Why do we all think we need to visit the city centres to practice street photography?
Street photography can be practiced anywhere. It is not the preserve of big city locations. It does not need to be do int eh centre of cities, it can be make anywhere. Great street photographers know that they need to be bale to photograph the places they have access to. Those places happen to be in your neighbourhood.
Henry Wessel
Henry Wessel, who photographed in San Fransisco area for over 30 years. Working mostly in Black and White he would take his camera out whenever he had a errand to run. His idea is that a good photograph can happen anywhere. Taking that idea why not photograph the area that you live in. Your own neighbourhood while it might not be what you see in others photographs it is what you have access to and for a photographer access is everything.
To improve you need to be able to practice your eye and return repeatedly to the same spot till you get the image that was in your sides yes when you first made the image. And like all good artists photographers need to be able to practice so why not photograph your own location.
Henry Wessel interview on KQED where he talks about his process.
Henry mostly used a film Leica with a 28mm lens and Kodak Tri-X for his work.
Saul Leiter
Saul Leiter is another example of a photographer who made street images in his neighbourhood. He is now considered a early pioneer of colour street photography. You can see Saul Leiter’s work at his website here https://www.saulleiterfoundation.org/
The movie, In No Great Hurry: 13 Lessons in Life with Saul Leiter. Is a good exploration of Leiter’s approach to making images in his Neighbourhood, Okay, he did live in New York City, for most of his life and spent most of it photographing the area around his home. So in a way he had an home town advantage. That is what you get when you photograph your neighbourhood.
Bill Owens
There are photographers who have photographed Suburbia like Bill Owens made while working as a photojournalist for a local newspaper.
Bill Owens published a book called Suburbia back in 1972 , it was reprinted and expanded on in 1999 , Which has been quite influential.
What will you do?
We all know what our neighbourhood looks like, as that is where we live. We however we often forget that someone else does not know what it looks like and how life is lived in your area as they live elsewhere. What for you is everyday, to someone else is exotic. So why not photograph, what you know, as you can always go back and rephotograph it, working often will let you eventually make image that show how you see things in your area. This is a great way to become a much better street photographer.
Street Photography without leaving your neighbourhood
So you want to practice street photography, then get up go for a walk, take your camera. Make sure the battery is charged and the memory card is in the camera before you head out.
Then you need to notice things. Notice the quality of the light, check out what time of day it is, for the light you just noticed. Is the light quality what you like, could it be better, would a different time of day, give the light a different direction or angle. Would an overcast day allow you to see into the shadows, or would a bright sunny day create deep shadows. These things are all learning steps in training your visual perception and being in your neighbourhood.
You can go back and see the same scene often. Notice how it changes, in different lighting conditions and times of the day. This is a great first step and a huge as I like to call it, the hometown advantage, that you have when you are photographing your own neighbourhood.
A thought process on finding time to make street photographs.
I will use myself as an example. I live in London, near Ilford the place where the Ilford Photo company, had their headquarter until as recently as 1996. Maybe, I should take the bus for 10 minutes and go and photograph this area. If I had more time I would, ‘no stop’ that is a negative thing to say, if I had more time. As we can always find time can’t we? I could, I suppose, just take a different route home. Whenever, I am out and about, I could take a little longer to get home, so I can walk around the streets of Ilford, for 20/30 minutes at a time. This would give me to time to explore my neighbourhood.
If I was to do it often, it would add up to a significant about of time, this would let me get images. Looking for ways to find time in our busy lives, is what we all need to do, especially if we are looking to make enough time to get projects off the ground. Finding a way to incorporate the photography process, into our daily lives is a good step to making street photography images. It helps us to document the lives of those around us and to show what life is like at this moment in time where we live.
How can you carve out time in your daily routine to make a project on your neighbourhood? We would love to see your suggestions in the comments below.
Leave a Reply