Top 10 Tips For Street Photography

1. Human nature

The thing that separates ‘street’ photography from architectural shooting is almost always the human element. Be a people-watcher and look for interesting interactions between people and places.

2. Wrist action

Walking around with a camera strung around your neck can draw unwanted attention to yourself. Try tucking the strap inside an upturned collar or using a wrist strap instead.

3. Candid camera

Being secretive and shooting from a distance with a long lens can make you stand out like a sore thumb. Mingle with the crowd, be natural and pick your moment. It often works well to find a good location and just wait for something to happen.

4. Stay safe

Weigh up the risks of shooting potentially volatile situations. A drunken brawl might make for some great shots but you might also end up on the receiving end of some unwanted attention.

5. Don’t shoot

In some security-sensitive places any photography is prohibited, and use common sense when it comes to shooting outside schools or around playgrounds. Also, bear in mind that if you want to sell shots to a stock image library, you may need signed model release forms and property release forms for people and places you photograph.

6. Program AE

The less time you need to spend fiddling with camera settings the better, as you’ll often need to react to photo opportunities extremely quickly. Program AE mode is perfect, as you’ll get a good balance of shutter speed and aperture, and can easily adjust it if needed by rotating the main dial, using ‘Program shift’.

7. High ISO

Especially on dull days, a higher sensitivity setting will enable you to freeze the action without resorting to a very large aperture. You’ll often need to avoid motion blur as people are walking around, while also having enough depth of field to keep the background sharp to add context.

8. Multi-point AF

This usually works very well for street photography and saves focusing and then swivelling the camera, which takes more time and makes you more noticeable.

9. Shoot from the hip

Try shooting without raising the camera to your eye when you don’t want to be spotted. This can also make for some interesting, alternative angles of view.

10. Keep shooting

Fleeting glances and unexpected things can happen as a scene unfolds. It’s often good to switch to continuous drive mode and fire off a burst of shots.

Take better city shots today

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 4th, 2012 at 4:21 pm and is filed under Photography Tutorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a comment. Pinging is currently not allowed.