Daring in Street Photography

By daring, I mean daring to get the shot you want, regardless of any apprehensions you might have. Dare to be closer, dare to ask, dare to go the extra distance to position yourself in the right location. This doesn’t mean you have to put yourself in harms way, but push further, go deeper. This is advice I need to take myself and that’s why I’m writing this - I need to reinforce this so that I’m conscious of it whenever I go out to shoot.

I visualise myself in situations where there’s an image I want to capture, but I need to put myself in a temporarily uncomfortable situation to get it. As the saying goes - no risk, no reward. The truth is that I constantly worry about doing the right thing before taking a photo. Is what I’m doing ethical; is it a decent thing to do. Which takes me to another topic I need to write about - documenting history in Guyana.

I see street photography as an artistic way of documenting the time I live in, in Guyana mostly. It’s easy to consider street photography irrelevant now because everyone lives in this era, the photos seem normal, but you just have to look at old photos of Guyana to realise how important photography is. Had those photos not been taken, we would hardly have any visual idea of what life was like decades ago. We need to appreciate the present, and record it for posterity.

There are many reasons to be shooting the street - it doesn’t necessarily have to record history, or be documentary style. Street photography can teach us how to appreciate simple moments in everyday life that we would hardly notice or remember if it wasn’t for the photos taken. It can evoke emotions, be artistic, and even change the mindset of a nation. The right photo can go beyond recording history, to make history - that might be pushing it, but it’s possible.

We all have our own style of shooting, but why I felt the need to write about this is because I don’t want to settle for something when I know it can be better. I don’t want to produce work and settle for that I think is just ok. I owe myself more than that, and I owe my audience my best efforts. For now I’m practicing and improving, but I never want to be stagnant. I want to constantly push the boundaries of what I can do, and always perform with my full energy and the best of my abilities.