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Mastering Street Photography
Street Photography is a way of taking photographs close up of people within a close proximity and a good composition. Most of the photographs are not pre planned but are very composed to look like they were intentional, the main thing that street photography consists of is a range of people. Street photographers often look for people who look like they stand out from the crowd and with the photographs above they are people with hats and also the body language and movement.
Camera Skills
With Street Photography they key to getting good photographs is the excessive use of the camera and exploring new camera skills.
For example a good skill to have would be to use the range of 'Depth Of Field' this meaning the short rage between the subject of the image, before and after the subject slightly. You can use this on the street because the face will be focused and anything within the same length away from the camera will be very focused also. This allows the subject to stand out from the background composition.
Another thing to look out for is the shutter speed as it will need to be fast otherwise the model can easily move out of the frame of the image which will be the result of a slow shutter speed.
Ideal Settings
The best settings for good street photography which I recommend
will be the following:
Camera mode: Manual
ISO: 160
Shutter speed: 1/125
Aperture: F6.4
These allow for a good sharp image such as the ones on the right hand side and the photographs from Eric Kim on top of this particular page.
Approaching people
Approaching people is probably one of the hardest thing to do in street photography but theres ways to make it easier for yourself.
The best way for you to do it is to just go up to the person and start off with a hello and then develop into a converstaion on a mutual subject like the weather or the area. After a good few minutes or seconds depending on the conversation then ask if it is okay to take a photograph of the person. This will allow you to boost your confidence and give you a friend from the experience. After this you can give them an email address and see if they would like to email you to recieve the photograph so they can see it after editing or before.
Sometimes if you dont do this the people could end up angry just like this photograph to the left.
Another techinque would be to blend into your surroundings or as Eric kim calls it 'Making yourself invisble'. This technique requires you to be very silent and still in one spot in your environment this then allows people to walk past and not realise you are there. Then when the person of your choice walks past then snap the picture. This idea behind this is known as 'Candid Photography' which is a good way to catch expressions and movent on someone in the moment which then creates a scene within the frame on the image.
The photograph on the left is a good candid photograph as it portrays the man in a state of day dreaming and he seems very in focus and it looks almost intentional but was not pre planned.
Candid photograph is something I will use.
The Laws Of Street Photography
In general under the law of the United Kingdom one cannot prevent photography of private property from a public place, and in general the right to take photographs on private land upon which permission has been obtained is similarly unrestricted.
There is no law stopping anyone filming in a public place, so if you are on the streets you can film without asking permission – the MetropolitanPolice's own guidelines (adopted by all police forces in Britain) make clear that “police have no power to stop them filming or photographing incidents or police personnel”.
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