You might have seen those pictures taken without make up, or without following any rules including the rule or thirds. You might have taken time to look at them, at times you may have laughed or just smiled but never realized they were not planned and ended up breaking all basic photography rules yet you remember them more than the ones you have seen on covers of magazines! What you saw were products of street photography, a photography genre that aims at capturing your subjects in their candid best with no or little interaction with the camera or photographer.

According to Wikipedia, “Street photography is a type of documentary photography that features subjects in candid situations within public places such as streets, parks, beaches, malls, political conventions and other settings.” The London Festival of Street Photography came up with a close definition though they took a more liberal route when they defined street photography as, “un-posed, un-staged photography which captures, explores or questions contemporary society and the relationships between individuals and their surroundings.” The two definitions clearly bring out the meaning of this fun genre of photography. Let’s explore further a few aspect of street photography.

History

If you have never heard of street photography before, it’s not because it is a new genre in the field but it is not considered by many a serious genre of photography. According to Sendhil Chandrasekar, a street photographer I met in Ooty recently, street photography and photography are age mates, only that street photography is a few days younger! Sendhil may have exaggerated a little but what he meant to say was that street photography is an old genre, probably as old as photography itself.

Street photography was made possible the moment cameras became portable and were able to be taken out of studios to take photographs of the surroundings. Cameras were quite bulky when they first came but by 1870s, they were portable enough to be move a few city blocks to capture important photographs.

Since then, the world of photography has greatly changed with cameras becoming smaller and sleeker, making it easy to take spontaneous photos anywhere. Probably a camera that made street photography really easy and fun was the Leica, a portable high quality camera that made its debut in 1913. Though street photography is yet to really gain the respect it deserves (since many think a street photographer is more like a graffiti artist who does it for fun and never get paid), a few well known photographers have popularized the genre to give it some colour. These photographers include: Eugène Atget, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand and Martin Parr.

Must it be a street?

Though the genre is known as street photography, it must not be practiced only on a street. Wikipedia uses the phrase ‘public places’. A public place can be a park, a cafe, a museum, a gallery, a beach and so on and so forth. Street photography is synonymous to urban areas hence the name street, but any candid picture taken even in a village qualifies to be a street photograph. It should however not be mistaken to journalism photography where the events are planned though the subjects may be candid.

Style and equipment

Street photography is fun in many ways but one of them is that it is probably the only photography genres that neither requires any specific gear nor must one have a rules hand book to succeed. All you need is a good camera that will make photographing in public easier without attracting much attention. I love taking my Nikon P500 for a stroll since it has a wonderful fold-out LCD screen which makes it easy for me to take great candid photos with the camera at waist level. Today, even mobile phones can take great high quality photos and can be a good option for street photography.

Final take

In a nutshell, street photography is all about taking that photo which will make people want to look at it again and it’s a photo that was taken spontaneously. If you can get some ridicule, that would be great, but not all street photographs need be funny or cause amusement. Street photographs need not have human subjects only; even animals and things can be great subjects for your street photography. All said and done, it boils to that one moment...that moment when you take a photo and said to yourself, ‘wow, I am glad I had the camera with me!’

	Quick read: Street photography can be defined as un-posed, un-staged photography which captures, explores or questions contemporary society Street photography was made possible the moment cameras became portable and were able to be taken out of studios to take photographs of the surroundings Though the genre is known as street photography, it must not be practiced only on a street Street photographs need not have human subjects only; even animals and things can be great subjects for your street photography

Photos by Nathan Gitonga