So, this blog reflect my personal experience (here in Jakarta City) about shooting street in recent holiday season. Have to admit, for me to walking down on the street at my holiday time is way harder than my regular working time.
Why? Simply because I lost my routine time. I lost my schedule. Now I can not really make a plan to have specific time for shooting on the street. I need to meet up my family and friends (and also old friends that I have not met for a while) in more random time. Not “scheduled” like in working place.
However due to my personal habit to carry camera everyday (read here), I simply just can not stop shooting.
There are still little spare time that I able to optimise to search any artistic moments. Like when I was walking around with them in shopping mall, or when I was able to took friends (who do not do street photography) to accompanied me roamed on the street.
In this limited time, I found some basic ideas to keep shooting “street” while on the move with packs (family/friends). These ideas exist because they easy to do/find in my daily life:
Shoot inside shopping mall
Read here for complete post about shooting inside mall.
The main reason is because here in Jakarta, Mall are simply everywhere and become the most favourite meeting point for everyone. Want to go brunch? lunch? dinner? coffee time? shopping? Simply go to Mall. There are plenty of Mall option here.
Shoot reflection
Continue from point above. Jakarta is a typical big city that consist of countless Shopping Mall. Reflection is still one of the easiest artistic object that we can find around. Pay more attention to any reflective object like shiny floor or wall or door glasses. Try to get clear image of subject in reflection, wait till they do any interesting gestures.
Related article: Create Artistic Image From Object Around Us
Shoot weather
Currently in Jakarta we only have two kind of weather: Hard rain or super bright sun. There is no such thing in the middle.
Shoot street based on weather topic. If it is raining outside then prepare yourself to shoot umbrella, puddle, rain drop (either with super fast or slow shutter speed), or simply shoot people when running around avoid getting wet. When Sun is being nice then try to aim clear blue sky as beautiful background, or use Sun as a really big object and human as scale comparison.
Shoot geometry
If you can find a strong geometry object, then it is really worth the wait. Strong geometry will help to create strong composition. Try to get geometry from architecture, or any other things with diagonal line. Read here for more about diagonal composition.
Shoot people’s outfit in holiday mood
Simply put, in holiday season people tend to wear something or bring a certain accessories that different than what they used to wear/bring in working days. For simple example: Recently I can see much more selfie sticks around in the middle of city. Wait till they start to photograph their self as they will put selfie stick in diagonal form.
Take your family/friends to shoot street with you!
Especially your family/friends who love camera gadget or photography (in any genres). Tell them that street photography is unique (read here) and super fun to do (read here). Also, who knows if you can find someone who want to start doing photography and still in search of inspiration about what to shoot after bought a camera.
These are my simple ideas to keep shooting in holiday season. To keep shooting even though we might be busy with family/friends around us. Search any artistic objects that easy to find in our surrounding, and start experiment with them!
Keep shooting everyday,
Nico Harold