8+ Street Photography Tips
I fell in love with photography at a young age. I dabbled with all types: weddings (super fun and exciting, but too stressful), portraits (too intimate for my anxious brain), landscapes (boring), children (I don’t like kids). I realized, after years of taking photos, that the ones I had the most fun creating technically counted as “street photography”. I’d just carry my camera around with me everywhere I went, on vacation, just driving around the city with my partner on our way to Target. I captured whatever I felt like. No pressure, no people, no rules.
So today, I’m coming at you with eight street photography tips that will help make your photos better. These are all my own personal opinions on the type of street photography that I like. Obviously, do whatever you want. Don’t ever let anyone tell you to not do something, these are just things that I like to do in my work.
Photo courtesy of Unsplash
Look for shadows and contrast. Street photography is a great way to experiment, and eventually, you’ll find what you like. You’ve got a lot of buildings and cars and people around- even on a cloudy day you can still find shadows- from the buildings coming down, from cars on the road, etc. It just makes for a more interesting photo in my opinion.
Do not overexpose. There’s nothing I hate more than an overexposed photo. It gets rid of the shadows, it blows the sky out everything is so white. Do not lose your highlights. When in doubt, underexpose. Shoot in raw so that you can lighten everything a little bit if you need to. I hate it which is probably why I hate the bright and airy type of photos because it just doesn’t look real. Personal opinion: it makes you look like an amateur because, for example, your iPhone, or basically any camera that you are going to shoot on auto, is going to most of the time overexpose the shadows because it wants you to have your subject exposed.
Walk around a lot, do not stay in one spot. This is in contrast to what a lot of street photographers do, which is plant themselves and wait for something to happen to them, they wait for something to come into their frame. This is a totally valid way to do it but I like to just keep moving if I don’t see something that I like in the scene. I do this for multiple reasons: most of the street photography that I do is either when I’m on vacation or already going somewhere so I’m not just gonna stand there and wait because I probably have somewhere to be. Two: there’s just so much to be seen that I don’t like staying in one spot #adhd.
Look for reflections. Now caveat to that, reflections can sometimes make your work look a little amateurish but when done correctly I think they’re really good, and in a city there’s going to be a lot of buildings: high-rise buildings or a lot of windows from office buildings or restaurants.
Look for geometry. Whether it’s angles, different shapes, leading lines — anything that can bring your viewer’s eye to where you want them to see. Whether it’s the leading lines of a road or the leading lines of a window coming down to your subject, you can look for the shapes in the shadows. All these tips are going to be kind of coming around to each other at some point, for example, look for a shadow that has a leading line going from the window or the building up there down to your subject. That’s like three of the tips all in one and it will make for a great street photo.
Don’t expect to get 100 great photos. Don't expect that every one of your photos is going to be good. Trust me, this is true for most types of photography. You are gonna get so many bad ones, you’re gonna be like, why did I even take that photo? Well, the way I shoot, it’s so fast, you just go go go go go, you know? It’s taken me years to get a lot of street photos that I actually like because so many things happen: a car runs through your shot, a kid runs through a shot, you have to walk across the street because the walk light is ready to go, you have to change your battery so you missed that great shot that was happening while you were switching them out, etc. I do a lot of my street photography driving, while I’m the passenger of course, so I can’t control as much what’s happening in front of me. I don’t even look at the photos most of the time, I just wait till I get home because everything is going so so fast. You just have to remember, I could take 300 photos and I may get like 20 that I like, so just don’t be discouraged. Again, this goes for every type of photography: do not be discouraged when the majority of your photos aren’t good.
Just take the photo. I feel like one of the biggest signs of an amateur is someone who spends so long composing one photo. You know like when you’re on vacation and your uncle with the giant camera tries to take a family photo? He’s like okay everyone gather around, and takes like 10 minutes to get one picture of the three people standing in front of this tree or whatever. Just take the photo! Most of us are shooting digital, obviously, if you’re doing film it’s a whole other thing, but if you’re doing digital and have a big enough memory card then you can just shoot. It drives me nuts when people are like oh I missed that shot and it’s like well, you didn’t start taking the photo soon enough. As soon as you see something that you even remotely think might be a good photo, start taking pictures. Most cameras these days have a really high frames-per-second rate. It doesn’t need to even be that high, multiple pictures per second is basically all you need.
Always be ready. Keep your camera on. Don’t put your camera in your pocket, don’t put it in your backpack, don’t put it away. Make sure it’s in your hand or on your lap or just easy to get to. As you see something that you think might be good, start taking pictures because you’re going to miss moments if you’re not ready. Street photography is, the way I do it at least, very, very, very fast.
These two bonus tips directly contradict each other. Pick one.
Have small gear. I use Fuji mirrorless cameras, they’re much smaller than a DSLR. I also have two pretty small/thin lenses. It’s not one of those giant professional Canon lenses that are like a foot long. Small gear will help you stay secretive, no one will really care what you’re doing. Their size has nothing to do with why it bought the Fujis, but after the fact, I realized how great it was that they kind of look old. They look like either film cameras or point shoots, they have that retro look and people think that you’re not as intimidating.
Look like a tourist. If you do want to get more photos of people or just be closer to people or whatever you’re taking a picture of, it can sometimes help you to look like a tourist. No one’s scared of, for example, the dad and the four kids taking pictures on vacation. People will just assume you’re taking pictures for your scrapbook.
This is the camera I have:
The newer version is here:
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