First Time Street Shooting

[Bo4key]

EDIT Photo's on second page.

I'm heading to Seattle this weekend and am really looking forward to trying some street shooting for the first time. I've been to the city a couple of times, but this will be my first trip taking my camera. I have a good idea of a couple of location I want to shoot but other than that will just be acting like a tourist

Does anyone have any tips or links for me to check out?

I realize that I'll probably be a little uncomfortable having my camera in peoples faces and don't want to make it to obvious. I'll be using my Rebel T2i so don't have the option of using the lcd and shooting from the hip.

I searched the Forum but most of the threads are for C&C and a couple of the others were older threads.

 

[Bo4key]

Anyone?

 

[tmL]

It's not that bad, especially if you're in a touristy area. One of my favorite spots to shoot is Time Square; I just sit down or stand on the side of the road and pretend like I'm taking a picture of the street as a whole when I'm really actually zoomed in on just one person. I found it a little difficult with the limited reach of my kit 18-55 lens (I have a T2i too!) but still doable. I even was able to use the 50 f/1.8 without too much awkwardness. I would set the shooting mode to continuous and be quick about it, shoot a few shots then casually walk away. Of course, street shooting becomes much more difficult at night (unless you have a fast lens) because people are always moving so I would recommend shooting mostly in the daytime.
Good luck!

 

[Bo4key]

Thanks.

I was also thinking of pretending to be taking a shot of a building or sign when I'm actually at the widest focal length and getting the foreground in focus more than anything.

 

[JClishe]

I would suspect that Seattle is one of the easier places for this, like New York that was mentioned. Everyone has a camera in the Pike Place Market; if you have a wide, relatively fast lens that would be a great place to just snap away and I doubt you'd even need to make much of an effort to be inconspicuous.

 

[Foxx]

A well establish street photographer, Thomas Leuthard, just released a short ​free ebook all about street photography -- from equipment to composition to methods of concealed shooting, etc. Very good read, only takes 30-40 minutes! 85mm Street Photography

You check out more of his stuff on his flickr Flickr: 85mm.ch's Photostream

 

[BekahAura]

I'm a sneaky person, and although I haven't done much street photography, I have gotten some interesting pictures of interesting people by using a 70mm-300mm lens. Rarely do people notice that I'm actually shooting them when I'm so far away. Of course I'm anti-social... so I guess it was just a natural choice for me.

But it is true that the farther away you are, the less noticeable you are, so you're more likely to get natural looking candids.

Good luck and have fun!

 

[EPPhoto]

That's one of the cool ways i like to use "live view" on my D7000! Then you don't have to have the camera up to your face lol. You can be sneaky like that!

I do it when photographing my son and I want to catch him just acting naturally. As soon as he sees me with a camera up to my face he turns into a model lol, with poses and all haha

 

[KmH]

Just be straight forward and professional. If you sneek around you'll just look like you're doing something underhanded or pervy.

I smile, look people in the eye, hold up my camera a bit, get a questioning kind of look on my face and tilt my head a little, and they let me know if it's ok to shoot them or not.

OR

I smile and walk up to them, introduce myself, hand them a business card and say, "You have an interesting face. I'm always looking for new, interesting faces to update my portfilio with. Would you let me make a photograph of you?" If they say yes, I continue with, 'Just in case one of us gets our 15 minutes of fame some day, would you fill in this model release for me, and for doing so I'll send you a nice 8x10 of the finished photo.

 

[Andrew_Northover]

PRIMES PRIMES PRIMES!! Street photography and primes go as well together as making love and barry white. I find i like the 85mm f/1.8 on my 5D mark II for street shooting, but as you're on a crop body the 50mm f/1.8 or "nifty fifty" will be similar in relative focal length.

What id do is use a range of f/2 - f/2.8 and get that bokeh pumping. Also, what I've found in the past is its often very helpful to find an aspect of the street you like, say a building, intersection, alley way etc, find the view point you want, stand/sit and wait there until the perfect person/moment appears. Generally max waiting time is about 5 minutes for such a shot.
Cant wait to see what you post up mate.

 

[GooniesNeverSayDie11]

The problem with walking up and chit chatting first, is that most people will then stop acting naturally. You should always shoot and then talk. You can also pick a fairly wide focal length, set an ISO and appropriate shutter speed to stop camera shake with a small enough aperture, and simply fire blindly. If the aperture is small enough your depth of field should be sufficient. Of course thats not going to get your tack sharp pin-point focus shots. Personally, I would just shoot normally but quickly before people can notice you are shooting and tense up. If they notice you at all, you can hand them a card or whatever.

 

[tmL]

A well establish street photographer, Thomas Leuthard, just released a short ​free ebook all about street photography -- from equipment to composition to methods of concealed shooting, etc. Very good read, only takes 30-40 minutes! 85mm Street Photography

You check out more of his stuff on his flickr Flickr: 85mm.ch's Photostream

Thank you for this! I just started reading it and it looks like it can help a lot.

 

[Scoody]

I am taking part in Flickr's 100 Strangers project (I am up to number 17) and I love photographing people on the street, but instead of taking candids, I take portraits.

 

[Bo4key]

Took about 100 random shots, looking forward to processing them.

I took most of the advice in this thread and found it useful. I wanted to get as many natural looking poses, etc as I could so I really just shot as much as I could, no one seemed to mind. I also found that not immediately reviewing what I shot made it easier and seemed less creepy I guess. I mostly used my kit lens and struggled a little bit to get the right exposure. More practice is needed. I think in the future I'd like to invest in some faster glass, but I will definitely be learning with what I have first.

My one regret is I totally forgot to get some shots of the Gum Wall at Pike Place Market.

I haven't had a chance to look at most of the shots since I just got home last night. Will post some up as soon as I can.

 

[DiskoJoe]

I am taking part in Flickr's 100 Strangers project (I am up to number 17) and I love photographing people on the street, but instead of taking candids, I take portraits.

Nice. i started that project a couple months ago. Thats the way to do it. I got some great results from the direct approach. made a couple cool friends that way too.