So I’m going to Paris in a few weeks, and I will be bringing my new 70-200mm f4 for the trip.
However, i have this thought in my head that I don’t really know what to photograph. I usually take pictures of people and situations with people in them, as those are memories I want to hang on to.
When I see a lot of street photographers on YouTube etc, I feel like they take some well framed and pretty, but also irrelevant images. Would they ever go back to an image of a busdriver they snapped at an intersection?
I’m not putting those people down, but I personally have a hard time seeing the real value in that. I guess that simply making a nice shot is a great feeling. And a really nice shot might o ly happen once every 1000 images.
But what makes a nice image to you? Can the image stand alone? Or does it have to be part of a series with a certain theme to it?
I’m looking for some fresh perspectives on street photography that will get me excited for my trip :)
I feel like they take some well framed and pretty, but also irrelevant images
They feel irrelevant to you. They may feel the same about some of your photos, while you may consider them to be your best work. What makes someone enjoy a photograph will vary wildly from person to person.
What makes a good photo indeed? I look at Henri Cartier-Bresson photos and some of them just don’t do anything for me.
And sometimes, I see a shot with 10 likes from some anonymous guy on Flickr and consider it an absolute masterpiece.And then there are photos that no one would look at twice, weren’t it for the context they’re inserted in. Some photos stand alone. Some photos owe their meaning and value to a bigger context.
There is no objective criteria to decide what a good photo is, especially from an artistic standpoint. I think this is a very important fact to internalize for any artist, photographer or otherwise.
I guess I’m one of those street photographers who makes the sort of photos you see as irrelevant. So here’s why I do it.
When I walk in the street, my eyes are constantly drawn to things. Usually colours, or how the light falls in a certain way. Colours, shapes, light, shadow… That’s why I started photography. Because I wanted to capture the things I saw, and do it in an a visually interesting way. I would describe myself as a photographer with a painter’s soul.
It’s as much about act as the final image itself. When I walk around with my camera, I’m completely attuned to my surroundings, in the now, in a flow, whatever you want to call it. It’s almost like meditation.
It’s also about little coincidences. To me, there is nothing better than spotting an interesting view, having the exact right person walk by who perfectly completes the image and being able to capture that instance. These moments almost feel like little gifts from the universe. (To be clear, I don’t really believe this, but it does féél like it.)
Would you say the photos of master (street) photographers like Martin Parr, Saul Leiter, Vivian Maier, Joel Meyerowitz, Harry Guyaert, Alex Webb… are irrelevant?
Nothing wrong with taking holiday pictures to remember a trip to Paris, but if you dó want to make good, “relevant” street photos, I suggest you look up their work.