Why Every Photographer Should Have a “Street Phase”
Photography is a game of observation and opportunity.
Meaning, if you pay attention to the world around you and capitalize on the moments you see, you will get good photos.
In my opinion this is a underlying principle that is inherent in all of photography, no matter what genre you shoot.
Even if you’re a portrait or wedding photographer, you still want to get those candid shots where no one’s posing and nothing’s planned.
Even if you’re a landscape photographer, some of your best shots won’t be at the viewpoint, but rather on the way there.
And if you’re a street photographer, well…this is what you do.
Me, I’m not the best street photographer by any means.
And much of what I like to do is simplistic, basic “scene photography”, rather than complex, innovative, or fancy shots.
But that’s my preference, and I’ve learned that through my experiences being out there.
Street photography, by in large, is candid, and much of what we seek is the unscripted moment.
There’s something raw, something natural, and something beautiful about it.
Perhaps it reflects what our eyes already see: hidden emotions, awkward eye contacts, and little moments.
And when taken and applied to other genres of photography, you get a sense of timelessness in whatever you do.
Therefore I believe, every photographer, whether they like the genre or not, should have a “street phase”.
If you’re not yet convinced, here are some more reasons why.
It’s Free
The best part about street photography is: it’s free.
It’s accessible to any and everyone no matter where you live.
You can walk outside and just start taking pictures in your local neighborhood.
You can use a fancy camera or just start with the little smartphone in your hand right now.
Similarly, amateurs and professionals alike can engage in street photography.
You don’t have to worry about being good or messing up someone’s wedding.
It’s low stakes, making it easier to get into, less punishing if you make mistakes, and more open for experimentation.
A lot of photographers face resistance to get outside and take photos - I know I do.
Photography when it’s fun, is easy.
Photography when you’re visiting somewhere new, is easy.
But photography when you have to and don’t want to can be a pain, much like a lot of creative work.
It’s for those reasons I think the accessibility of street photography is so important.
Because it can lower the barriers and activation energy on our photography.
“Getting out there” becomes less of a pain, especially when you pair a photo session with things you already do, like errands.
And contrary to what many people may think, you don’t have to be surrounded by big cities and skyscrapers to do street photography.
Rather just a simple documentation of everyday life around you is more than enough.
Even if you live in a small town, there are opportunities and intricate moments that many of us who live elsewhere would honestly be jealous of.
So it’s about the appeal.
What do you find appealing about this thing and how can you bottle it up and put it into a picture?
And then lines, compositions, frames will start becoming more and more obvious to you.
Don’t dismiss the place you live simply because you see it every day.
The beauty of street photography is that it can be done nearly anywhere.
All you need to do is walk outside and start taking pictures.
Uncomfortable Accelerated Growth
Street photography is uncomfortable.
Every time you leave the house for a photo session you’ll face something new.
You’ll meet awkward or uncomfortable situations because you’re in public - you can see people and they can see you.
You may face confrontation from people who don’t want to be photographed.
And you’ll have to learn how to deal with rejection and failure because many of your images won’t be that good.
That’s actually a good thing.
You see, one of the most important traits as an artist is the ability to handle failure.
Setbacks, unexpected variables, things not going as planned.
The better you are at handling these things, the quicker you can get up and keep moving.
This resilience however, is a skill, and isn’t something people magically have, but is built up over time.
One of the quickest ways we can cultivate this is through street photography.
You see, the streets, are our greatest teachers.
Unlike other genres, because it’s so accessible, you can technically go out every day and learn something new.
And feedback is fairly immediate - we get a direct response on what we did right and what we did wrong, and this serves as an accelerator for our growth.
The sooner we get comfortable with failure, the more we can fail, and in consequence, the more we can succeed.
We do this by reinterpreting “failure” as learning, and jumping back into the fire over and over again.
I remember last year, in my month in Japan, I took photos every day.
Not because I had to, but because the environment, the timeframe, and the cities around me had me snapping away.
And every single day I faced new scenes, new subjects, new lighting conditions, new unexpected variables, and it was fun.
I think I compressed years worth of growth within that single trip and there’s something cool about having a photography training arc like that.
Even now, I’m still working through editing a lot of the photos and learning from what I did right or wrong.
So although street photography is uncomfortable, that’s a good thing.
