₿LOG
Thanks a ton to Michael Meinhardt for interviewing me for the “Shooting Street†podcast. We talked about shooting street photography with flash, finding your own style, overcoming boredom, shooting film, photo books, and ideas for the future! Check out the hour-long interview below:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Past episodes to check out:
OBSERVE is an international photography collective focused primarily on the practice of candid street photography. This week’s feature is Fadi Boukaram, a street photographer currently based in Broumana, Lebanon.
Gustavo Minas is a street photographer based in Sao Paulo, Brazil and part of the Street-Photographers and the SelvaSP collective.
Gustavo: Hi there, I’m a 32 years old guy born in Cassia, a small town in Brazilian countryside, now living in Sao Paulo. I first got interested in photography during my journalism course at uni, around 2001. Maybe a bit earlier, as I drew a lot as a child, roughly, and photographed school parties with a point and shoot.
After university, I lived in London for 1 year, working as a waiter and just spending time. I bought a handycam with miniDV tapes and started filming everything around, later editing with Windows Movie Maker. I was inspired by those late boring Godard movies, which are mostly about apparently random images. These were the origins of my street photography, as the process was about the same – wandering alone and watching people.
This guest blog post is by JT White, a street photographer currently based in Seoul, Korea.
JT: Eric and I often talk about projects as we work on them. We often help each other edit, sequence. He usually does the editing, me the sequencing. I suppose that is just what we’re good at. While editing my project, The Culture, Eric asked if I would write a short post about the project and how it came about.
As a bit of background, Eric and I have been friends for a long time. We taught a Leica Workshop together in Seoul a couple of years ago. Shortly after that workshop I came back to Canada. During that time I had four different Leica cameras and a bunch of lenses. I was like the king of gear. I had everything and bought and sold everything else.
The photos in this article are from my new “Detroit” series.Â
I’ve had the pleasure of being a judge for a handful of street photography competitions: including the International Street Photography Awards 2012, the Urban Picnic Street Photography Contest in 2013, and the International Street Photography Awards 2014.
It was a fascinating experience being a judge– and it has taught me a lot of lessons in terms of how to judge others’ work. More than that, it has taught me to better judge my own work. Here are some lessons I’ve personally learned being a judge, and some tips I suggest when you enter a street photography contest:
All photos in this article are copyrighted by David Alan Harvey / Magnum Photos
David Alan Harvey is one of the living legends in street photography. He is a member of the prestigious Magnum Photos agency, and also quite active in the contemporary photography world– featuring emerging photographers through burn magazine while teaching courses all around the world.
Close to 70 years old, he is still prolific in his photography–he travels constantly and takes photographs everyday. He still retains the passion for photography as he had as a 12 year old boy.
Disclaimer: I was given the Fujifilm X-T1 as well as a 23mm f/1.4 Lens, a 27mm f/2.8 lens for free from Fuijfilm. I am not getting paid to do this review, and will try my best to give an un-biased opinion as possible. But note that because I was given to it for free, I will probably be a bit biased (either consciously or subconsciously). But after shooting street photography with the X-T1 for a week in Dubai, below are my experiences with the camera.
When I was here in Dubai for Gulf Photo Plus, the guys from Fujifilm were generous enough to give me a new Fujifilm X-T1, the Fujifilm 23mm f/1.4 (35mm full-frame equivalent), as well as the Fujifilm 27mm f/2.8 Lens (~40mm full-frame equivalent). I shot with it everyday for around a week.
Overall I like the camera a lot and would highly recommend it (superb image quality, great form factor, and responsive). Some downsides are that the AF isn’t as accurate and quick as other cameras (like the Olympus OMD)– although it is a huge improvement from the X-Pro 1 and x100s. Hope this improves with future firmware updates.
I have a in-depth text-based review coming, but in the meanwhile– check out my video review above. I talk a bit more in-detail the near features of the cameras as well as more in-depth thoughts on how I like it in street photography!
I saw some cool guys chilling outside of a barber shop in the African area of the Gold Souk in Dubai. The video was shot during my street photography workshop here at Gulf Photo Plus with the new Fujifilm X-T1 and Fujifilm 27mm f/2.8 Lens. Still tons more videos to come, stay tuned! :)
Above is another GoPro video I made on the streets of Dubai during my street photography workshop here at Gulf Photo Plus with the new Fujifilm X-T1 and Fujifilm 27mm f/2.8 Lens. Here I instruct Jillian and give her a little encouragement to overcome her fears of shooting street photography. Check it out!
If you were ever curious what it is like at my street photography workshops, here are some fun behind-the-scenes snapshots at my recent Amsterdam Introduction to Street Photography Workshop. You can see the student’s work on Facebook here. You can also see all of my upcoming street photography workshops here.
I just put together a quick GoPro POV of me shooting street photography in Dubai with the new Fujifilm X-T1 and Fujifilm 27mm f/2.8 Lens. I discovered Dubai to be a superb place to shoot street photography, and most of the people here are quite friendly. I have a lot more videos coming, stay tuned!
Above is the presentation I used as an introduction to composition in street photography. Feel free to use, edit, and distribute the presentation on Slideshare here.
Learn more about composition in street photography via the lessons below:
For further learning on composition, I highly recommend checking out Adam Marelli (who taught me everything I know). You can also learn more about design and composition from him on Youtube here.
I just had an incredible time teaching my Introduction to Urban Landscapes: A Street Photographer’s Perspective at Gulf Photo Plus 2014 here in Dubai. If you were interested you can see the slides above or on on Slideshare. You can also read more in-depth about Urban Landscapes on the blog here.
You can see all the student photos from the workshop below!
Today I just gave a talk titled: “How to Conquer Your Fear of Shooting Street Photography” at Gulf Photo Plus 2014 in Dubai. You can see the slides above or on on Slideshare. Unfortunately the talk wasn’t recorded, but I will try to re-record it for YouTube in the near future!
You can also check out my free-ebook: “31 Days to Overcome Your Fear of Shooting Street Photography“.
I interview Mike Gesgregen, a homeless man in Berkeley– who shares the secret of happiness in this video above.
Last weekend, I had a phenomenal time teaching my Amsterdam Introduction to Street Photography Workshop alongside Jeroen Helmink, Caspar Claasen, Peter Gerritsen, and Neil Ta. The students all did an incredible job conquering their fears in street photography and stepping outside of their comfort zones. I was also shocked to see how much progress all the students made in the workshop.
They agreed to let me show their “before and after shots.” The “before” images are the 3 images from their portfolio, and the “after” shots are the final photos they got after the workshop. See their dramatic improvements in the post below!
Life is too short to do shit you don’t like doing. I know a lot of people who work in jobs they absolutely hate, stay in relationships they don’t enjoy, and force themselves to do hobbies that they aren’t that interested in.
We all have relatively short lives while we are here on earth. Not only that, but we have no idea when we are going to die. Sure if we are relatively healthy we can expect to live to around 80. But who knows if we get a rare form of cancer and die early? Or if we get into a car accident and die? Or perhaps die in some sort of other freak accident?
