Everyone writes what they want on their blogs, by all means! I'm not the one who interrupts anyone in their good blogging to tell them what to do but there are no latest guides to anything, neither street photography, nor how to cook a soup, nor how to style your hair. There isn't and I don't trust it, everything is constantly evolving, from photography to soups and hairstyles.
The (Neither) ultimate and (nor) definitive guide to street photography.
Although I don't believe in definitive guides, I do believe in orientative advice, to guide someone who doesn't have your knowledge and who will discover little by little if there is too much or too little salt in the soup, each one has to discover himself and not be guided by definitive guides, NOT. I remember when I started in photography that the teacher I had (the most boring guy in the world) made me hate the subject because he spoke only of technicalities and rules (remember that the only rule is that there are no rules), this teacher did not want or did anything for the students to discover themselves, following to the letter all the content of his books and notes dating from the 30s ... he would never imagine that photography as a science, is in continuous growth.
I, who was born in a town south of Madrid, surely I have had different experiences than you dear reader, we see and photograph differently, it is possible that you like some things that I don't and vice versa...everyone is a world and we are all different, so why should we call it the definitive guide?
Knowing soccer is not knowing how to play soccer.
Once I saw in a TV program a guy who knew the name, surname, nationality and soccer teams where ALL THE EVERY FOOTBALL PLAYERS IN SPAIN had played!!!, it has a lot of merit and even more when the guy admitted that he had never played soccer in his life. In street photography the same thing happens, there are people who like to watch, read, learn about the work of other photographers (especially classics) but they have never picked up a camera in their life. You learn to fight bullfighting by fighting and not by studying.
I do not want to belittle those who "practice" more theory than practice, everyone likes one thing and it is very good to share all the knowledge we have, I love listening to a podcast of a Mexican photographer who talks about classic photographers that I did not know and he does it every day, there is a lot of research work in it, thanks for sharing.
Street photographers have a gift for street photography.
Street photographers have a gift for street photography.
This is nonsense as big as a piano, we all photograph based on our lived experiences, our personality and how developed we have our visual language, it depends a lot on whether or not we have seen many photographs ... Everything is so relative! Nobody has a gift for street photography, there are people who are much better at it than others, there are people who have been able to sell it very well and make money with it, but nobody, and I dare to repeat it again, nobody has a gift for street photography.
My street photography will never be good because I live neither in India nor in Cuba.
I have read this several times in some facebook groups, what? do you think the best place to photograph is India or Cuba? Surely they are fabulous places but it's not the place but your eye, you can take great pictures in your street and you know why you don't take them? Because you have seen it so many times that you have not realized the potential of the place where you live, I am sure that if a Cuban friend or an Indian friend is in your house for a week he/she would enjoy the same or even more than you if you go to India or Cuba.
The best place to photograph is where you are at that moment.
I like the work of other street photographers much more than mine.
When I see the work of other photographers I feel ashamed to show mine, that's why people think that there are street photographers who have that gift that we mentioned before. Of course there are people who do it very well and they should be an inspiration for us! Street photography is very wide and we can't cover everything, I like to capture scenes and I know I'm limited but that limitation I have (with color, for example) doesn't stop me from improving every day in what I am better at, I don't spend more than two minutes editing a photograph because I don't know how to edit, I don't like it and my photographs don't ask for it, I don't know how to combine subjects with objects and I don't photograph with a 50mm because I'm not good at it!
And you know what? I've really enjoyed realizing that I'm not good with these things to improve other techniques.
photographing color | ❌ |
Photo editing | ❌ |
Juxtapose (Combine) Subjects and Objects | ❌ |
50 mm | ❌ |
Many more | ❌ |
If you want to improve your street photography you can send me an email and I can follow up with challenges and exercises.
Thank you very much for being here dear reader, write any comment and share this post with anyone who might be interested, it will help me a lot to continue creating content like this. Also and if you would like to help I have my book PING PONG dialectic Street Vision at 50% discount, is a book of 80 black and white photographs made in 40 diptychs, where the viewer does not stop looking from left to right as if it were a ping pong match, The price is stipulated in Dollars of Hong Kong and it is about 15 euros