Street photography obviously requires a camera; and the easiest way to get used to carrying your camera on the street is, well, simply to carry it on the street. But – here's the trick – don't take pictures of people. [...]
One of the many fascinating truths about all photography, not just street photography, is that it is often possible to assert with absolute truth and confidence two statements which are at first sight mutually incompatible. Here's a pair to be [...]
For years, I used to get angry with people who said, “It really doesn't matter what camera you use.” I thought, “Well, it's all very well for you, because you've got much better kit than I have, so of course [...]
The improbably named American judge Potter Stewart (1915-1985) famously said in Jacobellin v. Ohio (378 US 184) that although pornography was extremely difficult or perhaps impossible to define, “I know it when I see it”. Street photography has a lot [...]
Most people favour something in the 35mm to 50mm range for street photography, though there are those who prefer wider lenses and a few who prefer something a bit longer. This is, I think, the longest lens I've ever used [...]
A trick often touted in street photography is shooting “blind”. Point the camera in roughly the right direction, then press the shutter without looking through the viewfinder. It's useful if you're somewhere you aren't allowed to take pictures; or where [...]
The opening week of the Rencontres Photographiques – literally, “Photographic Meetings” – in Arles in the first week of July is the biggest annual gathering of fine art photographers in the world. Over the course of a few days, you [...]
Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. Most people attribute this to Mark Twain, but it was probably his friend Charles Dudley Warner who actually said or wrote it. Either way, when it comes to street [...]
Street photography deals in everyday scenes, right? And this is, believe it or not, an everyday scene. At least it is if you live in Moscow, where the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is a traditional place for brides to [...]
Street photography at night is hard to resist, partly because it can be so dramatic and partly because so many of us are at work during the day and have more free time during the hours of darkness.
We all make mistakes. We get our exposures wrong. Depth of field is insufficient (though increasingly many regard this as an advantage, not a drawback). Shutter speeds are too long, resulting in blur from subject movement or camera shake. Colour [...]
A lot of street photography is pure luck. You can haunt the likeliest places to get a good picture; you can plan all you want. But unless things come together, you ain't gonna get the picture you want. Often, you [...]
In my immediately previous column I used a picture of a broad scene at night, shot with a wide-angle lens at the maximum ISO on offer from the camera in use: a Leica M8, 2500. Here, it's the same camera [...]
Getting consent from your subjects – I almost said “victims” – is a perennial question in street photography. At the extreme, of course, you can ask them for a model release: consent in writing. The trouble is, this normally results [...]
There are those who advocate shooting in overcast weather, because it's easier: no harsh contrasts. I've never really understood this line of argument. After all, it's easier still to stay at home and watch television, or go to the beach, [...]
Before the widespread adoption of window-glass (especially large sheets of plate glass), most shops were necessarily in the street. As early as they could bear to get up, or sometimes earlier, shopkeepers would open their shutters and literally set out [...]