That discomfort will actually force you to grow and accelerate your learning.
Most people stay within their comfort zones - and that’s why they never improve.
But if we can recognize discomfort as a learning opportunity and challenge ourselves every day, we’ll get that much better.
The Judgement Within
Photographers, artists, creatives, all have one struggle in common: judgement.
Judgement from others, judgement from ourselves, and judgement from imaginary voices.
These things all cloud our reasoning and get in the way of what we really want to do.
We’re human, so it’s natural to want to people please, so we can get along with others in society.
But for photography’s sake, there are times when it’s better to ignore these opinions.
Judgement can come in many different ways.
You might feel weird at first, taking pictures of random stuff.
You may worry about who’s judging you or if you’re making others uncomfortable.
Maybe you’ll get stares, or people will come up to you and ask what you’re doing.
And you’ll go back home, scroll through the photos you took, and realize you went through all of that for some C-rated images.
And then, whenever you muster up the courage, you’ll go outside and do it all over again.
Over time this becomes less of a problem because you get used to it.
You’ll quickly realize that you don’t really matter and few people actually care.
And if you spend a long enough time on the streets, you might see:
99% of the judgement or voices in your head were imaginary.
A lot of the thoughts you’re having about people wondering what you’re doing, if you’re a weirdo, or whatever - they came from you.
But most actual people probably just ignored you and kept about doing their business.
When you realize this, you’ll understand that judgement is a figment or personification of our own fears.
And we hear them in the voices of others, but rarely do they ever say that straight to our face.
This should be a good realization.
Because if most judgement is imaginary, then what is there to be afraid of?
Sure, maybe one or two of your little fears might come to life but the other billion of them won’t.
The real challenge of judgement we face then, is the judgement within.
It’s our own diluted perception of who we are and what we’re doing.
And the issue many creatives struggle with is learning to mercilessly be true to themselves.
Deep down they know what they want to do and why they want to do it, but they can’t bring themselves to.
They excuse these ideas as rejection from the outside world, when in reality, it’s rejection within.
“It won’t work”, “it’s not gonna be good”, “I can’t do it”.
All excuses to pretend it’s someone else’s fault.
Because if it truly wasn’t (rejection from within), you’d do it regardless.
Going out every day and resetting your imagination with reality is liberating for photographers.
You’ll be less likely to do things based on the whims of others, you’ll learn to ignore them, and I think, you’ll make better stuff from it.
But perhaps the greatest benefit is realizing that the only thing holding you back is yourself.
And learning to ignore judgment, at times, can mean learning to ignore yourself.
If you ever get to the point where you do put stuff out, make a book, whatever - you can’t let other people’s opinions invalidate yours.
And you especially can’t let you be the one to tell yourself that this isn’t an idea worth making or a thing worth doing.
Adaptation
One of the quickest lessons you’ll learn in street photography is that reality looks different.
Often when we watch photography creators or see the images people post, we have a certain expectation of what that shot looks like.
But in actuality, that photo is just us looking through that photographer’s eyes.
Whereas actual reality ain’t always that fancy.
This was how I felt when visiting a bunch of different famous photo spots in Japan.
Some lived up to the expectation, some overcame them, but many were just okay.
Kyoto in particular, was nice, but there were way too many people, and many of the bucket shots required the right time of day, in the right season, with no people around.
Which was impossible to get for someone only there for a few days.
And many images that I did get, although not bad on their own, weren’t exactly what I thought they’d be.
In a similar fashion, many of my favorite images were unexpected and better in a different way.
You see, when reality isn’t what you’d expect, you have to learn to adapt.
I think street photography teaches us this because we’re facing changing variables on a day to day basis.
No one scene looks the same, different people walk through and different times of day or times of year can alter a photo dramatically.
With that in consideration, the photographer adapts, learning how to quickly flex to changing environments to make or find something out of nothing.
Adaptation is an extremely beneficial skill to have as a photographer because it heightens your confidence.
When you’re unafraid of any scenario and are used to having expectations broken, you can make gold from stone.
The Greatest Skill
A photographer’s greatest skill is their ability to observe - that and the ability to translate what they see into a visual format.
I believe that street photography, or candid photography in general, is the closest thing to pure observation.
