To simplified, we should remember that Photography = Painting with light
And for us, street photographer, people’s daily activity is our “canvas”. There are so many random moments out there, it is our “duty” to freeze an artistic/interesting moment with our camera. It is all up to us what we want to shoot (paint), as the moment itself (canvas) already there ready to be drawn.
Each person may have different opinion about the meaning of word “artistic” itself. – Build Character In Our Photograph
Less talk, do more – Less think, do more
The more we think, the more we analyse what might failed, the more we scared (or losing interest) to do it.
Street photography is about experiment. It is about “bending” reality to our vision/imagination. it doesn’t have to reveal accurate information, instead, it has to reflect our artistic mind.
Daily life fulfil with many interesting or attractive stuffs. We just need to be “sensitive” to pick them up from the boring one. How to do it? Simple answer: Start to looking for it!
Some people ask me, how I be able to notice (many) spots that able to create silhouette? The answer is because I constantly looking for it.
Does not mean I will always find spots that can create silhouette all the time, but if I treat it as a habit, then I can realise more places that can create silhouette/reflection compare to a person who never really looking for it. Same goes to search for scenes with shadow, diagonal line, reflection, and minimalism.
Stimulate our Emotion and/or Reaction
Do you ever have hard time to decide whether a photo is good or not?
Personally they way I “judge” my photos are in two ways: Able to evoke my emotion and/or my reaction.
Emotion: Means that photo able to bring a certain emotion like happiness, sadness, loneliness, nostalgic, etc. There are times when I only want to create a certain type of photo with one specific emotion for days. These photos may not looking great to other people because it can not “touch” their emotion. We can ask to 10 people around us and perhaps all of them will say just delete that photos, it is a bad one.
However, for me, as long as this photo still left a strong feeling in my heart, then I will still post it and be proud of it. Because I treat my street photography as reflection of my feeling too.
Related article: Create an honest photo that reflect yourself
Reaction: Means a photo that able to please our eyes and mind. Could be that attractive/strong diagonal line, beautiful blending of warm and cool colours, an unique decisive moment that we know might never happen again, etc. Any images that able to make us say “wow” a.k.a “WOW Effect”.
In this part we don’t capture a moment to telling any stories, instead it is all about fine beauty in the mundane. To constantly search for attractive or artistic elements in our daily life.
Go to exotic place and it is not hard to capture a beautiful sunset or an unique shape of cliff or a beautiful waterfall. What about our hometown? What about a road that we passed everyday?, or work place area when we spend most of our time there? It becomes a challenge to use our mind in more creative way. To see the unseen. To see things from different perspective.
Related article:
Shooting street is not always on the street
Bad place is not an excuse to not take photos
Street photography is unique, simple and challenging
That is all my thought about painting our daily life with light. Bring your camera everyday, and start to treat our daily routine as a good chance to train our creativity. Never forget to keep being honest to ourself for each photograph that we create. If we do street photography as a personal project, then let only our personal taste be the ultimate judge.
Keep shooting everyday,
Nico Harold