Photography is a deep and vast word, indeed. And Street Photography is a fabulous way to express your artistic vision and still be faithful to your own personal style
It inspires me to seek sincerity in things, to pay more attention to details. For me, it's all about the essence of humanity in all its facets. Great stories that can be told with the careful use of aesthetics and composition, humor, and juxtaposition.
Wedding Street Photography
I often shoot Street Photography using a phone, or my daily lifestyle camera (Leica M10), and it's a big and essential part of my own approach and philosophy. I highly believe shooting street photography can improve the way a photographer sees the world and compose. It helps to find your personal style, your photographic "obsessions." Street photography is typical nowadays, and there are many ways to approach it. Every photographer can be a great street photographer and still be faithful at his/her own style.
According to Wikipedia, "It's photography conducted for art or inquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within public places." I love their choice of words: unmediated and random, which are keywords for understanding the topic thoroughly. And this is what I do when I shoot Street Photography, I always seek for spontaneous moments, good enough to tell the story in a particular way, without mediating or interfering with the scene in any way. The photograph could be about something extraordinary (I mean out of the ordinary), or a decisive moment framed in a complex composition. It can be just a creative composition or a picture with a lot of context with the use of layers.
Framing and timing can be critical aspects of Street Photography. But besides the main idea and purpose behind an excellent image, the scene has to be unscripted: the photographer can't interfere or make changes to the scene, it's mandatory. That's why Street Photography is very challenging, and it requires a lot of attention, not only to the overall view but also on the smallest details. From one of my favorite photographers ever, Alex Webb, I learned a lot, like how to better frame subjects and how to work confidently with intense light and very contrasted scenes. I also learned how to use layers to add more information to an image, meaning more context and better narrative.
Not only a great composition, but a decisive moment, and great light. These are all necessary ingredients for a well-done photo, and it applies to many topics or branches of photography. A good street photograph needs to have an extra point to add to the equation. In my case, it's all about an intricate image: high-contrast scenes, many layers with a depth of field, juxtaposition, and that it helps the narrative or be the narrative.
Honest Visual Storytelling
and my style is firmly moved by the ethics and techniques of photojournalism, documentary, and yes, street photography. There are many differences between the three, and for some people, the variations can be slight. But for me, they all have something in common: they are unscripted. The photographer can't interfere with the scene, because otherwise, it doesn't make sense, it won't be real Street Photography.
And starting from this, I always try to add information or just an extra graphic element to the photograph, to make it more powerful, efficient, and with significant impact. That's why I often apply my Street photography style to weddings (what I call Wedding Street Photography). I think it's a fabulous way to tell the honest and real story of marriage while including as much context and information as possible: playing with layers, complex compositions, and great moments. If you can combine all of this together, you can probably have a killer combination, a picture with a story, but a huge impact as well. A photograph with something peculiar and unique to say. Not just a candid photo of a moment.
If you are familiar (or an expert) with more than one of the photography branches, it can help you to be a better photographer in only one specificities branch. For example: If you know about fashion photography, you can apply the fashion creativity, perception, and vision to other photography branches. And you will probably take better portraits or editorial photos. If you are a photojournalist and have a passion for landscape photography, you can match the two things and maybe having a better "panoramic" photo that also tells a story. Do you know what I mean? Same for weddings. It's not all about moments, love, beauty. It's about merging everything that can help to tell the story better.
Photography is a deep and vast word. And "All roads lead to Rome." As long as we use photography as a tool, as a medium to express our artistic vision, we can do whatever we want, the sky is the limit. And everyone is free to express his/her voice in the best way, using what technique and style are necessary.
So, which kind of photographer and/or wedding photographer are you? What are your influences?
Happy clicks to everyone! See you around.
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