3 TIPs to get BETTER results in street photography
I’m FINALLY doing this! Welcome to my website and welcome to my official blog page.
This is where I shed more light about my life as a content creator and at the same time share some tutorials and experience as a photographer and writer.
So without further delay, let’s get into the brass tacts.
So, let’s talk street photography.
Street photography is one special form of photography. Different people have different take and interpretation on what street photography is. For me, street photography is all about telling a story through capturing moments and interaction of people around the streets.
It can be capturing someone walking to work on a winter day, people interacting with one another, cars passing by, taking a photo of an architecture/building or it can be just looking around to find nice alleys to shoot. (that’s me.)
It’s really up to you to define your style when doing street photography. I know a friend that goes around the city looking for cool reflection pieces to shoot human interaction. And his photos are stunning.
Moving forward, let’s start with the first tip!
Tip #1 Find leading lines
You can find pretty much leading lines almost everywhere in the streets.
This is one of the basics I use when ever I’m shooting out at the streets. Lines are practically everywhere if you look closely. You can see lines on the ground, at the walls of the building, the shape of the building itself, cables and light poles and etc.
The photo above is one very good examples. As you can see the lines on the road leads into the horizon and this provides a very good leading line imagery. This is create a good contrast of distance and provide extra dimension to your photos.
Understanding the concept of leading lines help create interesting results in your photography.
Personally, I love using the leading lines concept to take photos of building from down to top view. This creates a visual effect that shows how tall and majestic the building structure is. The symmetry of the lines helps create more textures to bring out the intended idea of the photo as well.
So the next time when you’re around the city area (even if you don’t have any camera with you), start observing your surroundings. Try to find where are all the leading lines that I’ve mentioned. As you identify one of them, try to imagine what kind of outcome you want to photograph and start taking photos. Normally if I don’t have my camera with me I would just use my smartphone to capture the image so that I can remember it and make another attempt on my next trip.
Tip #2 Breath life into the photos by capturing human movements
Capturing human moments brings life into the photo.
My interpretation of street photography is, “What’s happening on the streets.” It’s a form of journalistic photography where I capture daily lives of people in the city itself. Having said that, capturing a person in the frame is very important.
While I still love taking photos of buildings, I still find it lacking most of the time. It somewhat lacks life in it. It was at the moment I realised how important it is to capture a person in frame, regardless how big or small the person is in the frame.
The victorian brick wall looks so much better with people in the frame, right?
While many understand the idea of street photography which is to capture moments in the street setting, they are still missing the mark. The framing needs to right. You need to know what are you capturing. Look at the photos above and think who/what is the focus of the photo? Is it the building? the walk way? the people walking along the walk way?
Street photography isn’t just about taking cool photos and slapping a really sweet awesome preset on it. It’s pretty much about framing a story based on the interaction of the people and the city around.
And also, when capturing people in the frame, remember to be respectful of others. For me, I will not get a close up shot unless I get proper permission to do so because it might create discomfort for others. And I will try not to capture the full face of the people in the photo (so may not like it). So be respectful if there are certain shots that you want to capture. Ask them for permission before doing so.
Sometimes when you ask permission, you’ll get more freedom to approach the model and start shooting creatively. It’s really worth the effort!
Tip #3 Understand your camera
Know the inside out of your camera.
Whuuuut…….????? Really?????
You might think that this tip is bogus, but I assure you it’s not. As a photographer, your camera is your sword/weapon/third arm… whatever you may want to refer it as. The point being this, you need to be constantly ready, knowing which ISO, shutter speed, aperture ,focal length and focus point needed to capture that scene that might just disappear in the next moment.
I had tons of those experience when I started doing street photography, and till today there are still times when I miss the golden shot that I wanted. By understanding and getting familiarise with all the setting of your camera can save you tons of time and save you from tons of ohh sh*t moment thinking that you’ve missed that shot.
Personally, I think this skill is a very essential skill for all photographers. Especially for the ones doing event. You wouldn’t want to be fiddling with the setting when you find your subject in the right frame and miss that golden shot.
Scenes like this happen in a split second, so you really need to be ‘one’ with your camera to capture it at the right frame and exposure.
Being shutter ready is so so important. I can’t stress this enough whenever I’m mentoring my students about photography. If you don’t know the details about your camera and how to use it efficiently, you’re basically wielding a sword with the scabbard intact. So start getting familiar with your camera and train yourself to be aware of the surroundings.
Yes, even getting shots like this needs precision and sharp awareness.
So that’s it. 3 tips that will help you get better results in street photography.
While I’m sharing these with street photography in mind, these skills are useful in other photography settings as well. You just need to understand the idea behind these tips and implement it in your own creative execution.
I hope that I have kept you entertained until the end of this post. (You reading this part is a proof that I did a good job 👍) I also hope that my tips and my experience that I’ve shared here is able to inspire you to take your creative output to the next level.
If you have any questions or feedback, please do share it at the comment section down below. I’ll reply as soon as I see it. And if you prefer a more visual presentation of tutorial, do check out my YouTube channel here. I have some tutorials already uploaded on the channel, I’m sure you’ll enjoy that as well.
Till the next post. Peace out. ✌️