rate your street shooting confidence/aggressiveness

rate your street shooting confidence/aggressiveness

  • 1 - I am a wuss

    Votes: 24 19.0%

  • 2 - sneak hipshots

    Votes: 14 11.1%

  • 3 - somewhere in between 2 and 4

    Votes: 68 54.0%

  • 4 - I am invincible

    Votes: 20 15.9%
  • Total voters
    126
FrankS

FrankS

Registered User
Local time
12:11 PM
Joined
Aug 23, 2004
Messages
19,348
1 - I'm afraid to even point my camera in the direction of a person whom I worry about offending if they should notice me and my camera, therefore I wait until there is no one in the frame when I take my urban landscape photos.

2 - If I'm sure I won't get caught, I sneak a hipshot or camera-on-table shot of people I don't know.

3 -

4 - I can walk right up to total strangers on the street, stick my camera in their face and take several shots. I am invincable on the street with my camera. If someine is in public, they are fair game and I am not breaking any laws.

Or, provide your own description
 
In fact, I think that's part of why I joined the forum. I've been streetshooting in some of the less safe parts of Orlando with two DSLRs and after my last trip decided that I need to re-think my gear stratagie. Anyone got an Epson that they are looking off load?
 
'I am invincible' with a TV camera only...and get so tired of people-orientated filming that my photography tends to concentrate on scenes where there are no people present. Not sure if that makes me a 'wuss' or someone in search of 'silence'... ;)
 
3 - Strangely, it depends on the day. Some days I'm confident, taking pictures of people from close range (not close-up yet). But some other days I'm so unispired and shy that I only take pictures of the city doves... the demure ones... with a tele-lens.
 
I tend to take "sneak" shots because I like to capture people in natural situations. I find as soon as I raise the camera to my eye the mood changes and they give me looks like "what are you doing, why are you taking my picture". Sometimes I luck out and they don't notice the camera up to my eye or me at all. :)

Cheers,
Brandon.
 
Well, I'm not afraid to hold up my camera and take someone's picture. Most of the time I do hold it long enough to let the person knows what I'm doing, or I simply ask for a permission to do so. Sometimes I will get rejected, sometimes I will get a friendly smile and take some pictures. It's nice to be able to "interact" (e.g. a little chat) with the person you want to snap so know some history about her/him beside the image. And it makes the image more meaningful.
 
3 - I have no real hesitation when in a park, on the train, or on the sidewalk pulling up the camera for a frame or two, even very close to the subject. But I'm not invincible, or invisible - so if they wave me off, I back off. I'm a nice guy.
 
shadowfox said:
3 - Strangely, it depends on the day. Some days I'm confident, taking pictures of people from close range (not close-up yet). But some other days I'm so unispired and shy that I only take pictures of the city doves... the demure ones... with a tele-lens.
Click to expand...

I agree with Shadow on this one. Some days you got it and some days you just cower at the thought of someone even looking at you while taking a photograph. Also depends on the type of camera you are using as I tend to just snap away without a care in the world with my tiny Oly XA & XA4. With the XA4 you can get really close and not even be noticed.
 
5 - Depends on how much I've been drinking.

Size doesn't matter...uhhemm...my girlfriend is 5'2" and 95 pounds and she has the biggest balls of anyone I know (metaphorically speaking, thankfully, not literally).
 
Same here,

some days are just not made for great shots and you know that after 5 min. walking around. Usually no one takes notice and if they don't want to be photographed I don't take the shot.
I only had one single incident when someone came after me, not even having seen me taking that shot. A girl with trendy sunglasses so big to hide her face almost entirely - at least no one can recognize her. Someone told her that some guy took a picture of her. After the first heat wave she cooled off when I explained no commercial photog and no digital camera so I could not possibly delete that file. And no, she would not have her picture on the front page of people's magazine.
 
As has been said, it all depends on the day. Some days I have absolutely no qualms about shooting brazenly, and some days I can barely get in a hip shot.
Location makes a big difference as well. For example, on a recent wait in the airport, I had about an hour to kill and went around taking pictures openly, and it felt great. However, the last time I was in Portland, a city I'm somewhat familiar with, something just didn't feel right, and I barely shot at all.
 
I know that for myself, being at an event and acting like a tourist makes it easier for me to take photos of the public.
 
I have never taking a hip shot so I can't vote #2. Though I hate to admit it I have missed a few shots because of #1. I haven't yet felt the need to compose a shot by sticking my camera in their face. Sounds interesting though to get a shot of maybe a rapper with gold teeth, I'll have to find somebody, that might be cool. So I classify my self between a 1 & 4. I'm a wuss until I get myself psyched out and then I transform into being bold with my camera. Some days though the transformation doesn't come. Maybe we need more phonebooths.
 
Last edited:
I marked between 2 and 4.

I don't consider myself to be shy by any means, but I do try to respect the personal space and the comfort level of others. (Most of the time.) :)

I recently shot several rolls during the final few hours of the Frontier casino. This was one time where you could shoot away inside a casino with impunity, and most of the people there were cool about it. It was a festive but bittersweet atmosphere.

I didn't try to hide the camera at all. When I was taking them I don't remember any body language -- at the time -- until I got the photos back from the lab the next day and ... the look on the guy's face on the right ... I can just hear him saying "what in the {f-bomb} are you doing taking my picture!"
 

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