Shooting street, especially in crowded big city may become a hard challenge. Simply because we worry people will notice our action of taking photos. They may dislike, or even give us direct complain or request to delete our photos, and I believe that may “scare” us to start shooting street. Thus, being stealth is the main key here.
By being stealth does not mean we need to perform Ninja skill. Stealth here means our action/behaviour will make most people out there to ignore us, and leave us alone to do our own things (taking photos freely). These are some things we can do to achieve it:
Non-intimidating camera
Pick a camera that has casual/retro looks. I believe it does not matter how small our camera is, people will always realise when we use camera to shoot. Therefore, pick the one who has casual/vintage style, non-professional looks camera. Fortunately, many mirrorless cameras have this kind of design, and they relatively in compact size too when pair with the right lens.
Most people do not care when see someone shooting with smartphone in public place. So the concept of shooting itself is not a problem. What matter is which tools to use to shooting. Is it pocket camera? vintage style camera? big DSLR camera? By being stealth here is about let people notice we are capturing images, but we are not a “professional threat”, we are just a tourist.
Another benefit with casual style camera is we can shoot in a place where impossible to shoot with big DSLR: Shopping Mall. Generally they have rules to prohibit using camera, but in my experience, most security person will let people use their small/non-pro looking camera. Shooting street inside Mall is so fun and may give us different perspective compare to shoot on the street, which is great.
Focus on the scene/surrounding
Find a spot with artistic objects, and focus on them to create photos. Wait till someone enter our frame then click the shutter. Do not focus on a person, but their surrounding instead. Use people as “accessories” for our scene to create decisive moment effect. Like in photo above, my main idea is to create reflection shoot by using Bus’ window. Then I just wait till someone went in/out, and use them as a “moment”. Many people ignore me because they think I was capturing cityscape or the bus. None of them suspect me shooting a person.
As photo above, my main focus is the dynamic (diagonal) lines from stairs. I can just stand there for 30 minutes and disturb no one, as people think I want to take photo of stairs. No one expected I was waiting for dynamic gesture from a person.
Focus on artistic objects around subject.
No eye contact
As an additional tips for focus on a scene, we keep no eye contact to subjects. In this photo I also focused about reflection. Then just wait the right person approach my frame. Most people think I tried to photograph the building. So every time any of them looked at me holding a camera snapped a photo, I will focus my eyes to the building behind and pretend totally ignore them.
Shoot shadow
Simple reason: We point our camera to the ground or to a wall. We focus more on capturing shadow, rarely we need to point camera to people. Which is means people will not care at all about what we capture. Even if they ask to see our photos, big chance they will not complain as subject inside photo remain anonymous.
The light quality and the textures are important things when shoot for shadow. Of course an unique subject or gesture must be included as well.
Shoot from “outside”
Simplest example: Shoot people inside bus or cafe. They may realise we photopgrah them, but in most cases people will “too lazy” to react. Because at first people will get confuse why somebody took their photograph, and they may unsure whether we really photograph them or not.
Additional tips: Try to shoot subjects in the bus which stop for red light. We still can photograph subject clearly without risk subject being angry to us. Most people will confuse about what we do, and almost zero chance they will move out from bus only to stop us for take a photo.
Do not shoot face
Another theory: Actually most people do not mind being shot, as long as they are remain anonymous. In simple way: Do not shoot their face. Focus more on their interesting or dynamic gesture.
Keep subject mysterious, focus on produce visual impact based on people’s unique gesture.
Main reason is because I like to create image that force audience to use their imagination (and infuse it to reality) to interpret the story in my photo. Feels like create a movie without any fix ending and let audience use their imagination to decide what would happened at the end. – Shoot Mysterious Subject
Shooting like video
One of the very first trick I learned when start shooting street. Keep holding camera like it is a camcorder. When the timing is right, snap a photo, then keep the camera on the same position and keep walking. Focus our eyes to camera, avoid eye contact to subject.
That is all about being stealth. Feel free to try and experiment with them. Good luck on your hunting!
Dare to shoot and experiment,
Nico Harold