Street Shooter Drops the Ball!

[35mmdelux]

Hello, All:

I did some street shooting in 'Nawlins (New Orleans) a few weeks ago. My goal was to capture a few "formal" portraits with my Hasselblad, and I succeeded here. However, besides the occasional snap here-and-there I failed to capture much else.

I need to shoot more and intellectualize less, I suppose.

What is your approach to reportage?

 

[le vrai rdu]

rule n°1

showing people in there environnement, I think a reportage need people 🙂
don't be shy, just see people, telle them what you are doing and why, they should be okay for a portrait 😉


rule n°2 : be constant, take your time, wait for the good light

this is my 2 cents (euro cents of couse 😀 )

 

[35mmdelux]

The "formal" portaits I shot are not for publication. The "formals" were taken with my Hasselblad and 100mm lens, and have since been enlarged and given to the sitters.

The photos above are simply making the rounds in the neighborhood with my 35mm Summilux asp. I agree about the people part. Thanks.

 

[le vrai rdu]

look at HCB picture for exemple :

he include people in is picture without being to much close of them, this allow to show people and their surrounding 😉 this is what I tried to mean in my post (sorry for my awfull english 😉 )

 

[Pablito]

Reportage is reporting. You have to have a story to report on. First there has to be a story. Or you have to feel there is a story to tell. Then the challenge is to figure out how to tell it.

 

[Keith]

I've had to resist the temptation to mess around with the results too much. I always have this overpowering desire to rotate an image to get the horizon perspective correct if it's a couple of degrees out or crop things out that I don't think are important ... I've ruined some good photos this way! 😛

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

It seems to me those are just pictures of houses, not much different from ones you might see in the real estate listings. They represent the houses fairly well, but "street" seems to me about context. You don't have to shoot people, but you need to show things in their context.

For instance here's a pic I took in Key West last week that I'm really proud of. It's not drastically different from your photos, but it shows a corner of the house in its environment--the tree, the potted plants, the patio umbrella, the no trespassing sign (which is kind of hard to see at this size). It's also close enough so that you can make out the peeling paints. I'm not saying it's a great photo, just that it sort of shows how the house is lived in.

 

[capitalK]

rule n°1

showing people in there environnement, I think a reportage need people 🙂
don't be shy, just see people, telle them what you are doing and why, they should be okay for a portrait 😉

I disagree with your rule nº1. I was recently looking through a series by Donald Weber on former Soviet execution sites. There isn't one person in the series but it is powerful reportage. The people aren't there anymore but their ghosts certainly are.

Link to series

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

I disagree with your rule nº1. I was recently looking through a series by Donald Weber on former Soviet execution sites. There isn't one person in the series but it is powerful reportage. The people aren't there anymore but their ghosts certainly are.

Link to series

That's what I like about William Eggleston, too. Many of his photos are devoid of people, but...it's like he's photographing their absence.

Those Weber photos are good, thanks for linking to them.

 

[35mmdelux]

I recently saw a reportage of Auswitz concentration camp, devoid of people. It was very powerful even though the set was only six photos.

 

[Merkin]

Personally, I like to scout my locations before I even pick up my camera, but there is a fine balance. I like to know where I want to shoot before I go shoot, but I don't want to 'become familiar' with the area, as I find I have better results with 'fresh eyes.' I don't generally have great results when I just wander aimlessly. This is, however, just my way of doing things. Some people prefer to shoot the first time they see a place, some prefer to look at something or someplace a hundred times before they trip the shutter. I prefer to shoot the second or third time- just enough to make composition more automatic, but not so much that I am overly familiar with my surroundings. If I get too familiar, I become almost 'visually bored,' and I lose the sense of interest, wonder, fascination, or what have you with the location.