Could be the most basic question in street photography, yet the answer is not that simple and really depend on each person’s preferences. First thing we need to understand the term photography itself: Graphic is Drawing, Photo is Light. Photography is all about drawing with light. Drawing / Painting is all about art, therefore, photography is also an art subject so we need to have interest in artistic things till a certain degree to shoot street photography. Of course in matter of art each person’s taste can differ one to each other, and there are plenty of style out there that we have to accept there is not even a single one fix style that can please everyone. More than that, we also need mandatory things that we should acquire or learn in process to mastering street photography.
Camera – The Painter
In concept of drawing with light, our canvas is reality that happen in front of us and our painter is a camera. Nowadays we have a quite number form of cameras (Action cam, Mirrorless, DSLR, Film Camera, etc). The simplest one is indeed camera in our smartphone, yes, they might not be the best tool to photograph things, but as we know the best camera is always the one that we have in our hand. Many modern smartphones since few years ago already have decent detail, white balance accuracy, shadow and highlight control to start capture street photography, let alone the most modern smartphones like Samsung S9, iPhone X, Huawei P20, Sony XZ2, etc which is have much better quality. So never think that because we do not have “real” camera then we can not learn about street photography.
If we want to start even more serious, then get ourself a dedicated camera. So how to choose a camera? Which one is suit our needs? Photography is an action of art, therefore we need something that can keep help us stay inspired.
At first we need to choose camera’s design that we love visually, that we love it to hold it in our hand comfortably, that we love to bring it everywhere and everyday. A camera that able to make us always feel want to keep capture photos all the time and we will never think to leave it alone in our home.
Secondly, we need to consider how to operate the camera itself, some cameras have many dial on body, some have very minimalistic design and put everything in the screen menu. Some camera can using autofocus, some only can manual focus. Some is digital, some is still use film to capture images. These factors do not have straight impact to image quality, but personally they are even more important to think about than the image quality itself! For extreme example, for someone who loves to carry small pocket camera everyday to capture street moment, will hate to use full frame DSLR to do the same thing because of much bigger size, louder shutter sound, and think that big camera will make him looks creepy in the middle of a crowd. Even though at most of the time a full frame DSLR able to create higher image quality.
At the other case, in my own experience, I prefer to have more control through real dial on camera body (make camera body look less sleek though) instead have to search functions inside the screen menu, even though the one that does not has real dial can produce better image quality, but this type of camera will not inspire me to take a shoot and create an artistic image. I will feel clunky and hard to keep focus to scenes that happen in front of me because every time I want to change my setting, I need to pay attention to my camera’s screen. What we feel about our camera’s design and how to operate it are more important than image quality.
Basic Information About How Camera Works
After we got our camera, we need to learn how to use it properly. Manual book may not look appealing, but actually it can help us a lot to understand the capabilities of a camera. Many modern cameras have advance technology features that can help us to create photo easier and better like photometry menu, various zone focus area, face detection, burst mode, programable settings, and so on. The next step is we need to know how our camera’s sensor works, therefore we need to understand (try to understand it instead memorise it) triangle light of camera: Aperture, ISO, Shutter Speed. To explain them shortly:
- Aperture: How big our camera’s lens is make opening for light going inside camera’s sensor. The bigger the aperture means more light to sensor. Aperture at f2 will have twice more light than f2.8. Keep in mind to read aperture we need to read it as 1/(aperture number). At f2 means “1/2”, and at f2.8 means “1/2.8”, therefore f2 is bigger aperture than f2.8.
- Shutter Speed: How fast the camera’s shutter closing to capture light. The faster the process, the less light will going in to sensor, and vice versa. Shutter speed at 1/100 seconds will have twice more light than 1/200 seconds. Slow shutter speed (below 1/125 seconds) has tendency to create motion blur for moving objects.
- ISO: How sensitive our camera’s sensor receiving light. The higher ISO means more sensitive and vice versa. At ISO 800 will have twice more light compare to ISO 400. Keep in note that the higher the ISO will produce more noise in our image as well.
If we understand how this triangle works, we will able to operate most of camera out there. By understand the “side effect” of triangle we also can create more creative shoot, like with big aperture we can get “bokeh” effect, with slow shutter speed we can make motion blur as if objects inside photo moving very fast, and with high ISO we able to create grainy photo that looks like shoot from Film Camera.
Knowing Your Style: Story Telling vs Visual Art
Street photography have some different genres inside, generally I divide them into two parts (as I explained here): Story Telling and Visual Art. In context of story telling we want to extract story from subject inside photo, therefore we focus more on moment, gesture, face expression, eye contact, and any surrounding objects that help to enhance the story line about subject.
In story telling part, we do not seek a beauty subjects, instead we looking for something pure and deep meaning, feels like we can feel what the subject felt at the time we pressed our shutter. Create a photo that can make ourself curious about the subject’s story every time we see that image. What were they actually doing? What was in their mind? What was their feeling? Why they did that?
In Visual Art we focus more on create an image that has strong and dynamic looks. We put more attention to geometry, shadow, reflection, and silhouette. Story line is not something mandatory here, what matter the most is how our photos can thrill audience eyes and mind. Create something unique, not something that people see everyday even though actually these moments happen on the street everyday. We need to see art forms in our daily life, make a selection, only choose the most pleasing one, capture it and share it to our audience. Truth to be told, at first I started street photography, I have more interest about story telling, but for now I focus more into visual art. It intrigue me more to find art objects in daily human life where most people do not see or realise that it is there.
Learn from Others
Street photography is not an easy thing to do. What I did when I started (self-taught, even till now) is learn a lot from other photographers. Their composition, their philosophy, and their technique to capture decisive moment. Here some link from website that I think provide useful information and keep inspire me to shoot till now:
- Digital Photography School – Basic to advance techniques to do street photography
- Erik Kim Blog – His philosophy and shoot technique really gave me huge inspiration (In fact, his blog inspires me to create this blog!)
- Street Photography International – One of the biggest platform about street photography in Instagram, I got a lot of inspiration and lesson by looking at their collective images.
- Lensculture – At first it may looks complex when we open their web, but actually they provide many many information about art in photography (not only street). Register your email and they will start to share useful information to your email about art in photography, from history of famous photographer till various techniques as well.
I think these things are all we need to know at the very least when we decide to jump in street photography. Remember that most important part is we able to enjoy and have fun in photography. Keep learning, keep challenge ourself, and keep shooting anywhere.
Keep shooting and stay inspired,
Nico Harold