SHOOT BECAUSE YOU WANT TO SHOOT

To put it short, start shooting out there not to achieve an award winning photo, but shoot to reflects our artistic mind into images.

I have seen some people around who feel discourage to doing street photography, simply because they never achieve anything “worthy” with their photos. “Worthy” such as win an award, or got repost by big account on Instagram, or got recognise by senior photographer. Personally, this is a mistake!

It is so terribly wrong if we shoot only to please other people or to get fame in a community. Street photography is not a medium about show off. Instead, it is about documenting ordinary things surround us, blend it with our mind, and start create an artistic image.

Artistic itself would be subjective from one person to each other. Why subjective? Because it got affected by our life’s experience, our way of thinking, and our knowledge about how life work.

To put it in simpler word: Each of us speaks our own artistic language. These languages are full of variations, in countless way, that we will never be able to conquer them all. We just need to accept what our “languages” are, and continue to experiment with the way we shoot.

Experiment with something new, perhaps walking around in new place, could be in other country, other city, or simply explore area nearby that we rarely/never visit. Also, try different way of shooting:

Angle: Try to not always shoot head on with viewfinder. Play around with LCD screen and start to shoot from hip, or super low angle, or simply shoot from above (high angle or shoot from high position place).

Focal length: Stick with one focal length is great because we will master it. However, when we feel too bored to shoot, or feel “hit the wall” with creativity, worth to try to try different angle of view.

Subject: Always photograph people’s emotion? Start to focus more on composition and shoot human gesture without showing their faces. Let them become mysterious subjects. It will give different feeling in our shoots.

Time: Love to shooting golden hour effect? Or always shooting at daylight? Then try to shooting at night. Focus more on colourful artificial light that definitely give different mood than Sun light.

After all, we need to remember that street photography should be fun! The adrenaline of hunting the unexpected, and how we think differently to capture a scene become unique are the keys here.

Street photography is the concept we have in our mind. Whether we go to exotic places or only shoot at our backyard, what important the most is how we compose elements in a scene with creativity.

Keep shooting and stay sharp!

Nico Harold