Third wheeling two-way conversations
Street photography can be a real hassle if you’re just starting out and are afraid of the possibility of confrontation, but it needn’t be as rough as one might initially think…
After a while doing street photography, you build up a mental list of types of situation that can deliver a picture
Street photography – or at least the generalized kind where you walk around among people and hope for something to turn up – tends to stretch comfort levels. I mean that in two ways. First, there’s the fact that the people you’re hoping to photograph often simply don’t like having cameras aimed in their direction – and who can blame them? Second, and very much because of the first, there’s the potential embarrassment at getting caught out when shooting. The rewards are considerable – catching slices of natural human life that will never be exactly repeated is very satisfying, and well-caught candid scenes get a consistently high approval rating from viewers. But I know from my workshops that many people who would enjoy this kind of photography are put off by the thought of any kind of confrontation. Landscapes and objects are safer; they don’t talk back and don’t/can’t object to having their photo taken.
There are entire books to be written, and already written, on how to succeed at street photography, but what I’m looking for are a few simple approaches that will make life easier. Being thickskinned simply isn’t an answer, because you have to be that way to start with, and in my experience most photographers (outside hard news and the paparazzi circuit anyway) are indeed sensitized, because a degree of awareness is partly why we want to take pictures in the first place. Standing back and using a long lens is one way, and I showed an example of that the month before last.
I realize that in the cult world of ‘street’ this is considered a kind of cop-out because it doesn’t fit in with the imaginary rules of a lean shooter armed only with fixed standard lens. I don’t care about that, because I’m more concerned with getting shots that interest me than I am in doing things in a prescribed way. Nevertheless, quite a lot of human activity on the street or in a market is more easily caught when you’re up close, and that inevitably means inhabiting part of the scene you want to capture.
Opportunity calling
After a while doing street photography, you build up a mental list of types of situation that can deliver a picture. Walking around, it helps sometimes to run these through your head like a
Rolodex. Some are more likely than others, and some more comfortable than others. Not surprisingly, when people are busy they’re less likely to be bothered by you, a photographer, even though in other ways you may stick out like a sore thumb. One activity that keeps people fully occupied is a conversation, all the more so if it’s an engaging one. And conversations between just two people are the most fully focused.
The setting here was the wet market on the banks of the Ayeyarwady River, Yangon, the capital of Myanmar. In fact, it was at the start of a photography workshop I was leading, and I’d chosen this as the first shoot because markets anywhere make a good, easy start for just about everyone. There’s always stuff going on, people are busy and, as long as you don’t get in their way, as a photographer you’re usually tolerated.
This particular market is especially good as it’s right on the river where the boats unload, and partially open-air and partly under cover in an old building. It gets going quite early, and now that modern sensors in cameras handle low-light levels so well, the
lighting combination of blue pre-dawn and various artificial lights gives a good atmosphere with a flourish of colour. The shooting checklist for markets like this includes unloading fish from boats, carrying stuff around, preparation like gutting, scaling and cleaning, and the business of buying and selling.
Just about blending in
This is all pretty standard, and while predictable you can still expect to get some interesting material – with people interacting, no two shots are ever exactly the same. But I was also looking for the specific interaction of two people negotiating or talking. Buying and selling sometimes delivers this, although it rarely involves much emotion or excitement. However, I spotted the potential for this shot from several metres away, as there was some moreor-less good-natured banter going on between this woman, who was buying fish directly from the boats and the young man who was delivering – and horsing around. I moved closer, and then she started to tell him off. There was a window of only a few seconds, but I was there and prepared. 24mm, ISO5000, f/2.8 and 1/100 sec. Luckily, they paid me no attention whatsoever.