Is street photography difficult?

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knodd

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hello everyone,

I'm pretty new to rangefinders and street photography, and I find it so difficult to get results which i consider 'good' whereas my friends who shoot models and fashion stuff seem to get 'good' shots muchhhhhhh more often. :bang:

Is it just me? Or does street photography innately require more experience, skill at composition, exposure etc.

Just wondering what those experienced and well versed photographers here think 😉

(that being said i love my RF and street photography, and i'm gonna keep at it till i get results that i can can be proud of 😀)

cheers,
shaun
 
Really Good v Rather Good

Really Good v Rather Good

To be really good at street one's people skills must match his photographic skills.
 
It can be I guess. Like the overcoming the shyness part. Or maybe trying to do street photography in a small town in Canada in winter, unless you like pictures of the street with no people in them. Or just any small town is hard most of the time I would think.
 
An important thing is to develop an instinct for the moment, learn to anticipate what is about to happen before it does, then play it out and flow with the situation.

My girlfriend is a fashion photographer, it could be said she gets a lot more "good" photos then I do, but also she can take a hundred photos of the same thing if she wishes, where as sometimes it can be difficult to fire off two or three shots of a 2 second moment on the streets.
 
****ty street photography is easy and a dime a dozen. To be special you really need a fantastic eye and real ability to react to the world around you. Your camera isn't even a tool anymore, it's just something that's between your eye and the scene and it's completely automatic. There isn't very much special street photography out there. (IMO)
 
I find it very difficult - and yes, there's a lot of mediocre stuff out there. I'm glad everyone's trying though.

Oh - and I'm not sure it requires "much more" experience than other genres of photography - maybe experience in a different subset of skills. For example, I certainly have no command over flash photography, which is vital in fashion setups.
 
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Good street photography is like running a marathon with a gas mask on.

Great street photography is virtually impossible.
 
street shooting is not hard at all.

getting great or even good shots is.

i've been doing it for years and have very few images that really sing but it's what i like to do so i do it.

keep at it, shoot lots, se what comes from it.
 
It is all difficult. Portait, landscape, whatever the subject. No more so if your subject is the street, in my opinion.

...if your goal is to make something original or unique.

Cheers,
Gary
 
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I find portrait or landscape much more difficult.
I know very few portrait or landscape photogs that really blow my mind, while quite a lot of the kind of PJ/street/ documentary photogs (read recording anything spontaneous) are doing the trick for me.
I know I have donea couple of good pictures in that style, but wouldn't even kno where to begin with a portrait...
 
cmogi10 said:
****ty street photography is easy and a dime a dozen...There isn't very much special street photography out there. (IMO)
Click to expand...

Agreed.

Too much cliche pics (which I too am guilty of taking) imo...
What I find difficult is moving away from the typical or at least finding something special/different with the typical/cliche shots.

I fail exponentially more than I succeed.
 
Quote: "Too much cliche pics (which I too am guilty of taking) imo...
What I find difficult is moving away from the typical or at least finding something special/different with the typical/cliche shots."

And this is different from landscape or any other "Genre" out there?
There must be many more cliched and boring landscapes, portraits, etc., just based on the shear numbers of practitioners. No?

I'm not sticking up for "Street" photography here. I agree, there is a mountain of mediocre stuff about. Just failing to differentiate as "Harder" than some other type of photography.

Cheers,
Gary
 
Difficult, yes I would say so. But more so than any other kind of photography? The kind of photography that gives me the lowest frequency of keepers is bird and animal photography. As for producing originality, that is always difficult, but probably more so when shooting models in a studio, where you actually have to produce the originality yourself.

My only advise is stolen from some blog or webpage I read but forgot. Go to festivals, there are many people taking pictures and posing, so you don't feel as out of place. There is lots and lots happening and people doing strange things that appear original on film and people dress up and don't mind photographers as much.

Good luck (I know I need it),

Michael
 
I would have to say yes ... it is difficult. It does have a certain looseness to it though where missing the focus slightly or exposure for that matter will not necessarily detract from the impact of the shot.

Camera shake missed focus and poor exposure don't do a lot for the average landscape! 😛
 
It seems to me that comparing Fashion photo with Street photo is quite out of place.

The greatest fashion photos I have seen, according to my taste, are the absolute and original creation of the photographer, starting from zero and ending in such explosion of originality, grace, aesthetics, that make my senses jump.

In the streets you do not command your "models", and scarcely you choose the background. So what makes Street Photography so special for You ? I think this is the question you have to ask yourself, indepedently of the results you have got, and try to hit and hit on these essentials that prompt you to the street. This is just one possible approach.

On the other hand, over the pages of RFF you will find other kind of street photographers for whom the streets are a kind of ever changing caleidoscope of human forms and reactions interpolating with weird backgrounds - all of which they have to "catch" with their eye and camera in fraction of seconds. This is another approach.

Besides, I don't buy the opinion expressed sometimes in this thread that there is not good street photography any more, which BTW is shared by many others too.
However, as a proof of the contrary, I kindly invite you to make a comprehensive tour at a weekly selection we have, which we call the Weekly Picks.

Over the pages of the Weekly Picks you will find some outstanding photographs, not an inch less good than the best ever produced. But in contrast to the great master photographers of the past, our Weekly Picks dispaly today's people on one hand, and many other pictures which are not that great, and for this reason may serve you as a kind of staircase.

Cheers,
Ruben
 
OP > Is street photography difficult?

Just try to get your prospective and moment in time about right or as near as damn it 🙂


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