Street photography: thoughts + tips + analysis
How do you photograph people who are larger than life? Do you sit them down in the studio, put them at their ease and flood their features with artificial light? Maybe you deliberately make them ill at ease, forcing them into a corner, as Irving Penn did in his famous “Corner Portraits” of 1948. Such … Read more
If Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy, represents the top of the food chain — in 2018 it’s No.1 among “The World’s 50 Best Restaurants” — then the eating places I’m showing here are somewhere near the bottom. I mean no disrespect. In fact, I don’t particularly enjoy eating in expensive restaurants. Getting a table is … Read more
I’ve always liked the idea of capturing a street scene in which buildings, cars and people happen to share the same colour. Likewise, I’m attracted to groups of people in the same coloured outfit, but where each person is asserting an individual personality by stance and gesture. Why do I have this ambition? I guess … Read more
There’s a fine Japanese short story by Mori Ogai called “Fushinchu” (“Under Reconstruction,” 1910) which describes the discomfort of living in the city when it’s being extensively re-built. I was reminded of this story on a recent walk around London. Everywhere I went there seemed to be men in yellow jackets: knocking down buildings, unloading … Read more
Can you do street photography on rivers and canals? I don’t see why not. The only difference between the waterway and the street is the obligation to use a boat for transport, rather than your feet. Yes, I admit that’s a major difference, because the knock-on effect is the lack of pedestrians. Without passers-by, the … Read more
The civic authorities in Bangkok are beginning to outlaw the sale of fastfood on certain streets, especially those in trendy, up-and-coming areas like Thonglor. Not everyone is happy about it. After all, street food is trendy too. Bangkok is unique in having the world’s most elaborate street food culture. A lot of vendors specialise in … Read more
When William Eggleston said “I am at war with the obvious” I don’t think he was recommending the deliberate embrace of obscurity. Yet it’s a measure of how far we’ve come that today a photographer can offer complex images with hidden meanings and unusual compositions — a long way from the “rectangle with an object … Read more
If you’ve just built a hide in the woods and bought a 600mm lens, please stop reading now. This morning I looked out of my bedroom window and snapped a baby goldcrest with my Canon 5DIII and 40mm lens, using settings unchanged from the night before. The fact is: I didn’t have time to change … Read more
When you photograph someone waiting patiently — or impatiently — you’re introducing an element of expectation into your photo. This means the shot is “open-ended,” or not complete in itself. It’s telling a story that will never be completed because no additional images exist to show us whether the subject’s expectation is ever met. I … Read more
One of my ambitions is take a candid photo of two other street photographers accidentally bumping into each other. I don’t suppose it will ever happen. If they’re any good, invisible street photographers are hard to spot, let alone capture “en masse” in a photo of your own. Fortunately, there are plenty of other unexpected … Read more