The point of street photography is lost among many people, even by photographers who shoot other genres. Street photography is one of my great passions in life. But why? Street photography is a very artistic endeavor. It’s not like painting or drawing where you’re creating something out of nothing, but composing street photography images is definitely visually artistic.
Every street photographer, even the best street photographers, take terrible photos that don’t see the light of day as far as presenting them. The photographers who are true artists don’t publish their bad photos—they only publish the ones worth publishing.I think people at any point in history have probably taken for granted the point in time in which they live. Many of us look back at decades prior and think that we missed out by not living in that era.I’ve fallen into this trap myself, but I think that doing street photography promotes living in the moment and experiencing the moment in time that you live in. By doing so, you’re giving insight into the moment in time in which you lived to future generations.
When you look at street photography photos from decades prior like from Henri Cartier-Bresson and other street photographers who photographed other eras, it’s easy to think that they had it easy because things looked so novel. But they probably had the same thoughts about the time that they lived in: that nothing was new under the sun and that people all had the same boring fashion. I could look at street photographs all day long. They’re just very interesting to look at. They draw you in, tell a story, evoke emotion, make you feel like you’re part of the scene photographed, and more. A good street photograph makes you look at the subjects and may make you put yourself in their shoes and wonder what that person’s life is like or even just how their day was going on the day it was shot. Sometimes the background and architecture included are just as compelling as the subjects and your eyes wander the frame studying every tiny little detail. You wonder why the photographer chose to include certain elements in the frame. When you look at the work of history’s greatest street photographers, sometimes you wonder how they could have gotten every little aspect of the frame so perfect in real time.
In street photography, you’re capturing fleeting moments that will never occur the same way again. But what comes to mind for me when I think about how unique street photography is, it’s comparing it to other forms of photography. Take landscape photography, for example. I’m not knocking on landscape photography, but technically it’s possible for two different photographers to produce almost exactly the same images of landscape scenes. As frustrating as street photography can be, it wouldn’t be nearly as enjoyable if it weren’t a challenge. If it were easy, then everyone who picks up a camera would be successful at it and it would be difficult to set yourself apart. The best street photographers take on the challenge and keep at it. It’s really easy to get down in the dumps about not producing the results you want. You may go days, weeks, months, and thousands of shots before you get one image that you’d be proud to showcase. But when you stay persistent and focused even after you feel like giving up for lack of results, you do get that one great image. Those great images are what keep you going until your next one. It takes a lot of patience but they do come if you put in the work and honestly evaluate your previous work.
I like the unpredictability of street photography. It’s what makes street photography a challenge, as I talked about in the previous section Letting go and being present in the streets is a liberating feeling. You don’t have to stress about how to pose models or work your photography into a stressful wedding day. You don’t have to bring a ton of lighting equipment to get the light just right. You can position yourself in ways and particular places on the street in order to get the light close to what you want, but in many cases, you have to deal with the cards you’re dealt.
If you want to create a respectable body of work in your lifetime, it takes a lot of mental work. Sometimes you get out on the street and you just get in the zone and don’t have to think at all and everything just clicks, but just as often you’ll have to consciously think about what to include in your images, what to exclude, which direction to stand in for the best light, etc. Doing street photography is a lot like other hobbies that make you think, such as puzzles, crossword puzzles, chess, etc. You’re trying to gather enough information to make decisions in a limited time frame. This type of mental activity is good for you. It keeps you psychologically sharp.