Street photography is the essence of mobile photography.
Despite this specific genre has always shown its potentiality and its beauty in the past decades, nowadays street life photography seems to have adapted to modernity and through smartphones it opens the way to a new era.
For the importance of this style, we want to dedicate an article to recall and experiment some interesting ideas that you can apply in your photography.
Street life photography often represents daily life scenes, as well as it uses details that leave viewers guess about circumstances happening around.
Unique stories come to life in the city mazes and street photography always emerges more fascinating and never the same thanks to the variety of the subject and through the photographer, who catches feelings naturally.
Street photography can be an intimate visual journey: where catching the moments of other people’s life and freezing the instants are part of a personal path that each photographer develops with the surrounding environment.
The result of an intimate journey will be then opened to different interpretations.
Sometimes we are intrigued by a single shot and we show interest for the subject’s strength or for its unicity or eccentricity.
But at the same time there are images where we can read the whole story only after reviewing an entire sequence of photos in which the plot develops or a point of view emerges.
Picturing shared moments with family and friends means entering in some one else’s life in a most profound way and is always important to respect the people being photographed.
Showing cultural habits and people interaction always generates interest because through that we enrich our visual experience and deepen social aspects that we might not know.
Amateurs sometimes wonder how to represent the story. If colors, black and white or filters might help to strengthen the power of images it is only a matter of what is the STORY and what the photographer wants TO TELL.
There are also scenes “frozen in time” where some elements like: light, architecture, human elements and other opportunities can create a composed picture. One shot, like the ones below, says already a lot about the scenario itself.
Shadows and silhouettes with a warm light can convey serenity and represent a peaceful urban scene
The beauty of being surrounded of stimuli, in the modern cities now-a-days, gives us the opportunities to change point of view. Everyday moments can be emphasized with top down and bottom up views..
Details, colors and the background can bring out the culture’s flavor. Street life photography relies on the photographer’s point of view and stimulates the viewer in a context to discover.
By focusing on shops, windows, and any steady elements like traffic lights, we can have the perception that streets are in turmoil and time flies away..
The influence of design and modern buildings may suggest to photograph minimal street life photos, in which people leave the frame to give room to lines and brightness.
Even with a rainy day the creativity can embrace new and interesting formulas. Street photography doesn’t fear weather condition but can reap benefits from it by becoming abstract or suffused.
Long time exposure tickles our creativity and turn on street photos with warm and fleeting tones.
Never stop to experiment. Street photography is in the palm of your hand and gives you tons of new and original ideas!
