Week 9

I’ve been avoiding this one because frankly, I was scared to take pictures of a stranger. Then I read an article on street photography. Once I discovered that it is a respectable and legitimate genre of photography, I decided to dive in. I was intrigued by the prospect of capturing candid, unposed actions and emotions of unsuspecting subjects. That being said, I started to worry about the legalities. Is it legal to take photos of someone without their permission? The answer is yes. In the United States there is no expectation of privacy in visible public spaces. It is best to refrain if explicitly asked to not photograph the subject or to delete the photo of requested. And of course it is also important to be ethical and not portray unsuspecting people in an embarrassing or degrading light.

Now that we got all that out of the way, let’s talk street photography! The goal is for the photo to be candid and for the photographer to remain undetected. So how do you take a photo of someone without them knowing? Bringing the camera up to your eye and focusing will undoubtedly draw their attention. To avoid this I utilized a technique called ‘shooting from the hip’. I aimed the camera from my side, looked the other way and shot in quiet mode. Another technique I tried is called ‘camera snap’. With this technique you put the camera to your eye and take the picture, but you leave the camera to your eye instead of lowering it and checking your screen. This makes the person believe you are taking a photo of something in the background and not them. This worked perfectly since I did this at the county fair.  People assumed I was taking pictures of the sunset or animals!

As for camera settings, there’s no time to be messing around with dials. I precfocused to about four feet in front of me and set a high apeture. I used a high shutter speed to freeze the motion of my subject. To compensate for the lack of light, I increased the ISO.

This topic was quite difficult, and the results are less than technically stellar, but it was a lot of fun! My subjects were quite interesting!

Here’s a link to street photography to learn more!

https://jamesmaherphotography.com/street_photography/what-is-street-photography/