Photographing on the move

is easier if you don’t have any bulky equipment. Street photos are often formed on the move. Consequently, there will be no time to address the usual photographic practices and very often even focusing can become an extravagance.
Street life has its own pace.
Therefore it will make a lot of sense to record street life by using what’s out there rather than sitting around patiently waiting for the right circumstances.
Adjusting to the energy of the street often means fast thinking and quick reaction. Fiddling with the camera or other equipment you carry will result in the disappearance of that Kodak moment.
As it is, the best results in street photography are often achieved owing to the photographer’s eager, insightful eye but seldom to the highly sophisticated equipment.

 

 

You can find this article and many other photo processes in my new book:
So Much More than Photography
eBook edition Price: $10
Kindle edition Price: $10
Print edition Price: $35 (Now on sale for $27.00)
Black & White print edition Price: $20

Go fix this photo

In a perfect world every picture we take would have been framed, exposed and focused just right and without any flaw. But in reality some (if not most) pictures need a bit (if not a lot) of post-processing improvement work.
One of the more common fixes I often have to execute is cropping my images. I guess it is an obvious issue in street photography when quite often there’s no time to control all variables.
This is an example of an image I chose to crop as well as convert the original color to black & white which is often just a matter of taste.
And in case you were wondering, there are of course many ways to convert color images to black & white, but I usually choose to do it during scanning, meaning I scan the color negatives under black & white settings.

 

[Photo taken on Fairfax Ave, Los Angeles. Camera: Holga 120N. Film: Fuji Pro 400]

 

Unplanned photos

I hardly ever know what pictures I’m going to take ahead of time. I grab my camera on my way out the door with much excitement and some curiosity about the images I’m going to come across that day (although the hunting feeling that I’ll never make another great image in my life is always there)
Of course there are some photographers who prefer to stage their photos and there is nothing wrong with that, but in Street Photography, there’s no need for that, especially if you’re eager to capture the energy of the streets (or maybe too lazy for big productions). Just take advantage of what’s already out there. All you really need is to keep an open eye (Ok, an open mind as well won’t hurt).
And though I often try to avoid photographing kids in public, I just couldn’t help it this time.

International Street Photography Award

Posted by LondonStreetPhotoFestival

Hi all, I am Director of the London Street Photography Festival and wanted to tell you about our very new and exciting Street Photography Awards.

The International Street Photography Award is looking for the world’s best street photographer as part of the first annual London Street Photography Festival in 2011.

Open to photographers (and photographs) from anywhere in the world.

THE INTERNATIONAL WINNER RECEIVES:
• £1,000 cash
• All-expenses-paid trip to the exhibition launch in London to the value of £1,500
• An Olympus PEN camera (worth over £500)
• Open Award catalogues and £100 book voucher from Blurb to print their own books

HOW TO ENTER:
1. Submit five to eight of your best street photography images from anywhere in the world.

The London Street Photography Festival defines Street Photography as:
“candid, un-staged photography which captures, explores or questions contemporary society and the relationships between individuals and their surroundings.”
Street photography is perhaps more easily defined as a method than a genre. The results can fit into documentary, portraiture and other genres, but the key elements of spontaneity, careful observation and an open mind ready to capture whatever appears in the viewfinder are essential.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: 31 March 2011
ENTRY FEE: £30.00
SELECTED ENTRIES submitted will be projected during the Awards exhibition and profiled on the LSPF website.
ALL PHOTOGRAPHERS who enter will receive a £28.95 voucher (free!) to print your own book with Blurb.

Go to: London Street Photo Festival

Posted by LondonStreetPhotoFestival

No Rules photography

Whenever I visit the bookstore, I find every photography book out there talks about rules, guidelines and recommendations for better photography. There’s really no motivation behind these books other than teaching you how to make better photos, and they suggest doing so by shooting “correctly” or using Photoshop, or more often a combination of the two. Follow their teachings and in no time, you will command photography like a real pro.
Really?
So what do we have? We have books about the “basic rules for better photography”, “tips for sharp photos”, “composition for better digital photos” and “understanding exposure”. These books will even teach you how “to see creatively”.
Just buy the book and you will see things you haven’t seen before.

But don’t be surprised, there are in fact many people who insist art doesn’t have any rules (I guess I must have just imagined all these books, articles, websites and lectures about “good photography”), however, after claiming there are no rules in photography, they will immediately say something like “anyway, great photographers make their own rules” and if they are really confused they will state that “good photographers just break the rules”.
When people talk about “no rules” in photography they often talk about breaking the rules. If you search Google for “no rules photography” other than getting links to my sites and books, the only other result you see is “no rules= breaking the rules”.
Breaking the rules of course demands that you actually learn the rules, and you’d better learn them well. Or else you might not break them correctly.
Give me a break! (pun intended)

By the way, just so we are clear, Rules are not always called Rules, in fact very often they are hiding behind lovely and less provoking words such as: guidelines, tips, instructions, fundamentals, principles, recommendations and so on.
So keep that in mind.
OK, rules or not, the question still stands: why shouldn’t you follow the rules? We all want to make better photos, right?
So why not learn the conventions to good composition?
In fact it seems the common theory is that beginners need a set of rules or at least some kind of uniformity and structure in order to learn the basics of photography and help them achieve that greatness in photography.
And just then, once they rank Master Photographers they can set out to the wonderful road of breaking the rules…
I tell you; sometimes I think I live in the twilight zone.

And I promise you I heard it so many times “good photographers make their own rules” that I will surely cry if I hear it once again.
Good photographers don’t make any rules, they just make good photos.

And let me say this: if one is going to learn photography from a book or from a teacher with an objective to follow someone else’s idea of what is good photography, they are less likely to take chances, dare or
come up with their own style and approach.

So yes, we all want to make great photos but we are more likely to find them if we trust
our own drive and creative intuition.