Seven skills of street photography

Practice must have a method, and street shooting is the same, just like going in the wrong direction, even if your feet are swollen, you can't reach your destination. Street photography is easier said than done, otherwise everyone who has a camera will be Bresson.

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

1. Don't go, wait a minute.

Most people think that street beats will move all the time, but in fact, you really have to keep moving and observing to have more chances to find possible objects or scenes.

But there is a problem with walking constantly, that is, you can't compose music while walking. People on the street will keep changing. If you keep walking, you can't see clearly when both sides are walking. When you are still, you will have better reaction time to unexpected scenes.

When street photographers want to shoot people's faces, they usually go in the opposite direction of the crowd, so do I. If you go in the opposite direction of the crowd, it will be more difficult to grasp the shooting time or an expression that suddenly appears, and it will take a long time to master it quickly, otherwise you will just keep walking and miss the shooting time.

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 an interesting shooting opportunity. Try not to "look for" the shooting opportunity and let the shooting opportunity come to you. When you wait in a crowded street, you will suddenly find that there are many pictures to shoot in front of you.

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 I first came into contact with street shooting, I didn't dare to shoot in front of people at all. I tried to avoid eye contact. I still dare not shoot directly 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.

If you wait a few seconds, the subject will dodge, or look forward, or even show his fist as big as a sandbag (of course, this is a joke, no one will show his fist just because you take pictures of him in the street), and 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.

Attention to detail.

Street photography is not just about taking a lot of 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 walk in.

Actually, you can try to pay attention to some small details. When we are looking for shooting opportunities on the road, we often look at a large area of composition, such as a person and the building behind him, advertising posters and so on. Next time, maybe you can try to look at people's shoes, expressions or some interesting accessories on them. Many pictures with tension are formed by the simplest composition.

4. Improve ISO

Personally, I try to keep ISO at 400, because I want the photos to be less noisy. Nowadays, many digital cameras are really capable of dealing with noise. I seem to have seen cameras with ISO reaching 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 changeable street light source. But pay attention to noise, unless you prefer photos with a lot of noise. But sometimes noise can make black and white works more "tasteful".

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

Generally speaking, street shooting often needs people. Yes, street photography will be missing if there are no people, because this photography mode is to some extent recording "people".

But in fact, there are many shooting opportunities in the street when there are not many people in the picture. But this does not mean that street photography can become landscape photography or simple architectural photography.

Street photography 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 no clear characters in the photo, you can still feel the "human" flavor that the photo wants to convey.

Use artificial light sources

In the past, I only went out to shoot during the day, and I put away my camera and went home when the sun went down, but I gradually found that the most fun shooting time was actually at night. Although there are many lights, you can't see the stars at night, but it is a great light source for street photographers.

There are many artificial light sources in the street, such as neon 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. Try not to visit abroad next time.

The way to improve the success rate of night shooting is to improve ISO as much as possible or use flash. Personally, it is not recommended to use flash. First, it will scare others, and second, the light is unnatural.

7. Record value of street photography

Sometimes, in addition to taking some interesting and special pictures in the street, you can actually look at scenes with time value. For example, 20 12, people read newspapers and books on the subway, but I don't think this picture will be seen after two years. Now there are 9 people on the subway 10 looking down at their mobile phones. I usually read books when I take the subway, which is very strange.

In fact, I had this idea hidden in my mind when I was shooting street scenes, hoping to leave some records of the times for future people.