Street

Street photography is hard. You can walk around all day without getting a good shot. Then, suddenly, you see something interesting, and its gone before you have time to pick up your camera!

Then there's the question of the camera. The bigger the camera, the more self conscious people get when you point it at them. And that's not what you want. Here, it's definitely a question of small is beautiful. Even better, something with a swivelling screen so that you actually seem to be looking at something else while you are taking the shot.

Where you are is important too. In crowded places, you are not so visible. But even here, if you are the only one carrying a camera, you can be conspicuous. Tourist destinations are therefore rather good because it's normal to be toting a camera. People do not ask 'why has he got a camera?' because they think they know the answer.

Another factor affecting street photography is the law. This varies from country to country. The following link gives some useful information:  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Country_specific_consent_requirements 

And to get an idea of how a master of the art proceeds:

https://petapixel.com/2013/04/04/inspirational-bw-short-film-voiced-over-by-an-interview-with-henri-cartier-bresson/ 

or, more pedantically, but with some interesting footage of Cartier Bresson actually shooting in the street:

https://unitednationsofphotography.com/2016/04/25/archive-film-henri-cartier-bresson-pen-brush-and-camera-1999/ 

I think the reason that nobody notices him is that he is so engrossed in what he is doing that he disappears. A neat trick!

But then, the real test is to go out and do it!

On the left, the world is fragmented by the reflective windows of a modern building, giving the whole thing a schizophrenic appeal. One wonders what the inhabitants of Kalamazoo make of it on a daily basis. On the right, St Paul's Cathedral, London seen from across the Thames, interestingly juxtaposed with a lifebuoy, a bicycle and an man with a rucksack observing. What is he thinking? Is he going to jump?

Is this bald-headed, blue-shirted man actually capable of all the things he claims on his shopfront? Or perhaps he has an assistant? Or else he is the assistant. We do not know. Nor do we know what the young man in the centre photo is saying to the young woman. A profession of eternal love? A proposal of marriage? His latest examination results? At all events, the young woman seems intent on keeping a certain distance. And, on the right, the use of well known monuments as background is always appealing to the alternative photographer, as is photographing a photographer. The juxtaposition of male and female backsides is also interesting.

Near chaos in this market in Rome on the left, but where there is chaos there is also energy.  Difficult for the eye to find any particular point of focus. In the end, one gives up. In the second photo, a person is looking out of the photo. That's a very good rule to break. As it stands, it implies that there is something interesting going on about which we will never know, and adds a little tension to the situation. Words are also good. They lend a certain enigmatic substantiality to the whole thing. That’s to say, if there is a word (or even several words), it must mean something. One can read the word and respond if necessary. The spectator is drawn into the photo, in one sense making it his or her own. 'I understand that word' or 'I don't understand that word'. Both work equally well. Not understanding produces a mystery. Understanding may lead to other associations in the spectators mind. At all events, one has initiated a dialogue between photographer and spectator. Out of focus bystanders are also good. This one is particularly so: an attractive but apparently rather miserable young lady. One is surely tempted to investigate. To ask questions. There is also a very nice diagonal dividing foreground and background as though there were some sort of interdiction about crossing from one to the other. No, you are a background character and you will stay there. Shades of the 'Exterminating Angel'.

Yes, street photography is hard, but here are two examples of what you might do to get an interesting shot. The first involves getting into a crowd and picking out a workable composition. Here the flow of people is counterbalanced by the strong pointing finger. In the opposite direction. It gives the image a certain amount of tension. Why are the people ignoring this authoratative gesture? Prompting questions is always a good idea. The second is to juxtapose people and architecture, or people and statues. It points out the humanity of the people. All you have to do is find a frame and wait for somebody interesting to turn up. But you could be waiting all day, of course. Here we are prompted to ask what the hell is he looking at? Yes, and we are again breaking that rule of having people looking into the picture. 

The photograph above dates to 2004, the painting to the beginning of the 19th century. 

Venice, where the streets are all water, has long been an attraction for visual artists, and it's easy to see why. The combination of Venetians, tourists, architecture and water creates a sumptuous environment rich in pictorial possibilities, and the fact that the visual aspect of the city has not changed a great deal in over 200 years gives an added dimension to any work produced now. Check out the similarity between the current view and the view painted by Turner some two hundred years previous.

I don't have any particular compositional observations to make about these scenes, except to say that it is clearly a visually interesting subject with the broad sweep of the canal and the little aberrations of boats and people within that vista. The fact that the image exists within the framework of several centuries of works by various artists also gives the work a sort of fourth dimension: length, breadth, the illusion of depth and time.

Needless to say that a scene can take on a completely different aspect at different times of the day. Here is an alternative view of the same scene. The light gives its own interpretation of solidity. The mist, the lack of clarity, the spots of sunlight reflected on he water, the hazy shapes of the distant church all contribute to the early morning ambience, and this mood acts as a strong unifying factor on the image as a whole.