who to watch on street

woody12

woody12

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hi, i love doing street photography but only for fun and not that good. Would like to learn and wondered who you watch on youtube to educate and enjoy. Thoughts?
 
This video is essential viewing (1.5 hours though!) IMO and is easily applied to street photography as well as people photography in general esp 16:00 for "why hip shooting is bad", 29:00 for "don't chase pictures".

There are a few videos by Joel Meyerowitz which are good if you like his style (I'm not keen), but there is an awful lot of rubbish. I prefer books, and 'Street Photography Now' is fab, as is anything by Elliot Erwitt or Martin Parr (I prefer their work to the likes of Meyerowitz/Gilden)

I think street photography has many different styles. The "in your face", "grab shot". "from the hip" stuff really doesn't float my boat, but the carefully thought out, storytelling, humorous stuff really does. That's just me though. Everyone's different.
 
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Cheers Ian thanks for your help.The problem is there is so much bad stuff floating on youtube you spend hours watching and miss the decent ones. I totally agree about the storytelling and thought out shots but thats me sure others love such other styles.I'm going up to london in the week with a new camera and just going to walk and see what happens
 
woody12 said:
Cheers Ian thanks for your help.The problem is there is so much bad stuff floating on youtube you spend hours watching and miss the decent ones. I totally agree about the storytelling and thought out shots but thats me sure others love such other styles.I'm going up to london in the week with a new camera and just going to walk and see what happens
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My single biggest piece of advice is don't walk and shoot. Find somewhere. Grab a Starbucks/Costa and a bench and sit and watch the world go by. If you're nervous, pick a touristy location where everyone's got their camera out. Being stationary means the camera can be in your hand, and you become part of the furniture rather than this running, gunning loon. For me - that allows me to watch what's going on and pick out the story telling moments.

Edit to add: Take a look at Matt Stuart's work. He does a lot of very good street photography in London.
 
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My advice is to find some photographers whose work you like and seek out videos on or by them. I'd further suggest looking back in time as well as looking at current photographers. Today's photographers will have been influenced by those who preceded them, so better to seek them out rather than what might be a watered down version or pastiche of the originals' styles.
 
Harlequin565 said:
My single biggest piece of advice is don't walk and shoot. Find somewhere. Grab a Starbucks/Costa and a bench and sit and watch the world go by. If you're nervous, pick a touristy location where everyone's got their camera out. Being stationary means the camera can be in your hand, and you become part of the furniture rather than this running, gunning loon. For me - that allows me to watch what's going on and pick out the story telling moments.

Edit to add: Take a look at Matt Stuart's work. He does a lot of very good street photography in London.
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This is really good advice. When in Morocco recently that’s just what I did and eventually you become part of the scene and people no longer are wary of the tourist with the big camera!
 
juggler said:
If you haven't seen Bruce Gilden in action then you should:

I'm not saying you should emulate him - just spend a day on a march in London to see quite how many people do - but he's at one end of a spectrum.

Antonio Olmos is at the other end.
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How has that Bruce Gilden not been punched?

He would if he did that here, or would he?

I'd love to do good street but I could never do that.
 
GreenNinja67 said:
How has that Bruce Gilden not been punched?
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Heh - agreed!

For me though, it's a different story capturing different (often negative) emotions as he invades personal space. This is a problematic thing for street photography in general I think. These "shock jocks" are creating the emotions then taking pictures of them. It feels kinda false to me.
Also - if interested: http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/extended/archives/the_ethics_of_street_photography/ which is arguably off topic for this thread, but (I think) a very good read.
 
Harlequin565 said:
Heh - agreed!

For me though, it's a different story capturing different (often negative) emotions as he invades personal space. This is a problematic thing for street photography in general I think. These "shock jocks" are creating the emotions then taking pictures of them. It feels kinda false to me.
Also - if interested: http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/extended/archives/the_ethics_of_street_photography/ which is arguably off topic for this thread, but (I think) a very good read.
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Thanks Ian I'll take a look
 
woody12 said:
hi, i love doing street photography but only for fun and not that good. Would like to learn and wondered who you watch on youtube to educate and enjoy. Thoughts?
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I probably wouldn't watch anyone on youtube*, I'd buy lots of photobooks to educate and gain inspiration and then practice, practice, practice.


*Actually, there's some pretty good Daido Moriyama and Bruce Gilden docs on youtube - watching them shoot is quite interesting. There's also a Kai W video with Joshua Jackson and Sixstreetunder that was pretty good
 
Hi, thanks all some serious interesting stuff to view and digress
 
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