My ENTIRE Street Photography Process

i often get asked how do i take photos when i'm walking around the city like where do i even start and honestly the answer is not as complicated as you think in fact it's more of a science and not an art so in this video i will show you the whole process this video is also sponsored by squarespace but more on them later the first thing i need to decide is the purpose why am i going out to shoot am i going out alone and focusing on my craft to become a better photographer am i going to explore a new part of town am i going to meet a friend and shoot together because the reason for me going out will determine many other decisions that i make going forward i also have a think about what is the goal for the day what's the aim because if the end goal is to just enjoy myself rather than work on becoming a better photographer then i would probably pick a different lens and even a different location and a different route [Music] i know why i'm going out the next thing is to plan a route and select a location also this will depend on time of year time of day the weather conditions all of that plays a huge role for example in the winter in london i would always walk from east around shoreditch to west because by doing that i am walking with the sun especially if i stand north side of the river therefore i get good ample lighting throughout my entire walk more on lighting in a minute it will make sense why i choose this route if i want to shoot at night i'll pick soho over covent garden for example if i want to shoot you know busy like packed scenes i might go to chinatown if i want to shoot i don't know clear minimal compositions i might pick canary wharf or bank so although it might seem like i would just go out and randomly walk around there is a bit more thought that goes into it now that i know where i'm going why i'm going and the potential conditions i might encounter i can never think about okay what gear do i want to bring do i want to bring a prime lens a zoom lens or do i even just want to bring my phone and leave the camera at home it has happened now and again so personally i would either go out with two primes one prime or a zoom lens if i'm just going out and i'm with my mates and i don't care about photography and i just you know if i see something it'll take it i might bring the 18mm f 1.4 so that's like a 27-ish mil full frame i tend to crop that to 35 mil anyway um and the reason i would bring is because it's fantastic for documenting whatever's happening that day if i'm going out and i think you know what i might do some more street photography i might bring the 33 mil the 50 mil full frame lens because that's typically the focal length i use for that if i'm going out alone and all i want to do is focus on photography i would probably bring both of the primes and if i'm going out and i don't know what i would encounter or maybe i'm going out and it's going to be heavy rain or maybe i'm going to be covering different areas that require a different focal length then i'll just bring the zoom because you see sometimes a certain area where you have like very tight narrow streets a wider lens might be better equally if you go somewhere that's very open maybe a tighter lens would be better so by knowing why i'm going out and where i'm going i can make a more informed lens decision so that i don't have to go out with 20 lenses in my bag just in case now we can get into the meat of the video and let's start with light light to me is the most important part of photography some may disagree with this but the end of the day photography is capturing light you can have the most mundane the most boring subject but if it's lit well it will look very interesting equally you can have the most mesmerizing most interesting subject both the light is absolutely dead it's gonna look boring so light is important now for my style of photography i typically look for two sources of light the first one is backlighting where the light is behind the subject and the second one is side lighting where this light is coming from the side of the subject i sometimes might look at 45 degrees or flat light but generally most of my photography is side lit or backlit the reason for it is because in my opinion it creates the most cinematic and the most dynamic image possible our cameras don't see the world in 3d we do so we can tell you know the depth of an image of a scene sorry just by with our eyes without having the right light however a camera is a flat 2d sensor it needs lighting it needs the correct shading a bit like when you draw to you know to make sure that it looks like it's a 3d scene another example is if you look at movies very cinematic movies you know joker all those kinds of films if you actually pay attention to the most beautifully filmed scenes i would say 80 90 percent of them the lighting is either from behind or from the side of the subject so now going back to the route planning section where i said that i'll be going on the north side of the river with the light well at all times the light is 90 degrees to the way that i'm walking which means every street corner will have amazing side light and i can simply just turn into the light and shoot into the light that way if i didn't plan my route and my lighting around the time of year i could just be walking in shade like if i went on the south side of the river for the whole day and then just i won't really get anything interesting with lighting out of the way the next thing i look at is composition now composition is a very in-depth and somewhat complicated topic everyone has their own kind of take on it i have done a very in-depth video about it i'll link it down below also i did a in-depth video about lighting which i'll link down below for the purpose of this video i'm gonna try and simplify it down a little bit so to me a good composition is also a well-balanced image now you can get let's say leading lines framing and foreground elements things like that and they don't make a bad composition good they will make a good composition even better what makes a composition good is as i've said balance so what do i mean by balance i mean when you look at a photo your eyes are not rolling off to the side your eyes are not running off to the bottom the image doesn't feel like it's about to fall to the left hand side and how do you achieve that well you have to balance out all the different elements within the scene so what elements would you typically have to deal with so first of all you have your highlights and your bright colors they are very prominent you then have your negative space and your details somewhat less prominent and finally you have you know just general boring shadow detail and shadow area even less prominent now each of these commands its own weight now weight as in not kilograms weight as in your attention the more attention it takes the quicker it takes that tension you could argue the heavier that item is so in order to balance out a scene where you have a very bright highlight and a shadow area you could argue you would need a larger shadow area to balance out a smaller brighter more vibrant source of light in the most simple terms that's how i compose my images i would look at the scene and be like okay there's a very bright sky and the sun in the corner there i would need a much larger shadow or detail negative space area at the bottom of the image on the opposite side to balance it out so that you're not just looking at the sun so you're looking at the sky and then moving your way down through the image so the next time you're composing a photo just step back and just think okay does this feel normal does the image feel like it's about to fall to the left or to the right unfortunately it's not something that you will learn just by watching this video it's not something that you will learn from any book or any photography course it's something that will just come naturally to you as you spend more time doing photography every time you look at composition