Chapter 6: Styles

Your eye to the world is unique, and so is your temperament and aesthetic sensitivity. That’s why you need to work on finding your personal style.

35. Look for geometry, lines, and framing

There are many different styles of street photography. Some photographers prefer to get up close and personal, while others like to include more background and context. The latter group often focuses on geometry and lines. There’s no “correct style” for street photography. It’s all up to the photographer. However, it’s good to understand the basics of the established styles.

The late street photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson was a master of geometry, lines, and framing. Parts of his approach are described in Chapter 3. First, he identified an interesting backdrop to use as a stage. Then, he waited for his actors to enter the scene. Finally, he pressed the shutter at “the decisive moment.”

To find your background, look for interesting shapes, shadows, and lines. Look for arrows, curves, arches, diagonals, shadows, and entrances. Let objects like these be part of your toolbox when setting your stage. Then take your time as you wait for the right actors to walk onto your stage. This approach may test your patience, but you can be rewarded with incredible images.

36. Celebrate everyday life

Some of the most beautiful street photographs ever taken are seemingly simple shots of everyday life. Masters of this style include Robert Doisneau, Helen Levitt, and Vivian Maier. The inherent challenge is to capture ordinary people in extraordinary ways.

To try this style, your shooting locations should be mundane. Go to a grocery store, mall, beach, or park. Look for children playing, couples holding hands, or smiling seniors. And to be successful, get close to your subjects. Do your best to be honest and open about what you do. Hopefully, people won’t mistake you for a creep.

37. Get in-your-face

Street photographers such as Bruce Gilden are known for getting incredibly close to their subjects. Some of these photographers even use flash! Gilden doesn’t do this to simply provoke people. Rather, he believes that getting that close lets him convey a far more intimate picture of his subject.

Even though this style may make you feel a bit like a kamikaze pilot, you may wish to give it a try—though blasting your flash in the face of a stranger is probably pushing it. Use a super wide-angle prime lens. Get very close—so uncomfortably close that your subjects will probably think you are shooting something else, behind them. Also, be quick in your approach. You might even have to step in front of people walking by to get the shot. If your subject is standing in a corner, walk around, get close, and take the shot. The challenge is, of course, to do all of this while still showing your subjects some respect. Avoid scaring, annoying, or provoking them, and always thank them after taking their picture.

38. Include multiple actors: harmony in chaos

Joel Meyerowitz and Alex Webb are masters of using multiple actors and layering their shots with a myriad of subjects. They wait for the actors to fill the frame and then capture the image at the exact moment when the chaos turns into perfect harmony.

Because your subjects have minds of their own, they rarely behave and move the way you anticipate. But don’t give up! Shoot a lot, but be selective when you review the images.

Large scenes with multiple subjects often require soft, even lighting. Shoot at sunrise or sunset, or when there’s an overcast sky. A wide-angle lens (35mm or wider) is a must if you want to be able to capture everything in your scene.

39. Highlight formal elements

There is a misconception that street photographs have to include people. But as long as your images show some trace of human presence, directly or indirectly, they still qualify as street photography.

Lee Friedlander mastered this human-free style. He shot mundane scenes, such as gas stations, signs, and billboards, but framed and composed them in such a way that they told stories. In one of his projects, he shot from his driver’s seat and used his car window as a physical frame.

The trick to successfully photographing scenes without people is to base your compositions on the formal elements in art: points, lines, shapes, space, texture, light, and color. Try to find interesting juxtapositions and work hard on your compositions.

Look for mundane, often overlooked subjects like plastic bags, trash cans, chain-link fences, interesting signs, advertisements, and walls. And whatever you’re shooting, try to find a story behind the image. Does that chain-link fence and shadow look like they are holding a person prisoner? Does that little paper bag look like a human face? Let your imagination and creativity run wild.