It’s a shared perspective between you and the person looking at your photo, letting them peer into your world and see what you’ve seen.
Contrary to what people may think, photography isn’t a game of creation.
We aren’t the ones creating the photos.
Rather, the only thing we can do as a sole observer, is follow what already exists.
Sure there are tools we can use like fishing, window shots, and whatever that can make compositions more interesting, but the moments we see are the moments we see.
We’re not creating the moment, only seeing it as it happens.
Perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve learned on observation is to make use of our greatest weapon - our eyes.
The essence of observation is really just learning to follow what you already see.
It’s not trying to forcibly look left and right to “find a photo”.
And it’s not so much training your eye to find visual patterns, that can be part of it yes, but the first step is to just pay attention.
Imagine you’re peering at the world from above through a set of binoculars, or you’re scrolling through the streets on Google Maps.
You’re just floating through, observing, and every twist and turn will have small frames that stand out to you.
You’re job is to frame the shot and press the shutter at the right moment, but otherwise your feet go where they want to go and your eyes move on their own.
That’s describing it in a weird sort of out of body kind of way…
But the point is, that’s observation, and that’s what we learn from street photography.
Which in this case, is just translating the primal instinct to glance and turning it into a photo.
Freedom
Perhaps one of the best parts of street photography is the freedom.
Not only do you feel free, wandering around aimlessly, following your eye, with no real place to go.
But your artistic vision and the things you create with photography is freer as well.
You see, whether we realize it or not, a lot of creativity is actually constrained by something.
Judgement, which we talked about earlier can be a part of that.
But really, what I’m referring to here is what’s acceptable to make and what’s not.
If you get into fine arts, music, whatever, there is a way to do things and a way not to do things.
That exists in photography as well, especially if you freelance, do professional or commercial work.
These constraints exist for a reason, and some people don’t care, but there are many creatives who are pulled down by it.
And I think many photographers who’ve burned out in a professional setting, or lost their initial fire and love for photography, can find solace in street photography.
Because in street photography, you can technically do whatever you want.
You can take edgy photographs of people and crowds in dense cities.
Or you can take simple perspectives of nice looking roads.
And you can build photography zines and books about whatever subject matter you want to.
This brings back control to the artist, and creativity is much more enjoyable and fulfilling when you are the captain of your ship.
I found this to be true maybe two years ago when I started my project “The Sinking Sun”.
I was reaching a point in my journey where it felt as if photography wasn’t mine.
I wasn’t taking pictures for myself anymore and I didn’t know what to do or how to do it to get it back.
But by prioritizing photos and a project that was interesting to me, I was able to carve my own path forward.
This book was a result of that, and remains a reminder, that in photography, (street especially), you can do whatever the hell you want.
So if you’re in a place where you don’t really know what you’re doing with photography anymore, try getting on the streets again.
Start following your eye and pay attention to what you pay attention to.
Don’t worry about taking good or bad photos, just be out there, do your thing, and try and get into a rhythm.
If you stick to this long enough you’ll start noticing a pattern in the photos you’re taking.
And you might find yourself enjoying the simplicity of photographing seemingly pointless things.
From there, you’ll go left and right until you finally figure out, once again, what you want to do next.
And then, you’re off to the races.
To sum things up, every photographer should have a “street phase”.
Not because these are lessons that can only be learned in street photography, but because they’re much easier through street photography.
For one, it’s free and easily accessible - meaning you can walk outside your door and do it.
The feedback is also immediate and uncomfortable, making progress much faster.
You’ll have to face judgement from others, but really judgement from yourself, and learning to overcome that is powerful for any creative.
You’ll have to learn to adapt because most places you go will be different in some way and won’t look like how you want.
You’ll learn to observe and practice turning what you see into a tangible image.
Plus, there’s a freedom to it and many photographers who’ve burned out or lost their essence can find solace in street photography.
So even if you’re not a street photographer and you’re averse to the idea, it honestly won’t hurt to try.
There are more benefits obviously, but these were just a few that came to mind.
If you have any useful lessons you’ve learned from street photography, do leave them in the YouTube comment section.
If you’re looking to build a solid foundation with photography, check out Photography Essentials - it’s free.
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And I’ve got a new big project coming out soon - look forward to it.
Thanks for reading and happy shooting.
