7 Steps to Better Street Photography

[Gary@Red Photo]

Remember street photography is about a genre, and it can be loosely defined or broadly defined. The equipment and the lens selection does not matter. It is about creativity and vision. Those are the things that make an image. If you get caught up in the head games you are missing the point. Use any lens that you like. In the end it is about a good image. It does not matter if you used a $10K Leica or a $20 Holga. Sure it is nice to have a smaller camera and go unnoticed, but there are ways to get involved, be seen, and get great images.

[jdepould]

With regard to focal length and the wide angle v. 50 (or longer). You frequently lose a lot of the layering that's so critical in revealing the context of an image.

Google Cartier-Bresson--I'll wait. Seriously, Do. It. Now ... you're welcome--and just think about field of view when you're looking at his images. He's the godfather of street shooting. This is undebatable fact. More often than not they're slightly wide-ish. Note, they aren't generally what we consider true wide angle (<24mm full frame), but they do take in a healthy amount of the scene. Many of them are in that wideish 35mm or standing-farther-away-with-a-50 zone.

I mentioned layering up there ^

Layering is super important, and it's the difference between how a n00b uses a wide angle and how a skilled photog uses a wide angle. Shooting wide without having multiple elements in the frame contributing to the story is pointless. All you get is a subject that's smaller than it should be. Wide only works when you have different elements with discrete space within the frame, each doing their little part to tell the person looking at the image what's actually going on.