just literally have a think how does this feel does this feel off if it does it probably is and then try to change the composition a little bit and yeah sure leading lines framing foreground elements they will make your composition even better but just don't rely on them to make a composition you know don't rely on them sorry to make a crap composition a good composition they will simply make a good composition better at this point i would like to thank the sponsor of this video squarespace squarespace is my main portfolio where people come to see my best work i have full control of how my work is presented and interacted with squarespace is also the hub for my business my newsletter and my travel photography blog finally i use squarespace as my social media landing page and my digital business card whether you're a beginner or a pro having your own website is never a bad idea so if this is something that interests you click the link below to get a free trial followed by 10 off your first purchase thank you to squarespace for sponsoring and thank you for watching with lighting and composition out of the way now let's talk about the most subjective and even divisive part of the video and that is what constitutes a good subject now i'll be honest with you i can't answer that question for you i can't even guide you on that because at the end of the day a good subject is what you find interesting if you're walking down the street whatever catches your eye that's a good subject now what catches your eye today might not be the same thing that will catch your eye in two years time because obviously you will develop and then you will look at other things maybe more complicated things to shoot but at the end of the day a good subject is simply something that you find interesting and obviously that will change depending on location time of year or even time of day if you're in london you might find red buses interesting but if you've lived in london for 20 years you might think they're boring as equally you might be in let's say um in the mediterranean where i was and i was loving all the little windows and the window frames and all that kind of stuff whereas someone who's lived there might think what on earth are you taking pictures of so at the end of the day when it comes to subjects just walk around and just shoot what you're interested in let yourself be guided by your gut feeling and then that will develop and that will mature over time oh and one last thing on the topic of subjects when you're taking photos of things that you like just remember you're taking them because you like them the reason i say that is because the moment you start sharing your work online there's always this group of very insecure photographers who would walk around and tell other people what they think their photography is and isn't okay and you will definitely come across that where someone will message you and then be like you can't take a photo of a window blind because that's not street photography doesn't have any people in it right just all of that is a noise you don't need it ignore it and just take photos of what you like [Music] so one thing i want to say before going into this in more detail not every image needs to have a story some images just need to be visually pleasing or simple because you see when you have let's say 10 photos from your trip and every is this masterpiece that tells the most incredible story and you put it into a sequence it might all just get lost amongst each other whereas if you have a few just very nice visually pleasing images to kind of break them up it makes for a better photo set which is actually the next topic but i've jumped i'll come back to it so story in my personal opinion an image with a story makes you feel a certain way about that particular image or it brings back a memory or it makes you wonder what it's like to be in that particular scene if we look at this photo which is of a sunset in london specifically around september time canary of p will get amazing sunsets now i could have easily just taken a standard photo of a standard cityscape photo of this scene however in this particular image you have the guy sitting there chilling out smoking with the sunset and the city behind him and the reason this image has a bit of a story in my opinion is because it makes you feel like you could be there it makes you feel like you're sitting down you're looking around your people watching and you see all of these people chilling out relaxing and enjoying the sunset whereas if it was literally just a cityscape it would be just a cityscape another example of an image with a story is an image that makes you ask questions so have a look at this photo of the girl in the subway in new york from a couple of years ago and in this particular photo as a viewer i'm asking is she hiding from someone who is the girl on the train that's staring at the photographer or at the girl is someone coming together what's going on and because obviously the image is quite dynamic with a motion blur of the train it all kind of feels like a still from a movie and because i've been asking these questions as i've looked through this image it gives it a bit of a story in my opinion [Music] okay we're now on to the final part of my process and that is to focus on and look for photo sets from a particular day out or a particular location and not just going for these five star storytelling incredible photos and don't get me wrong they still belong in the photo set they can be the leading image but there's also other images within the photo set that together in my opinion will make for a better story of where you were and what was happening so typically in a photo set i would go for three types of images the first one is an establishing shot typically wider angle and it tells you the viewer where i am you know am i in the city am i in the countryside am i in new york in london just to give you a rough idea okay it establishes what's happening then you have the subject that could be a person that could be a vehicle it could be a building could be anything which is of interest and everything kind of revolves around that subject finally it's a small insignificant detail on its own you might think what on earth is that but when you put it together in this photo set it just effectively makes you look at the little details of the scene and breaks everything up as well now you could have three images five six ten it doesn't really matter how many images you have in the photo set but as long as it's a concise and tight set with all of these different angles covered you will have a very strong body of work which as i've said in my opinion is stronger than just having one image on its own okay that's everything for today let's do a very quick recap so first of all always ask myself why am i going out what's the purpose of me going out i then look at location time of day weather conditions after that i look at what gear do i bring in order to make that location and my intentions work after that i look for lighting then composition then find an interesting subject see if i can tell a story about the subject given the context and finally i put together a photo set of all of my images from that day out and that is my entire photography process so i hope you've enjoyed this video i hope you've taken something away from it if you're still here thank you very much for your time if you do have any questions please write them down below but i also have a question for you do you have some kind of a process when you go out you know or is it just a case of you walk around and see what you can find if you do have a process write it down below it'll be interesting to hear how you go about photography um and that's it so again thank you so much for watching have a good day and i'll catch you in the next video bye

Channel: Roman Fox

Views: 48,725

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Id: pcIFea0UGkQ

Length: 16min 50sec (1010 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 11 2022