, let’s start…

I say that this photo is Bressonian. It is in its aesthetics. And I love how it is a photo that provides questions more than answers. It is a simple to observe photo, with few elements, which however declares something of a human condition. A photo that works a lot printed. Always remember the importance of thinking about a printed photo, even when you are about to take it.

As soon as I saw Minnie Mouse I recognized the potential of having an image. I took several shots. It wasn't easy because she walked quickly. I made several out of focus and overexposures. I have kept this one which is acceptable. Far from being a perfect photo, but by now you will have realized that it is absolutely not what I am looking for on the street.

My photos often start from a fundamental requirement: to worry that something happens in the photo. This I often say to my students. And I have no pretensions that it is a content who knows how complicated, rather that it is revealing a human moment.

A street photographer doesn't have to hide what he is doing. I don't. I am photographing the beauty of the world and I enjoy doing it, how could I do it hiding or thinking there is something wrong with what I do? I also photograph at close range as you may have understood by now and I am not like those photographers whose work reveals their fear of photographing people without asking permission.

Someone said me in the past that I can do that only in Mexico. I think this is funny because I showed that I make the same everywhere. I make it in Italy, USA and Mexico. I can do it also in a rough place like a popular neighborhood. But always when I recognize a photograph that I need to solve in that way. Street Photography is not about getting close, but it can require sometimes to get close.

The surreal in Mexico is always a open door. That is the magic of this country, and of course Mexico City is a great surrealistic realm. When I find subjects like this not always the scene is ready for a composition. In that case is just about the character. I have one shot available and I just press the shutter button.

People in the bench and the mind runs to Winogrand. I like how nobody is taking care of me, anyone immersed on his thing.

Sometimes there are subjects that remind me of a lot of photography that I have acquired mentally. Then it works like that: recognition of something photographic and shooting. That's all. Imperfect and still interesting photo.

An unwritten rule recognized by many street photographers is to avoid photographing street artists, who are considered easy subjects. I have no foreclosures. As I have already told you in this guide, I can photograph children, homeless, prostitutes if the scene asks me for a photo. My main assignment is always the same: to offer a genuine portrait of the place where I am. Maybe this is the only rule I follow.

The mannequins are an essential reminder for me. Each photographer has some particular photographic fetish. If I have to choose I answer with the mannequins.

Garry Winogrand greatly fueled my perception of street photography. Photographing women has for me that irresistible call of mystery. They intrigue me in the way they dress, walk and wield their power on the street. I have always found women much more interesting than men as photographic subjects. Maybe this has to do with that I'm a man. But I absolutely do not say this with any morbid intent. It is simply what it is. Men are dressed equally well or badly, women offer visual variety in this too.

I have already said it and here I repeat myself. One of the aesthetic keys I want to offer is to give the viewer of the photo the feeling of being there. I think one of the important things if you want to give emotions is to feel involvement in the framed scene.

I took these two photos at Garry Winogrand's Women Are Beautiful exhibition, here in Mexico City. In particular, in the second I found a lady with a style that evokes the period in which the master was shooting. So I guess this is my humble tribute to him.

A portrait on the street but always without asking permission. When it comes to street photography to me is never asking for permission. Photos need to be spontaneous and need to be taken candid. It is a frame divided in 3 sections. It shows several details. Not that bad.

Oh, I know many prefer all the frame in focus. And this is the reasonn many photographers love to work with certain lenses and operating only in a way granting a great depth of field. But hey, it happens I photograph in any condition of light and I love to photograph with a 35mm lens. I will say more: despite I photograph also using a 28mm equivalent lens my lens of choice, my favourite one in absolute is the 35mm lens. This is because is is the more similar to how the human eye sees. And as I said I wan to offer with my photos the same sensation when I am here. What I see is what you get.

One of the greatest powers of the street photographer is to include elements within a single frame that are unrelated to the real world. We are the ones who relate them through composition. A theme that has always fascinated me and that I find an infinite challenge.

Alex Webb has a photo with a ball / globe that makes it one of the most important in the history of photography and not just that of the street. When I saw the operation of making cotton candy, I immediately understood the potential.

In all these years I have seen how the world of shadows inhabits a parallel world. Shadows have their own identity and perhaps this photo is not the best to express this concept, but only one of those I found in the archive.

There are enveloping moments of energy that I must necessarily photograph. Here I found myself photographing in the blink of an eye. I didn't have much time to compose and this I found.

When you photograph in this way you expose yourself to possible reactions. Most of the time they don't happen. However, I have a serene face, perhaps with a smile. I was impressed with the way the gentleman wears the shirt, especially the sleeves It is a street photograph that is clearly about him. A photo focused on a character.

Gestures, expressions. I am probably a conservative. Even today I am always interested in the same on the street. Today's trend in new generation street photography is different, but I don't let myself be convinced. Sure that there is still room for the old school. Especially considering what we will see and what we would like to see in twenty or thirty years of this era that we are living in. I am a documentary photographer and in that way I consider Street Photography.

I'm talking about gestures, right? My attraction to humanity is genuine. I don't photograph myself. Of course we all show ourselves by photographing, but photography for me is above all knowing and recognizing humanity. This then leads to knowing ourselves too, but the photograph I intend to propose is not to declare: look how good I am. I think many photographer do it and in fact I don’t like their work.

When I photograph I am looking for moments like that. The search for peaceful yet human moments that are able to put me at peace with the world. I like to photograph humans in a positive way while I don't like to characterize them in a bad way. I think the world is already ugly enough. I don’t see monsters on the street. I know that monsters can be everywhere. I am aware that monsters rule the world. But I don’t want to see them in my photos. I love humanity. The positive humanity. And I want to focus my photography on that.

The emotion of photographing is given to me in every shot. There are people that think a commercial photographer it doesn't matter anymore and doing it as a profession becomes boring. Not my case. Photographing for me is like breathing and I need it. And that has nothing to do with how much I can earn from the photos I take. I photograph because I love to photograph. I am a photographer in every moment of my life. I was a photographer even before I had a camera. Because I was born a reader and then a writer and this leads you to constantly take pictures with your head.

This girl with her posture and way of walking make the photo in my opinion. As I said not always we need great concepts.

That gesture of the woman to bring her hand to her forehead called my photograph. Everything else is a consequence of it.

I pass and see the couple. I get over it. I turn and shoot. I was looking for her gaze. I got it.

When I arrive in that corner of Zocalo, the main square in Mexico City, I almost always know that I will find some photos waiting for me. As in this case.

If you've made it this far, thank you. It is a pleasure to be accompanied in this guide which is basically an online workshop. I am having fun to make it. I started by writing the first part and we arrived to part 17, wow! I can say just wow because I didn’t think to make so much. But it’s not over yet. Stay tuned with this blog.