Street Photography–Et tu Brute?

You’ve seen the photos of some famous street photographers and been impressed with their visual narrative. Or you’ve bought your camera and are close to urban areas – you could do landscapes and travel but those genres are so far away and so infrequent. You really find people in the street interesting, so you’re interested in street photography. But then it gets all difficult.  So let’s talk about a few things.

Knowing legal rights

In Australia, the most quoted source is the Arts Law information sheet available as a downloadable pdf. Briefly

taking photographs of people in public places is generally permitted.

if you are using your shots for a commercial purpose, such as for an advertising campaign or competition, you should obtain a model release form signed by the subjects you are photographing

There is no restriction on taking photographs of people on private property from public property.

Can taking photos be a criminal offence? Yes – read the document – case precedents and exclusions are cited.

Mark Davison has written an essay on photography in public in Victoria, Australia

For the UK, this is the advice.

Enjoying Yourself

You can’t enjoy yourself if you have to contend with expressed upset and anger from the people you take photos of. Regardless of whether  you have the right to take a photo of them or not. If you are argumentative and robust, yes, of course you can stand up to a scene in public but that is time and effort lost from the shooting. If you are faint hearted, it could spoil your day out to the extent that you pack it in.

A lot of enjoyment is in yourself – you’ve got to be at peace with yourself. And that’s before you aim the camera and press the shutter.

Emulating another photographer idol who euphemistically has balls of steel or adopting approaches that don’t suit you, might carry off one time, but progressively, won’t be sustainable.

You’ve got to develop your own mental state, your own approaches.

Your Self Interview about your subject

Of all the photography genres, Street insists on the most two way engagement. Landscape is one way. Have you ever had a rock talk back to you? Studio photography and Weddings – you do have to handle the client and the subject but there’s no doubt what your motives are. But in Street Photography – What are your motives? No, it’s not me you have to contend with – it’s the people you take a photo of and more importantly, it’s you, because you are the one who has to rationalise to yourself.

So, why actually, are you taking my photo?

Will my photo appear on the internet?

Will you make money from my photo?

Isn’t there a law about taking photos of me unawares?

What if I ask you to delete my photo?

Can I see all the photos you just took?

Why are you taking photos of my kids, sis, wife, gf? Are you some kind of pervert? Why don’t you play fair and take photos of your mother / wife / gf / yourself doing weird things and post them online?

Look, I’m not supposed to be here and you’ve taken a photo of me. I’m distressed, angry and upset. What are you going do about it?

________________ over there doesn’t want you here. Could you go away now?

I’m calling the cops / reporting to the authorities. Does your employer / spouse / mother know you do this?

I’m bigger and tougher than you and I don’t like your face or how you’re carrying out your intrusive activities. Feel like making my day? These are not necessarily the questions you will be confronted with, but they could very well be things that people think about you. Be comfortable with your own answers – if you don’t believe your own answers, your photos are likely to show it.

Seeing what others shoot

Street Photography covers a multitude of styles. And although it’s about people, if you spend the time looking at various photographers’ photos, there are posed headshots (Robin Wong), there are full length posed portraits with interviews (HONY), there are environmental people and where they live / work (Yeow Chin Liang), there are general things that catch the eye – (Erwin Vindl, Thomas Leuthard), there are questions about why (Benizi Santamaria), viewpoints of the curious nanny (Vivian Maier), people in suits (Eric Kim) – there are heaps of different styles.

Various Perspectives

On how I approach strangers in the street | An Afternoon with Brandon Stanton | Humans of New York: Behind the Portraits | Brandon Stanton: The Good Story

Karlo de Leon: How to build confidence in photographing people 

B & H Video: How to Talk to Strangers: 7 Tips For Photographing People – Adam Marelli

Ming Thein's Thoughts on Portraiture

Joel Meyerowitz: Video: Milan 2013/10/28 | 1981 documentary

Henri Cartier-Bresson Video: 1998 “Pen, Brush and Camera”

Video: Street Photography Interview with Justin Vogel in NYC with Eric Kim | flickr: HCSP

Bruce Gilden Video: What Makes a Good Street Photograph?

Daido Moriyama Video: Near Equal

Garry Winograd Video: Visions and Images 1981

Video: The Many Lives of William Klein (2012)

Video: Leaving Home, Coming Home: A Portrait of Robert Frank (2005)

Ben Fewtrell: Taking Photos in Public

A list of third party photo editing software

When newcomers to photography discuss whether to edit their photos on the computer and what to use, they ask various questions.

• Are there any free ones?
• Does the program have to be installed on the computer? (some people use work computers that don't allow installation
• Does it run on their Windows / Mac / Linux / Android tablet / iPhone or iPad?

I was thinking of what to say and then mentally crumpled that thought like a piece of paper. Made a grid so people can pick something. It's not comprehensive and may even be inaccurate.

