MOPP voices Pt 2 - different people on the theme Street PHOTo
Street Photography & Personal Space
Street Photography involves getting close to people — often very close. To do this type of shooting successfully you have to be in the scene, part of it, not a distant observer. This means shooting with wide lenses; certainly nothing longer than 50mm. With a wide-angle lens you are a participant. With a telephoto you are at best just an observer, at worst a voyeur.
Shooting this way means moving closer into most people's personal space than they are normally used to. For this reason places like crowded streets in big cities, midways, carnivals, parades and the like are preferred venues.
As crowding increases, people's personal space requirement decreases. Also, the space one needs and expects is culturally dependant. In some countries people naturally stand, talk and touch each other in public to a closer degree than in others. But there are general unspoken rules. Get too close, "In your face" — as the saying goes, and people get nervous, even if they don't know exactly why.
At a fair, a midway at a carnival, a sports event, parade, concert or public ceremony, people's need for personal space and therefore privacy is reduced. The level of sensory stimulation is also usually high at these events, which tends to reduce the need for space. As well, in most of these situations people are having fun so they are more relaxed.
At the far extreme is a crowded elevator. We stand touching shoulders with strangers in a small space, yet taking a photograph would be an unthinkable invasion, even if it were not physically impossible to do.
Understanding these issues is important to doing effective and interesting street photography. If you poke a camera in someone's face as they sit alone reading a book on an empty park bench you're likely to be poked back. But you can comfortably get even closer if you're both standing in a crowd watching children riding a Ferris wheel.
A Story in a Single Frame
Like the proverbial million monkeys at their typewriters, eventually random shooting will produce, if not a Shakespearian sonnet then possibly a half-way interesting photograph. But, what will it say?
For a street photograph to be successful I think that something in the scene has to speak meaningful to the photographer, even if what that something is isn't immediately apparent. Effective street photography is about telling a story in a single frame, not simply recording what was there at a particular time and in a specific place.
Anon --2001
Street Photography involves getting close to people — often very close. To do this type of shooting successfully you have to be in the scene, part of it, not a distant observer. This means shooting with wide lenses; certainly nothing longer than 50mm. With a wide-angle lens you are a participant. With a telephoto you are at best just an observer, at worst a voyeur.
Shooting this way means moving closer into most people's personal space than they are normally used to. For this reason places like crowded streets in big cities, midways, carnivals, parades and the like are preferred venues.
As crowding increases, people's personal space requirement decreases. Also, the space one needs and expects is culturally dependant. In some countries people naturally stand, talk and touch each other in public to a closer degree than in others. But there are general unspoken rules. Get too close, "In your face" — as the saying goes, and people get nervous, even if they don't know exactly why.
At a fair, a midway at a carnival, a sports event, parade, concert or public ceremony, people's need for personal space and therefore privacy is reduced. The level of sensory stimulation is also usually high at these events, which tends to reduce the need for space. As well, in most of these situations people are having fun so they are more relaxed.
At the far extreme is a crowded elevator. We stand touching shoulders with strangers in a small space, yet taking a photograph would be an unthinkable invasion, even if it were not physically impossible to do.
Understanding these issues is important to doing effective and interesting street photography. If you poke a camera in someone's face as they sit alone reading a book on an empty park bench you're likely to be poked back. But you can comfortably get even closer if you're both standing in a crowd watching children riding a Ferris wheel.
A Story in a Single Frame
Like the proverbial million monkeys at their typewriters, eventually random shooting will produce, if not a Shakespearian sonnet then possibly a half-way interesting photograph. But, what will it say?
For a street photograph to be successful I think that something in the scene has to speak meaningful to the photographer, even if what that something is isn't immediately apparent. Effective street photography is about telling a story in a single frame, not simply recording what was there at a particular time and in a specific place.
Anon --2001
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