While I always told people that the ultimate tips in street photography is bring you camera everyday and keep shooting, I think my second best tips is Have (BIG) Patient!
Some huge benefits about being patient in street photography:
Street photography is about moment
Unlike any other genres (Portrait, landscape, food, or toy photography) in street world we only can control very few things. Most part is candid shots in decisive moment. When we want to create jaw dropping image we can not just relate it with our own effort (internal factor), but we also need to depend our work with moment itself (external factor, thing that we can not control).
Be patient, embrace uncertainty, and keep shooting are the main keys. The more we take shots and the more we experiment with new things (example: shoot from extreme low or high angle), then we will have bigger chance to capture a great moment as well.
Be patient, walk slower than our normal speed
Why walk slower? because this method will give us chance to pay more attention to detail. Do not just see a subject or object in a glance. Look “deeper” to things that make them unique or different than their surrounding (example: subject with unique outfit).
Walk slower will give us more time to think whether a spot is worth to photograph or not. An ordinary spot that we see everyday may be able to produce an image that we like if we give chance to our mind to think deeper about it.
Be patient and start to work the scene
A special note for anyone who do fishing technique, when we have found nice background, do not just take one shot and go. Shoot as many as we can, keep shooting till we catch various subjects. Why shoot many subjects in front of one same background? Because there is a chance that they will do some unique gestures or perhaps one of them simply wear super unique outfit.
Like in the photo above, I shot on this spot for many many times (because near my working place), no one had gesture as dynamic as this one! Usually people only walk casually, their hand and neck simply do nothing, boring and not attractive dare I say.
“Work the scene” means we keep shoot on the same spot for a certain amount of time:
– Wait for the most unique subject enter our frame
– Wait for the most unique gesture
– Wait for the right timing to shoot layer (like in photo above)
– Wait for the right time to get unique lighting (like golden hour time)
– Keep experiment with angle (high, low, tilt to left/right side)
How long exactly we need to wait? Well, for me usually around 10 – 60 mins, depend on how long spare time I have. But, if I think a spot has really great potential then I may have a plan to come back at other time (tomorrow, next week, or next month).
Photography is a process of learning
Also notes to my self as sometimes I feel stuck with my photography work: Photography is a process of non-stop learning. Never being impatient and force ourself to create an astonishing image right away whenever we want it. It is totally fine to have a small step in progress, but simply never stop to keep learn and experiment with new things (example: If you always shoot in black and white, now start to learn how to shoot in colours).
Do not expect instant result, not because you just bought USD 10,000 camera then your work will match award winning photographers out there. It is like someone who can not ride bicycle buy a USD 10,000 bicycle. He still need to do a learning process in order to use his bicycle properly.
Keep sharpen your skill by do a non-stop learning of anything that related to photography (in whatever genre you like). Be patient and enjoy the process of learning.
Keep shooting and keep learning,
Nico Harold