The Realities of Street Photography
As someone who teaches street photography for a living it would be wrong of me to suggest that street photography is easy and yes, you of course you can just go out there and shoot anything on the streets and yes, it’s fine - of course it’s street photography. Even if it isn’t. I know there are plenty of people who go down the route of ‘shoot anything - nobody cares about definitions’ but I’m sorry, I just can’t do that. We’ve really got to have some sort of a framework to operate within or else street photography would just be a free for all: a cat on a wall is street photography; a picture of a bus is street photography; someone's lunch is street photography - which of course they're not.
My angle with this article is that street photography isn’t necessarily easy and if you do find it very easy then either you’re shooting the wrong stuff or you’re the best street photographer who ever lived. But if you can calibrate your expectations and accept that if you want to be really good at this, you need to be in it for the long term and you need to see it as a journey. With the right approach and the right mindset, the results will come. So let’s probe a little deeper into some of the realities of street photography . . .
IT’S HARD WORK
Firstly, you WILL take many many many boring pictures - in the words of Alex Webb, "Street photography is 99.9 per cent about failure". It’s a long and hard journey and there’ll be lots of failure, mistakes, self-doubt. "Is it all worth it?" "Why do I bother?" "Why is everyone better than me?" But this is like building a muscle - the more you exercise it the stronger it gets. A lot of people fall by the wayside because they can't accept this - they can’t get over this pain barrier, they’re not prepared to put in the hard miles to make it work. So if you’re going to make this work, you won’t do it without a strong work ethic. Steps + practice = keepers - there's a strong correlation here.
CONFRONTATION HAPPENS
Next, you probably don’t want to hear this but you CAN expect confrontation on the streets - it’s a given, it happens, but once you get your head around accepting that it’s occasionally going to happen, it’s rarely a big deal. Just be nice out there, be open and relaxed about what you’re doing, don’t skulk around furtively and you should have relatively few problems. With open, relaxed and positive body language you’ll come across as the ‘good guy’ and people will usually be nice back to you. Please don’t see problems where they don’t exist!
DON’T OBSESS ABOUT INSTAGRAM
Instagram can hold you back. There, I've said it. And again, you probably don’t want to hear this. The big danger I see with many street photographers is that they set out to please Instagram, which is totally the wrong way round. I kind of get it; I know that a certain type of image will get many more likes (and vacuous, meaningless emojis) than another type of image. I can even tell you what kind of image that is - it has simplicity, it’s easy to digest in two seconds and it’s likely to be more what I would call a ’lightscape’ than what you might call traditional, observational street photography. But if you shoot specifically to get adoration from what is a very fickle audience on social media, I have to tell you you’re shooting for all the wrong reasons. You really REALLY should be doing this for YOU. I made YouTube a video on this subject a few years ago (here) and I'll do an updated version of this at some point soon.
DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE GEAR
Gear really doesn't matter. Pretty much any camera will do. You really don’t need expensive gear to be good. I know a guy who shoots film on a little old Olympus Trip worth about £50 and do you know what? - his images are way better than another guy I know who shoots with a seven grand Leica. So don’t make the gear an excuse. Sure, good gear can sometimes help you a little - shooting in low light for example - but it's never going to make you a better street photographer. Use what you've got, get to know it inside out and just let it become part of you - this will always be a far richer experience than constantly buying new stuff and using gear you're not familiar with.
MANAGE YOUR EXPECTATIONS
Another reality is that you really need to manage your expectations. Please don't go out there expecting to come home with a card full of great keepers because it's not going to happen. Take great photographers like Meyerowitz or Maier or even Leiter - I reckon they would be over the moon with a strong image every week or so - and those guys shot a LOT. And this is pretty much where your expectations should be. Take me, for example: if I go out shooting tomorrow I’ll be happy to come home with one keeper or two - sometimes it’s none - and that’s fine too. I’ll have walked 30,000 steps, drank lots of decent coffee, had a beer or two, had a few interesting conversations, popped my head into a gallery and whatever pictures I took, I’ll have had a great day. Beware the street photography who says “I went out shooting yesterday and I got loads of bangers!” - whatever they are. When I was at school bangers were sausages.
IT’S A JOURNEY
My next point is really about your street photography journey. As you’re learning you’ll be taking lots of inspiration from other street photographers - whether it’s the greats like Winogrand or Herzog or Levitt - or people you like on Instagram - but at some point you’ll need to cut yourself free and go your own way. I say this because it’s something we should all be at least thinking about early on in that journey. I’m not saying you need to reinvent the wheel - there are plenty of existing conversations going on out there - you simply need to take some of them off in a different direction. Yes, we know that most things have been done before but you should aim to be inspired by others but don’t be derivative. Nick Turpin’s collective, for example, in-Public - has set out to champion street photographers who are prepared to stick their neck out and take the genre off in a different direction. And I love this this thinking.
BLACK & WHITE? WHY?
Here’s a controversial one for you. Black & white won’t make a bad picture good. How often do you see someone’s image - probably not a great one - that’s been converted to black & white to make it look more “street”? So…. you get home, you’re looking through your images and you find one … oh this looks a bit boring - let’s see if it works better in black & white. Okay, there’s a small chance that it will but this is really upside down thinking. You really should be making the black & white decision before you press the button - it should be an upfront creative choice rather than an afterthought. I have absolutely no problem with black & white street photography; I shoot a lot of it myself and I love it - but at the end of the day it’s not reality - it’s an abstraction - and it needs to be done with a sense of purpose.
DON’T BLAME THE WEATHER
I'm English so I'll mention the weather. The English love talking about the weather. Think you need great weather for street photography? Think again. All weather is good weather so please don’t make it an excuse for taking boring pictures or for not getting out there shooting. Yes, of course, strong sunshine is great but so is rain, snow, fog, wind - I’m happy shooting is any kind of difficult weather because they all boring their opportunities and nuances to street shooting. A bland grey day is my least favourite but I’ll still get out there - things still happen.
YOU WILL BE CRITICISED
My final point is about criticism. You will be criticised - some people don’t get street photography - some think it’s all too easy - some have something to prove - and you will occasionally get slated. Some people will not like your work. But when I post an image on Instagram and it gets negative comments that’s fine! I do this for me, not for you and I can’t let it get to me! Why people waste their time by posting negative comments on social media beats me - I suspect it makes them feel better about themselves and you need to rise above it and block out the negativity. This is a long journey and there’ll be lots of self-doubt and you’ll have your own feelings if inadequacy - but you’ve got to hunker down, dig in and do what you feel is right.
I’ve made a video version of this article and you can watch it on YouTube here.
