Street Shots. Direction welcome

[The_Traveler]

Usually I feel like if something doesn't add anything to my picture, do I want it in the frame? No I do not! lol I want it out of my photo unless it's doing something for it. Does she add to the picture? is she part of what's happening? (nah, in the background watching something else...) Taking a step to the left might have helped. Takes practice. (And thank you for your nice comment.)

Agree.
Viewers try to parse every picture to understand what the photographer is showing them.
If there is something in the frame, the photographer has put it there and viewers try to understand how that 'something' fits in the story.
The photographer creates the story of the image by deciding what should be in the frame and where it should be, what is dark, what is light, what is in focus.
All of these factors are hints to the viewer on what is important and what is not.

 

[sashbar]

Usually I feel like if something doesn't add anything to my picture, do I want it in the frame? No I do not! lol I want it out of my photo unless it's doing something for it. Does she add to the picture? is she part of what's happening? (nah, in the background watching something else...) Taking a step to the left might have helped. Takes practice. (And thank you for your nice comment.)

I think this is the right approach in many cases, but it is worth mentioning that sometimes (well, actually quite often) it can be misinterpreted and lead to simplified and sterile compositions, especially in street photography. Depending on a particular genre within street photography there is a certain balance between an object(s) and the background, between the action and the atmosphere. A street has an inherent chaotic atmosphere which both gives a photographer an opportunity to create a multi-layered composition and at the same time it creates problems with framing. Getting anything that is not a part of what's happening often is counterproductive, keeping it in the frame makes the composition incoherent, and you need to make your choice that is far from obvious. That is why street photography is so difficult.

 

[The_Traveler]

Agree
I think that the key word is 'coherent'.
It is the photographer's responsibility to frame, compose and edit to create a composition that is coherent, i.e. understandable, around his/her idea.

 

[vintagesnaps]

I like to have a clean composition, and not see parts of objects etc. that aren't recognizable. That's one way to me something doesn't add to the composition when I'm going, what the heck is that? I prefer not to see cluttered backgrounds, I think that can take the viewer visually away from the subject when there are distractions.

With this one, the woman has an arm cut off and a pole cutting thru her. So I find that to just make for a distraction. If it was a wider scene with lots of people in the background it might work because she would not stand out so much, and it'd be a totally different photo. But I'd probably still take a step to move that pole out from in front of her.

I've done sports and events and sometimes depending on the scene there can be people milling around and doing who knows what back there, but I find if they're farther away from the subject they aren't that noticeable, or they are part of the scene and part of the photograph (because then it's about, look sponsors at all these people at our event! lol).

With sports I'm usually aware of the fans in the stands and if play is close to that I'd frame accordingly and take the background into consideration (I learned that from not showing empty seats in photos to be shown to sponsors, taught myself how to make empty seats 'disappear'). Maybe it's from being a film photographer, it's a lot of trouble to have an enlargement made and crop it down, so I learned to frame shots to get what I want in my picture as much as possible. Saves a lot of time to not have to go back and fix boo-boos any more than necessary even shooting digitally.

 

[jcdeboever]

I like to have a clean composition, and not see parts of objects etc. that aren't recognizable. That's one way to me something doesn't add to the composition when I'm going, what the heck is that? I prefer not to see cluttered backgrounds, I think that can take the viewer visually away from the subject when there are distractions.

With this one, the woman has an arm cut off and a pole cutting thru her. So I find that to just make for a distraction. If it was a wider scene with lots of people in the background it might work because she would not stand out so much, and it'd be a totally different photo. But I'd probably still take a step to move that pole out from in front of her.

I've done sports and events and sometimes depending on the scene there can be people milling around and doing who knows what back there, but I find if they're farther away from the subject they aren't that noticeable, or they are part of the scene and part of the photograph (because then it's about, look sponsors at all these people at our event! lol).

With sports I'm usually aware of the fans in the stands and if play is close to that I'd frame accordingly and take the background into consideration (I learned that from not showing empty seats in photos to be shown to sponsors, taught myself how to make empty seats 'disappear'). Maybe it's from being a film photographer, it's a lot of trouble to have an enlargement made and crop it down, so I learned to frame shots to get what I want in my picture as much as possible. Saves a lot of time to not have to go back and fix boo-boos any more than necessary even shooting digitally.

I have a lot of bad habits because I took pictures on content for painting... Like a sketch book. As an example, I might just use that man as a subject and would put a different background in all together. Never thought to much about light, composition, background, framing, etc. Now I have to train myself to think differently and know the hardware. So much to learn.

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