I believe street photography has so many definitions out there, and also has variation of “rules” how to consider a photo become a street photo. For me street photo is about documenting anything related to humanity that happen in daily life. Generally, I will divide street photography into two parts.
1. Story Telling About Human Life
It is all about extracting stories from a certain person or group of people or any other stuff that related to human life. These stories come from many aspects such as face expression, some unique gestures, fashion (example: colourful shirt) , accessories (like umbrella, hat, stick, mask, scarf, etc), and any other things around that related to main subject. In photo above, by photograph all raw meat around him, I intend to tell story about a butcher who always thinking about meat (means money to survive for him) in his mind all the time.
Another way to create a strong photograph is to make sure the main subject fill most of the frame. By doing this method, I eliminate most of distractions and make sure the audience easily know what to focus in my photo and how the subject will have stronger impact in telling stories.
If you like to use wide lens in street photography (35mm equivalent or wider), of course it means you need to get closer to subject. As Robert Capa (one of founder Magnum Photos) said “If your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” You have to move closer, blending in the same scene with your subject, have interactions with subject if needed (usually I do little interaction like smile, say hello/thanks or short chat if necessary). I realise that this method make many street photographers feel worry or afraid if something bad will happen, because most of the time your subject will also realise that they were being photographed. Truth to be told, this method taught me a lot about people’s behaviour out there. Let me tell you, even the scariest looks person could be the most friendly stranger you met on that day!
One thing to remember is you want to take photograph of them to create a story in your photo, not to use their photos for any negative intentions. Be confident, be friendly, smile, relax, and shot. Do not be like a creepy guy or paparazzi who took photo in super secret way. One second raise the camera, and another one second to hide your camera from subject. The more you try to hide the fact you photograph people, the more chance people will look at you in suspicious way. Always give respect to your subject and treat them as other human, not a heartless object. So far, I never encountered any bad reactions from my subject. There was one time when one old lady came to me, asked what I had photographed and also told me that it could be against the law to take photograph random people on the street. However, she told me all of that things in friendly manner and after I gave her explanation about my intention of making people’s photo, she just left me alone.
2. Visual Art in Street Photography
Visual art in photography is all about create beautiful image according to the vision or imagination of the artist as photographer. So, basically every aspects here based on art taste of the photographer. For me, in making visual art pictures, there is no obligation to always have story line inside. What matter the most is how the artist can translate beauty image in his imagination into the audience’s understanding about what makes his work beautiful / interesting.
Visual art in photography has many forms, such as shadow line, reflection, silhouette, geometry, scale difference in multiple objects, combination of certain colours and abstract image.
For most of the time I captured photograph in artistic way, it almost always has different approach compare to making image for documenting humanity. Instead of “hunting” for subject, usually I am “fishing” subject to enter the frame that I like. In photo above actually I need to sat down on the ground for around 30 minutes to get one person that replicate the shape of the triangle door. Triangle shape is a very strong and dynamic object in photography composition, therefore when I walked around there, immediately my vision attract to triangle shape and I know I want to make my shot based on triangle theme.
That is all about the meaning of street photography to me, until next time!
Keep shooting and stay inspired,
Nico Harold