Where you live and what you photograph

[seakayaker1]

I photograph street, landscapes, seascapes, buildings, trains, planes, automobiles, portraits, flowers . . . . . I guess I haven't found much I do not like to photograph.

. . . . . oh and grandchildren.

 

[Pablito]

I live in Salsipuedes, an imaginary village in a Latin American backwater. I photograph the spirits of the ancestors. One of those statements is true.

 

[Iestrada]

I grew up in L.A. But now live in a small town 20 minutes north of Milwukee. My landscape/nature work is all done with a full frame DSLR. I use use film and my rangefinders for people in the streets.

 

[n5jrn]

City dweller because that's where the work in my field tends to be, and I dislike suburbia and the attendant endless driving in heavy traffic it involves. But it's wild areas that inspire me most. Thankfully I don't have to get into a plane and fly hundreds of miles to get to the mountains or the coast.

 

[Paul Jenkin]

I live in a small town in Essex, UK. However, I commute daily 55 miles each way to London. I almost always have a camera with me and this is where I tend to shoot what "street" photography I do. At weekends, I like to get into the countryside or off to the coast and shoot land / seascapes. I love travel and love to do a combination of landscape / travel and street shooting to record what I've seen. I find it very difficult to "pigeonhole" myself when faced with questions like this poll as, if it stands still long enough and I have a camera to-hand, I'll photograph it....

 

[Katie]

I live in a tiny town that is kind of like a time capsule. I love it. I shoot people.

 

[unixrevolution]

On the shore of the Chesapeake Bay 40 some miles southeast of Washington DC
in the oldest county in Maryland. (Est 1654) This is where the English explorer
Capt John Smith first saw the white cliffs that reminded him of Dover.

This surprisingly rural - considering it's proximity to DC - county had been all tobacco
farms up until about 10 years ago and the literal death of smoking in the USA.
It is now a bedroom community of 84,000, most of whom commute to DC.

The closest settlement - can't call it a town - to our property is
Lower Marlboro... does something in that name ring a bell?

I'm in St Charles, Maryland, a beautiful little planned community that is an enclave of the huge knotted unplanned cluster of urban sprawl on the northern border of Charles County named Waldorf.

I'd be half an hour away from you if I had a paddleboat, but since I only have a car, about an hour.

I, myself, tend to shoot landscapes of the beautiful agrarian countryside immediately outside of my little blotch of stripmalls and neighborhoods, and landscapes of the many parks in the area.

 

[-doomed-]

Live in the suburbs, work in a city. I take news photos, sometimes it's crime and fires, other times it's people and events.

 

[olle]

Live in the suburbs and shoot a lot of street at the moment mainly because I work in the city and it's just there.

I grew up in the country though and love all different kinds of photography and try and shoot a bit of everything.

 

[greyelm]

I live in SW London on the Surrey borders and I photograph as much as I can.



greyelm.weebly.com

 

[Cyriljay]

I lived in Paris and I loved it's streets and now I am in London and love the streets in there too. Love to discover the people in the streets .😀

 

[SausalitoDog]

I'm in Suburbia Maximus. When I just want to walk around and shoot, I drive into the city center. People seldom show up in those photos.

Bill-

Just about describes me... Which also means I shoot a lot at night 🙂

 

[irq506]

Great Poll!

 

[maddoc]

... I live close to a hot-spot and usually take photos of others living around hot-spots.

 

[nighstar]

suburb in the wannabe country town of Brisbane, AU. i tend to take photos of nature in general.

 

[x-ray]

I live in the southern Appalachians and for most of my life photographed the obscure and vanishing culture of the region. Moonshiners, cock fights, serpent handling churches, cross burnings and daily life.

 

[astro8]

I live in Sydney.

So far my photography must appear fairly one dimensional.

Although I enjoy photographing anything that catches my eye, of the 40+ photos in my RFF Gallery, 30+ of those are of my wife....probably because she is so easy to photograph.

Lately I have been trying to push myself to take some street and people shots around my city that are worth posting....I'm finding that to be very, very difficult. 😱

I really admire some of the members here on RFF. There's several here that seem to raise the bar higher each time they post a photo.

 

[sepiareverb]

Saw this pop back up, my situation has changed. I'm living in town now, about 6,000 people, and still shoot mostly in town. Now I can walk the whole way!

 

[gb hill]

I feel I don't fit in the poll. I live in the county, just outside a small town. Not really in the country. In 15 mins. I can be in a large city or in the country. I shoot events, landscapes, old bldgs. or anything I find might look interesting on film.

 

[Messsucherkamera]

I used to photograph only landscape and travel. Then I realized that my cameras were sitting idle way too much.

I started to think in terms of what subject matter I could photograph every day. I took a look at street photography, did some research and started testing the waters of street photography.

At first I was very timid to photograph strangers on the street. I took a street photography workshop led by Constantine Manos. That workshop made all the difference.

I realized that what I needed to do was this: I simply had to "make" myself get close to people and press the shutter button. So I did just that. I didn't die. No one attacked me. No one yelled at me. The more I made myself get close to strangers and press the button, the more my fear faded away and the more confident in photographing strangers I became.

If you photograph with confidence in a relaxed and self-assured way, people tend to assume that what you are doing is okay. If you sneak around, appear to be nervous or jumpy and photograph in a furtive manner with a long lens, people notice and become suspicious and uncomfortable. That's when confrontations occur. Just relax and photograph in an open and above board manner. That goes a long way toward putting people at ease and dispelling suspicions.

Carry a few street photography prints to show people if they want to know why you are photographing strangers. Explain to them a bit about street photography, Henri Cartier Bresson and your purpose in doing street photography. Don't lecture - explain and enlighten (there's a big difference) . A lot of people have never heard of street photography, even in our information overloaded world.

If you have a website, give them your business card or postcard with the URL on it so they can take a look at your work. If you have a post card or a business card, this will establish you as a legitimate photographer in their eyes rather than having them think of you as some sort of wierdo or creep.

A great place to learn to get close to strangers is an amusement park, state fair or a county fair. There are a lot of people in close proximity to each other, they are relaxed and enjoying themselves and seem to not have issues with being photographed in that setting. Sports events and outdoor concerts and festivals are also good places to overcome the nerves that almost everyone faces when first taking up street photography.

Expanding your photographic horizons and shooting on a regular basis is the only way a person will grow and evolve as a photographer - and if you are not growing and evolving, you are stagnating and withering.