Putting The Fun Back Into Photography

(for those who found the deep, serious end and are stuck in a drought of interest)

So what’s the point about this article?

+Charles Strebor originally teased me about writing an article on Frivolous Photography – I’m turning it into a call-to-arms for those whose poor cameras languish on the pedestal of loneliness.

Who this is for

I’m using the mythical You for simplicity. If this is not you, rejoice. Try to help the sufferers amongst us.

You own a Nikon D800 / Canon 5D3 / Leica M9. And the Holy Trinity of Lenses. Trouble is, the gear is sitting at home in the temperature and humidity controlled cabinet. Well, maybe that’s an over dramatization. Alternatively, you could as well be the owner of that nice interchangeable lens camera body with two lenses. You bought that for the once in a lifetime vacation to South America / Europe / Asia. Except that it’s still sitting at home in a camera bag.
When was the last time you brought out the gear into the open. No, not into the lounge fondle fest, but out in the open, doing its thing, clicking the shutter, capturing images? Three months? Two months? Too long? When are you going to next use it? So and so’s wedding next year? When you’ll be the wedding uncle with the camera?

Six Ways you can get the Fun back

1. Make or break your genre

Most people prefer to take photos in a particular genre. Travel, landscape scenery, architecture, the portraiture – categories like that. If you are still excited by your chosen genre, make some effort to shoot more. If your interest is waning, break out of your comfortable sofa and embrace the world. Open your eyes, look at all things not just the 9 to 5. There are heaps of things to take a photo of. There’s beauty in many things.
Cables | Shoes | Things that look like Faces | Things that Steam – And there are heaps others

2. Reduce the amount of gear you go out with

I see lots of people go out with heavily padded camera backpacks, filled with gear when they go for a formal photo walk. Soon, every walk becomes a formal walk. There are no casual, grab-the-camera-get-out-the-door occasions anymore. And that’s the issue. Real, formal, pack-your-bag photo sessions happen as infrequently as once in three months for many people.
There are more far more frequent happenings every day or every week as the world around you changes, as the people around you mature. That joie-de-vivre is worthy of capturing.

3. If necessary, buy cheaper / smaller / weather resistant gear

One thing I hear people say is “oh, I wouldn’t take my camera to __________” (fill in the blanks). That’s a signal that they have bought gear that is too precious. It does not have to be outrageously expensive – each one of us has a different definition to the minimum value for gear to be precious. And they’re afraid of the harm that will come to the gear so they don’t carry it out and use it.
Many brands and models try to resolve this Strawman Fallacy – if we postulate that the gear is too big, we can sell you smaller gear. If we say that your gear is not weather resistant enough, we can sell you a camera that can take the sea and the beaches without breaking. And make big money selling supplemental gear.
When what you really need is gear which is not precious. Get some.

4. Carry the least amount of gear so that you have total upper body mobility

I’m not that fit. Not young. My knees give me problems when I bend them. It gets worse even though I carry a light Lowe Passport thin fabric bag. Whether you’re fit or not, carrying a padded backpack with a bunch of large lenses restricts your inclination to lay the precious gear on the floor and get down low when you need to get down low. And quite a few shots work well below the waist. But what is the least amount of gear? How about one lens, one body?  Yes, I know you have an interchangeable lens camera but that doesn’t mean you have to change lenses constantly in the field.

5. Let your hair down. Take it easy. Relax on that tender but excruciatingly meticulous pursuit of processing perfection

So far, all cameras can produce JPEGs straight out of the camera. Some brands do it better than others. Even the ones that don’t do JPEGs as well, offer in-camera tweaks that improve over the defaults that camera review websites speak of. Find a good setting. Then shoot with it. Shoot JPEG + raw if you can’t avoid the obsessiveness of wanting to “work” raw one fine day. But for today, get to know and enjoy the JPEG. Celebrate it. Do as little post processing as possible - Straighten and Crop, Curves. Celebrate the SOOC JPEG. Celebrate you.

6. Participate in a supportive, congenial, motivating community where you get inspiration and pings as often as hourly

The joy of photography can be completely dampened by unenthusiastic, uncaring family and friends. You don’t have choice of family, that’s connection by birth. You do have a choice of friends but you often have made friends in you journey through life and not because they enthuse photography. Before the Web, life as a photo fan was indeed lonely – you could pore through glossy photo magazines but the photos weren’t yours and always looked better than whatever you could make.
The Web has connected people who love photography and who enthuse, cross-inspire, cross-motivate. And across  distances and countries. Again, be wary of those old time formal galleries like 500px or even flickr. It’s easy to get a sense of inadequacy there, conversation is brief and admiring, seldom as frequent as daily or hourly. Give Google+ a try. Or at least Instagram.