Street Photography Techniques
Photographs taken on streets, parks, beaches or other public places are referred as street
photography. Usually the main subject is people in their every day lives, often concentrate on
a single decisive moment.
The principal obstacle in creating good street photographs is shyness, most photographers
can find very hard to expose themselves with the camera in front of some unknown people.
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You must bypass this feeling and the only way to get over this is to start taking some shots in agglomerated public places. This will be much like a therapy and will give you enough confidence for making good street photographs in the future. |
In street photography is recommended the use of a small and silent rangefinder camera because
can offer you a good conceal. However, in closer approaches on the street, most people will change
their attitude if they observe your camera, and the naturalism of the scene will fade away. In this
situation, the camera lens will play a decisive role. Using a telephoto lens will assure you a safe
distance from the subject just enough to not be noticed.
Another concealing method is the waist-level shooting position, having the finger steady on the
shutter button and wait for the action, people will don't notice your intention. Also, the camera can
be cloaked in different objects. The general idea is to keep people from being aware that are
being photographed.
Technical Advices
- Because street shots are handheld is recommended a higher ISO setting or faster shutter
speeds, especially in low light condition and high movements.
- The aperture can be set between the range of f4 to f8, but for static subjects this can be as larger
as possible for isolating the subject from the background.
- Pre-focusing of the lens is a good thing, thought, for this setting you must close the aperture
more than normal to ensure a large depth of field, this will help having a sharp focus regardless
the subject distance from the camera - in a given range, but will also increase the shutter time,
making inevitable the appearance of some blurry shots, depending of camera and subject
movement but most of all by the light conditions.
- The equipment used must be as light as possible, reliable, fast to operate, quiet and of good
quality. If your actual camera doesn't have at least some of these characteristics, and you dislike
closer street approach, you can stealth your camera or you can use a long lens.
Legal Aspects
You can take photographs of whatever you see as long as they are taken from public areas,
however, if you want to publish your street photographs you must ask for permission from the
person being the subject (if the face is recognizable), this is done through a model release which
is signed by the person asked, giving you the right to publish the image. Buildings can be published
as long as they are photographed from public views.