Photography Tutorial: Street Photography

Street photography is a photographic discipline taking pictures in the street mostly not being noticed by subjects, or composing captures out of situation.

An interesting tutorial by photography Matt Stuart can be found on techradar.com

Or one by Drew Hopper at petapixel.com

The tree main messages are:

- Get close to subjects:
Getting close to subjects, right into the scenery using a wide-angle lens is key in capturing the unique moment. Using this technique gives the viewer the feeling being right in the middle of the scene.

- Image quality isn't everything:
In any photography image composition should have higher priority than technical image quality. In street photography capturing the moment this is even more important.

- Learn to work fast:
To capture the dynamics and feeling of street life you need to be quick. Intervention with the situation and the subjects shall be minimal. In order to achieve this you need to be quick. Quicker than subjects to react to the fact you taking their picture.

Scenic Places in Black and White - ...

Bern WB - Farhad Salami (500px)

The old town of Bern, Switzerland is part of the UNESCO world heritage.

For photographers there are a lot of interesting spots in the old city of Bern with opportunities of beautiful capture of old architecture.

The old town is built on a peninsula surrounded by the river Aare. The river as part of photographs either gives interesting line and perspective, or natural framing of the urban scenery.

Panorama Bern - Dennis van Silfhout (500px)

In black and white the texture of buildings, storefront of buildings, roof tops comes out very well.

The old town offers a lot of more spots with architectural details hidden behind the arcaded sidewalks. The ambitious photographer only has to find them.

Memory - Marc Fan (500px)

Influential Photographers - Tatsuo Suzuki

Tatsuo Suzuki is a Tokyo based photographer shooting mainly black and white urban street sceneries.

A characteristics of Tatsuo's photography is wide angle portrait shots of people in the streets of Japan.

Images are taken mostly right in the moment when the main subject of the photography right notices the picture being taken. This exact timing adds a lot of feeling to the images and makes them unique.

Underwater Videography - Galapagos

Galapagos from Darek Sepiolo on Vimeo.

Black and White - Canoe Photography

A long winter's night - Bill W (500px)

Canoe & Paddle (bw) II - Shawn Grenninger (500px)

The union makes us strong - Jacques Funke (500px)

The canoes... - Jef Salmon (500px)

Sunken canoe #2 - Roy Tuck (500px)

Expert Talk - Tray Ratcliff introducing Aurora HDR 2017

Master of HDR post processing Tray Ratcliff introduces Aurora HDR 2017 he has participated in developing.




Get this incredible piece of software at: https://store.stuckincustoms.com/software
including video tutorial and presets.

Self Developed Black and White - Street Photography in Japan

On one of my current Japan trips I was shooting on Ilford HP5 400 black and white film using my old Nikon F801 camera.


The film I developed by myself using Ars Imago Chemicals.

A collection of images can be found in the archive at my website at: andreasrmueller.com

Black and white offers nice possibilities to capture texture in sceneries.
The different signs in asian writing being a source for nice patterns, but also the societal aspects such as kids all wearing the same school uniforms.

What is interesting in Japanese cities is busy, crowded, loud, and lively places, and in contrast ever present oasis of spiritual calmness around the different shrines and temples.
Black and white being a calm and simplified form of photographic art in it self captures very well this contrast and different moods.

Given the demographic development in Japan there are a lot of elderly people. Most of them still working as bus drivers, taxi drivers, shop owners, ... The black and white capture somehow underlines this age structure of the Japanese society.

Self developing the film brings the whole process of my Japan street photography to a closed end. Japanese are very keen on handcraft and on doing things on their own. While all digital processes are all automatic and preset, the manual chemical film development process is a type of craftsmanship that became almost distinct.

Japan being a highly innovation motivated society then it comes to technology it is still surprising how the Japanese are using old equipment everywhere. Being it photo cameras - same as myself, ... - but also Hi-Fi installations, bicycles, cars, trains, ...

The root cause for this might be in their deep respect of craftsmanship and engineering expertise. Same as the skills around gardening, calligraphy, and other traditional crafts.