Some More Thoughts On Street Photography

I may have mentioned this before, but I remember when I first got a digital camera many years back, the type of photography I had initially indulged in was what I would consider Street Photography. I’d walk about and take shots of things that interested me in the streets. I especially remember always going out on Mashramani and Easter to take shots of what was going on, and I consider that maybe that was the most earnest form of street photography I’ve ever practiced. The concept of street photography never existed in my mind - I had no idea what it was. I had never even studied or tried to learn photography in any way before that, and yet there I was shooting in the streets. My compositions were off, I didn’t care much about the lighting, ‘the moment’, or whatever. I just wanted the scene as I saw it. I had no social media accounts then to post for others to see, I had no online portfolio. All I had was my hard-drive to store the memories. I didn’t even edit the photos.

So why is all this even relevant? It helps me to understand that street photography isn’t unnatural to me. It’s something I actually did without reservation in the past, and although things have changed with the advancement of technology, especially social media, the fundamentals have remained the same. I believe street photography is something you should enjoy doing and also find meaning in practicing. There are the ethics of photographing people which need to be considered, but even those may have to be broken at times considering extreme circumstances - war, protests, human rights violations, etc.

Recently I’ve been finding it more and more pleasurable to capture shots in the street. The great thing about it is that I love photography in general, primarily landscape and nature photography, but adding street to the list expands my opportunities to go out and do something I really enjoy, and in the streets the possibilities are endless. While my landscape, wildlife and nature shots require extensive travelling, finances, and planning, the streets exist right outside my window. Almost anywhere you travel you can capture great moments that can influence change, preserve history, evoke emotions, jog memories.

I’ll leave it off here, as I plan to write on Street Photography that evokes emotion.