To shoot face: Create a photo that focus on human face. Their facial gesture become the main point of view for audience. Could be the face dominate the frame.
To focus on composition: Will focus more on blending multiple elements to create a single (artistic) scene.
So, the based story for me to create this post: Around a year ago, there were two different arguments, from two different street photographers, at two different occasion and time (so actually they never talked/met to each other). I love both of their work, and I do get inspiration from their images too, even though they have completely different style.
One of them is a “hardcore” street photographer who use flash (both at daylight and night), and focus more on capturing human face from medium to close distance. You can imagine a Bruce Gilden style. There were times he would also “shake off” his camera at slow shutter speed to create panning light effect.
I don’t really remember the exact words he told me, but roughly, this was his opinion that he spoke to me:
“To shoot focus on composition is not always good, because you put distance between yourself and subject. It’s like you want to separate yourself from the scene, not become part of them. You lose the intimacy, you lose the tense. It’s definitely harder to photograph people from close distance, right in front of their face, because you need plenty of guts.”
The other person, who heavily focus more on shoot composition, ever told me this statement (also roughly of course, can not remember each exact words):
“Blending multiple objects is really hard, we need to thinking deeply, to decide which elements to include, and to a certain extend, it’s even harder to decide which elements should be exclude from our frame. Not to mention we need to monitor multiple objects at the same time, and the gap is really narrow, when finally each of them at the right place and at the right time.
To shoot only focus on face, from close distance is not hard, it’s a straightforward action. You just need to throw your camera onto someone face (anytime and anywhere) and be done with it. You do not need to think in such complex way, instead only need plenty of guts.”
Well, I’m at neutral side, so partially I can accept two statement above, but at the same time I also (partially) disagree with both of them. Each own style has their own uniqueness, specialty, and speak on different artistic language. To decide which one harder to do is a meaningless argument, same goes to decide which one is better as a street photo.
Even when we shoot focus on face, there are still few points in composition that we need to consider. Then when shoot focus on composition, there are chances facial expression able to raise the quality of our images.
My personal background story
I started street photography as a passion by shot plenty of street portraits. Most of them without permission, and few with permission. I did felt it was “scary” to captured stranger photos, especially when I tried to get the eye contact to increase the tense on my photo. I love how I can tell a story, by showing face gesture of a person.
Some said that create photo with permission also hard, because we need to prepare our mind to got rejected plenty of time. My experience showed me that was not the case, in fact, here in Indonesia, my record still 100%, people always accepted my offer when I asked permission first. Soon, I felt bored as I thought it was too easy, and not challenging. Thus, I focus more on shooting street portrait without permission after that.
Then “a revelation” happened when I had a trip to Dubai at 2017. I had chance to circled around few areas alone by walk, and start to captured street moment there. The photo above, dare I say, a photo that change my style completely! That time I was still focus on shooting people’s face as main theme, but the moment I able to captured this photo, I knew that this was a style that I deeply in loved. To blend gesture, with dynamic shape, lighting, and shadow, at the right time, and the right place.
I do realise this one is not my best photo. However, I still able to remembered the “pleasure feel” when I captured this moment, just like it happened yesterday. The “Wow and WTF” feeling, like I just snapped an award winning photo.
Right after I came back from the trip, I gradually changed my shooting style into more of fine art. Focus more on the ambience, multiple elements, and the use of human body as decisive moment decoration, not the main topic that dominate the frame. While blending multiple objects, I still need human presence as a scale, and a sign of decisive moment, based on their body gesture.
Shifting my focus from finding an attractive subject, into an interesting spot. Changing from hunting mode, where actively moving to shoot a person, into fishing technique, waiting at a spot, till the right subject fill in the frame. I start to think about multiple elements, how to compose them, and where to put my subject inside a frame.
It feels like tiling puzzle on jigsaw, I stare at a scene for few minutes, thinking what I should do, before take the real shot. Even after taken few shots, I will review (Yes, chimping!) my photos, and wondering if I should adjust few things like: Where I stand, or where I should put the subject, which objects need to exclude, etc. Shooting a photo is not only matter of pressing shutter, but about how to compose all of objects around into a single image. You can say, I work on my own puzzle using photo as medium.
Note: I train my self to stay aware with surrounding while reviewing photos. Try to look a bit further, to check whether there is suitable subject to enter my frame or not. Not chimp right away every single shot, but wait till I satisfied with the result, then I check my photos and start to think what I should do to improve.
Practical tips focus on shooting face
Even though nowadays I focus more on composition, I do still like to capture people’s expression once in a while. I guess old habit never change anyway. There are few points that make me able to decide whether a photo is good or not when we focus hunting for people’s faces, such as:
– Eye contact
– Distance, subject should not be too far or too “small” in a frame
– Face should be clearly visible and become main focus. Pay more attention to fall of lighting that hit the subject’s face
– Face gesture, related to expression and emotion (being cheerful, desperate, struggling, confuse, etc)
– Reaction. A bit rarely happen to me. The point is to capture their spontaneous expression, when they realised I photographed them.
The main point here is to let face gesture of subject to tell the story, other thing definitely not as important. What our subject felt, at the exact time I captured my shutter, become the main topic. Other objects around them may help to complete the story, but without the subject’s face, these objects perhaps means nothing.
Tips: Shooting Street Portrait
Practical tips focus on shooting composition
The tricky part is we need to make a plan first. To decide what to include and exclude at the same time. Do not too hasty, take a slower pace. Once I think multiple elements set at the right place to create attractive composition, then I will wait till the right subject enter the frame.
Of course just because I can work in slower pace, does not mean I move or thinking extremely slowly. Have plan is great, but always to keep it open for “surprise” decisive moment that may happen.
There were times I need to think faster such as to captured photo above. My planned was create layering photo using a dog as foreground, and frame human gesture inside. The “decisive moment” effect was the dog kept moving and running cheerfully to everywhere. What I could only do was kept following him till I got frame the right subject with the right gesture. (Yes, it was a tiring shot, I need to running and ducking many times to took shots).
These are important things to focus on when shooting strong composition:
– Light falloff, search spot with uneven light, one area is really bright, and surrounded by significantly lower light intensity.
– Sharp outline of face shape in silhouette form, focus more on nose, lips, and hair.
– Geometry, as leading line, framing, any square, triangle, and circle shape also works.
– Colour matches, find two or more unrelated objects with similar colours scheme.
– Body gesture, pay more attention to movement of leg, hand, finger, neck, and head.
– Reflective surface (tile wall/floor, glass, wet surfaces, puddle, shiny metal like stainless, etc). Do not forget to rotate the photos if needed.
– Diagonal line and diagonal angle (Read here for more).
– Experiment with extreme low angle or high angle.
– Minimise background distraction, the prime subject should be much more (contrasty) visible than background objects.
– Combining multiple objects as layer, no overlapping between each objects. (Read here for more).
Ultimately, always remember shoot what you want to shoot. Listen critique and suggestion are always welcome, but we need to stick with our own “artistic language” to create our own photo. There is no exact right or wrong in art. It is just matter of how we translate our artistic mind into an image, which is there are plenty of ways to do it.
Just like what my favourite singer said:
I don’t play by the rules of the game – Grace Vanderwaal
Have fun and shoot everyday!
Nico Harold