My Affair With Diana by Daniel Grant

Photographs © DanielGrant

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Are you afraid of taking pictures on the street? You might try this...

Photographs © Oliver Duong

5 Painless Steps for Getting Rid of the Fear of Street Photography Once and for All

by Oliver Duong

“Look at me,” he said. Complying, I turned in the man’s direction. “Look me in the eyes!”… I tried to raise my eyes and look into his, but I couldn’t. Actually, I couldn’t look anyone in the eyes at that point, it felt weird and uncomfortable. That man… was my own older brother.

That’s how shy I was and how much I feared people … I couldn’t even look at my own brother in the eyes! But nowadays, I am a changed man, a documentary-street photographer that is not afraid to approach people and photograph them. 

If you’re like I was, here are a few steps I suggest you take to get into street photography without fear. If someone who used to be afraid of looking his own brother in the eye can do it, so can you — plus, these tips are both effective and painless.

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“Why Did You Take This Shot?”: Interview with street photographer Marc Fairhurst (UK)

Marc Fairhurst (England) – Street Photographer – www.marcfairhurst.com

“If you go out with the intent of finding something, you give yourself tunnel vision and fail to see the larger world around you. 99% of the time that I do find something that is of interest to me, the moment is already playing itself out; the play has already begun.” Marc Fairhurst

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Why I Killed Street Photography

Photo by A.G. DeMesa

 This guest article is written by A.G DeMesa– a street photographer based in Manila.

A.G.: What is street photography for me?

Surely it isn’t the mundane. Nothing gets more mundane than a 16 year old’s meal taken over Instagram. It’s not about capturing history or the little human acts because you will just be beaten by the lens of an experienced journalist. How about the perfection of form and the elements like rhythm, texture, layers, lines and others? Well, can’t photography stand on its own two feet and not rely on the concepts of painting?

So I killed my street photography. I murdered it because I became obsessed with making sure everything aligned together. I was mulling over the small details that should be present. I was looking out for the lines that should converge. I had to find the layers that will highlight the human or non human elements. I lost sight of what is important in photography: Seeing. I was doing photography and being a slave to what it means to photograph. There was no flow and joy in it for me anymore.

Photo by A.G. DeMesa

I went ahead and let go of the grip that focusing on form has on me. All of a sudden, things that are not considered artful photography started popping up. The models on the billboard ads, product shots on an appliance catalog, the architecture on a condominium flyer. These started popping up as photographs. So I decided to photograph anything. I started with the people I come across on the street and then switching it to the love of my life. I chased the stray cats that roam while also taking pictures of  the trees that grow in the urban jungle.

How can this be? After 10,000 frames on film, how can it be that all of this is just popping to me now? I decided to look at how history has celebrated the greatest photographers.

Photo by A.G. DeMesa

Joel Meyerowitz quit his job and walked the streets because he started seeing the little details after seeing Robert Frank being balletic in front of his subject instead of being stoic and passive.

Daido Moriyama, Shomei Tomatsu, and the rest of the “Provoke” magazine crew did the are-bure-bokeh not for the sake of black and white, grainy, and blurry photographs but because they saw that there was a disconnect on how Japan was showing itself in the 60′s-70′s and how it really is. It was a rebellion against form.

Noboyushi Araki liked the faces of the Japanese people and saw how beautiful they are so he photographed them incessantly. From then on he photographed things that are beautiful to him from clouds, to his cat, bounded women in the nude, the erotic and the pretending to be erotic, and the sentimental journey he took with his wife.

Photo by A.G. DeMesa

That was it. All of them had one thing in common: It was about seeing something. No dogma, no photographic gods, no one true photography. That is what I’m going to do.

The greatest thing that street photography has done for me was it laid a good foundation on what it means to photograph but I feel there should be a time one should graduate from just being a “Street Photographer”. That is not to say that one should leave street photography but rather one should build up around the core that street photography gives and continuously pursue that which excites your eyes.

Self-portrait: A.G. DeMesa

When I look back at my 10,000 photographs, none of them are really the worst but I see it in a different vein now. Some pictures I killed but many I kept because all that matters is seeing. Which means that you should always be prepared because you’ll never know what will put excitement in your eyes when you go through your daily life whether it be walking the streets or spending time with friends. Always make sure that you can photograph it and make it live forever.

Cause I Believe In Fairies

Geric Cruz (Philippines) – Contemporary Photographer – www.gericcruzphoto.weebly.com

“I wanted to learn that you could go back to that time of innocence and purity even now that I’ve been equipped with experience.” Geric Cruz

Geric Cruz, in one of your most recent projects called “Second Star To The Right” you are dealing with childhood memories and fantasy worlds that lose their magic when you get older. Why did you decide to take on this subject?

It was actually for my residency in Zambales. I started shooting the two boys as a part of a bigger project until I realized I wanted to focus on their relationship. Their youth and love for each other – and the complications of growing up – brought me back to my own childhood with my brother. I wanted to learn that you could go back to that time of innocence and purity even now that I’ve been equipped with experience. It’s like watching a scene in a movie and whenever you’re with them you never really know how one will react to the changes about to happen. You see them learn it on their own; the process of grief, time and maturity.

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