I think that to be a better street photographer I must shoot faster to not lost the ‘decisive moment’. To shoot faster in street photography means that I must think less and be more intuitive.
Why I love street photography
It’s hard to not be able to shoot street photography normally because of the pandemic. I really miss to walk for hours on the streets, walk close to people,… . During this period I reflected on what street photography really means for me.
Here are 5 things I love about street photography:
Shoot industries
I’ve always been fascinated about shooting urban landscapes and during this years I captured different different pictures of different industries. I use to shoot industries for different reasons like capturing the impact of industrial areas in a city but the most important thing is to capture the impact of this areas on the environment and on human beings health.
No definitions
I have never defined myself a street photographer, an urban landscape photographer, a landscape photographer and so on. No, I’m only a human being with a phone as a camera and shoot everything I like, that can be people on the streets, buildings or shoot in the nature.
No excuses, just shoot
When it comes to shoot photographs I’ve no excuses to not just go out and shoot.
There are times in which I lack of inspiration (like now in this pandemic situation) to go out and just take photographs of everything, so I just sit on my couch and entertain myself watching TV, checking social media and doing many others passive activities. I have no excuses on not having a good expensive camera to shoot photographs, I’ve got a smartphone that is good enough, good image quality, lighter and always with me.
Beauty is everywhere
When I started shooting street photography, I was too focused on finding beautiful and exotic things to photograph. The problem was when I used to shoot street photography in boring small towns without many beautiful things to photograph. But according to my experience, it is possible to shoot street photography and find beauty in the mundane in small towns. Beauty was everywhere around me.
Why take photographs of people?
I’ve always been fascinated about human beings, there is nothing more fascinating than persons.
I use to shoot people because I love them, of course, I love all the humankind, I love humanity. So, taking photographs of people is my way to say how important they are.
Bathroom photography
For me street photography is not only taking photographs of people on the streets. For me street photography can be shoot without people and be shoot everywhere. For this reason, a few years ago, I started to shoot photographs of public bathrooms.
5 tips on how to shoot street photography candidly
I shot candidly not because it’s a “rule” imposed by most of the street photography masters but because I like it, and because they seems more spontaneous. (I’m not against staged street photographs, it’s my personal opinion, they are two different way to shoot street photography).
Here are some of candid street photography tips I personally use and work for me while I’m out shooting:
Just share my photographs
I don’t think that to be a “legitimate” photographer or street photographer one must exhibit their photographs in fancy galleries. I personally don’t need to print my photographs (for the moment) and exhibit them in galleries, I share my photographs virtually on my blog.
