Seven skills of street photography

Every street photographer has his own experience and skills, such as waiting, framing, speed, continuous shooting, finding easy subjects, and so on. The following are some street photography skills shared by a photographer named James Maher from new york, plus some supplements of my own.

1. Don't go, wait a minute.

It is generally believed that street photography will go on forever. In fact, you have to keep moving and observing to have more chances to find possible objects or scenes. This is a fact. However, there is a problem with walking constantly, that is, you can't compose music while walking, and the streets are constantly changing. If you keep moving, you can't see both sides clearly when you move. But when you are still, you will have a better reaction time to sudden scenes. Then street photographers have to shoot people's expressions, so they usually go in the opposite direction of the crowd, and so do I. If you go in the direction of the crowd, it will be more difficult to grasp the sudden shooting time or an expression, and it will take a long time to master it quickly, otherwise you will just keep walking and miss the shooting opportunity.

The key point of this technique is to slow down, walk, stop and wait for a few minutes at the point where you think there may be interesting shooting opportunities. Try not to "look for" shooting opportunities, let opportunities come to you. When you wait in a crowded street, you will suddenly find a bunch of pictures to shoot.

▲ Taipei/Oriental Author: Ethan Chiang

2. Pay attention to people's eyes

The eyes are the windows of the soul, from which we can see a person's mood. This skill is not easy, it needs to be bold enough. When the subject looks directly at the camera, that picture is usually very powerful. When you first come into contact with street shooting, you dare not shoot in front of people and try to avoid eye contact. I still dare not shoot in front of strangers. My method is to see the object I want to shoot, then raise the camera, and when they turn around and look at the camera, press the shutter immediately. That moment is the most real. Wait a few seconds, in addition to the main body to dodge, or pay attention forward, or even show a fist as big as a sandbag. Just kidding, no one will show his fist just because you took a picture of him in the street. Try not to make eye contact after shooting. If there is, just nod and smile, don't look down at the camera, get out of the way.

▲ Seoul/HTC author Ethan Chiang

Attention to detail.

Street photography is not just about shooting many dislocations or cramming a bunch of special people into the picture at a time. Usually, photographers will find a good opportunity for composition or dislocation in the street and take pictures when people come in, but they can try to pay attention to some small details at that time. When we look for shooting opportunities on the road, we often look at larger compositions, such as a complete person, the building behind, advertising posters and so on. Next time, we may try to look at people's shoes, some expressions, some interesting gadgets and so on. And many nervous pictures are formed with the simplest composition.

▲ Seoul/Ethan Chiang

4. Improve ISO

Personally, I try to keep ISO at 400, because I want less noise in the photos. Nowadays, many digital cameras are really capable of dealing with noise. I seem to have seen cameras with ISO soaring to tens of thousands, and there is no noise. The advantage of high ISO is that you can use faster shutter speed and take clearer images under the ever-changing street light source. But pay attention to noise, unless you prefer photos with a lot of noise. But sometimes noise can add more "flavor" to black and white works.

▲ Seoul/Ethan Chiang

5. You can shoot something else when there is no "person"

Rigid street photography often needs "people". Yes, street photography will really feel something missing if it lacks "people", because this photography mode is recording "people" to some extent, but in fact, there are many shooting opportunities in the streets without big people in the picture. ? However, this does not mean that street photography can become landscape photography or simple architectural photography. In street photography, no one's work is still related to "people", such as the cultural evolution of a certain area in the city, the lifestyle of people in a certain place and so on. Even if there are clear people in the photo, you can still feel the "human" flavor that the photo wants to convey. Anyway, it's not a simple beat 10 1.

▲ Seoul/Namdaemun Market (Ethan Chiang)

Use artificial light sources

In the past, I only went out to shoot during the day, and when there was no sun, I put my camera away and went home, but I gradually found that the most fun shooting opportunity was at night. Although the light damage is so rampant that you can't see the stars at night, it is a great light source for street photographers. There are many artificial light sources in the street, such as neon lights, shop lights, street lights, traffic lights, car lights and so on. I remember a photographer said that you can take photos with a little light source, and sometimes the photos taken at night will be more dramatic. Don't visit and try next time, but please pay attention to safety. The way to enhance the success rate of night shooting is to improve ISO as much as possible or use flash.

▲ Taipei/Oriental Author: Ethan Chiang

7. Record value of street photography

Sometimes, in addition to taking some interesting and special pictures on the street, you can actually look at the scenes with time value, such as people reading newspapers or even books on the 20 12 MRT. Two years later, I don't think I can see this picture. Look at the current MRT, 9.5 out of 10 people are looking down at their mobile phones. I usually read books when I take the MRT, but it actually feels good.

▲ USA/new york, by Ethan Chiang