Archives for October 2014

Presentation: Capturing Emotions and Interacting with Subjects in Street Photography

I am teaching a two-day crash-course in street photography in Stockholm the next two days, and here is the presentation I am giving to my class. It is a collection of images from great Magnum and contemporary photographers (as well as some of my own work) in terms of capturing emotions on the streets, as well as how to interact with strangers. In each photograph, I ask each student: what makes the photograph memorable, great, and how does it capture emotion?

At the end of the presentation, I also share some of my contact sheets which I hope is a good educational behind-the-scenes look/tool.

Feel free to download, share, and distribute for any educational purposes.

Download PDF: Capturing Emotions in Street Photography

See this presentation on Slideshare and see all of my street photography presentations.

A Near-Death Experience

(Originally written October 24th, 2014)

I am being a little over-dramatic— but I recently had a near-death experience.

It was another normal day. I was simply writing for my blog, drinking coffee, and just finished a workout. I was a bit hungry, so I went over to my kitchen, poured out a hand-few of cashew nuts, ate them in one huge chunk, and continued to work.

Suddenly, I felt around 40% of the left side of my throat swell up. It felt hard to breathe. This was the same exact feeling I had when I had my first anaphylaxis (throat swelling up) from having an allergic reaction of eating shellfish.

Keep Shooting or Die

tumblr_ne2dfwDSfz1qd0y8do1_1280 — What keeps me going at the moment: medium-format and (lots of) coffee

I recently was listening to a podcast interview with Tony Robbins (on the “Tim Ferris Show”) and was struck by something Tony said: progress is happiness.

As you guys are probably well-aware of, I think a lot about happiness and progress in life. I want to live a happy and fulfilling life. I don’t want to feel stagnant. I don’t want to feel that I am hitting roadblocks. I want to fulfill my creative potential, and live a life without regrets. I want to suck out the marrow of life.

[Read more…] about Keep Shooting or Die

5 Photography Friendly Places Where You Can Practice Street Photography

(A.g.’s note: I asked some of the folks over at Streettogs Academy what part of their street photography they want to improve on. One of the many things that popped up was people are still shy going out to shoot or finding interesting places to shoot in. Hopefully this article gives you new ideas on where to shoot)

The best way to become good at something is if it becomes second nature. You have to constantly build habits and the right attitudes so you can turn something on and be in the zone when you need to. That principle applies to street photography.

If you are still uncomfortable venturing out in the streets, here are some places that can be a great venue to take street photographs without the fear of being hollered upon or confronted so you can concentrate on practicing and making images and not be wary of other things.

[Read more…] about 5 Photography Friendly Places Where You Can Practice Street Photography

How to Show Empathy in Street Photography

I recently read a quote that went something like this: “If everyone knew how much suffering there was in the world, and how much pain, anxiety, and sadness that their enemies had (and also knew how much love they had in their lives), the world would be a much better place.”

Pretty much the concept was this: we are often suspicious, jealous, envious, and hateful of others. However if we realized that those we hated the most also went through pain and suffering in their lives, and also had joy, hope, and love in their lives— we would treat them with much more empathy, kindness, and love.

What You Can (and Can’t) Control in Street Photograpy

There isn’t a lot of things you can control in street photography. However these are the things you can control:

1,000 True Fans in Photography

I currently wrote an article titled: “Advice for Aspiring Full-Time Photographers” which had a lot of interest. I have also been connecting a lot of young photographers lately (high school and college students)— and wanted to focus on doing more blogging which aimed at the younger photography population. Of course this doesn’t just have to be age— it can also be based on experience. So if you consider yourself as a young photographer (age-wise), experience-wise, or want some insights about the economics of being a full-time photographer, this article might be of some insight to you.

“Letters from a Street Photographer” #6: How to Live a Purposeful Life

Tied into the previous chapter on how to live a happy life– I also encourage trying to live a purposeful life.

What is the difference between a happy life and a purposeful life?

I think simply a “happy” life is to be free of pain, to be overall joyful, and to be free of stress and concern of how others think of you.

However when it comes to a “purposeful” life– I think it is to live a life not for just yourself– but for others.

As a social creature, we often gain the most happiness by helping others. And I think one of the biggest secrets to a “happy” life – is to live a purposeful life. By living a purposeful life– we not only help build value, love, and help others – but we also benefit ourselves (we are “happy’ as a by-product.

Marcus Aurelius also shares the same ideology– know that you have a purpose in this world. And it isn’t to live for yourself– but to live and serve others:

“Letters from a Street Photographer” #5: How to Be Happy

For this chapter I want to focus on a section which I think is important for everyone in life: learning how to be happy, fulfilled, and content with your street photography (and your personal life).

Happiness is one of the most elusive things in the world– which we have always chased for millennia. However the problem is that we often go down the rabbit hole and follow the wrong things. We try to chase money, fame, power, wealth, prestige– all external forms of recognition to confer “happiness” unto ourselves.

However happiness is more than that– happiness is an inner-state, which can be controlled by you (not affected by external conditions).

How do we seek to gain more happiness, purpose, and contentment in our photography and lives? Let us seek the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius in “The Meditations”:

“Letters from a Street Photographer” #4: Fuck Fame

I’ll admit it. I’m incredibly jealous. Whenever I see my close friends, other photographers, family, or anyone else doing “successful” things– I feel a tinge of jealousy. In the back of my head– I might think negative thoughts like, “That person didn’t deserve that recognition or success” – self-doubt myself “Why am I not as successful as that person?” and I start to sink into a hole of despair.

Streettogs Academy Assignment No. 5

The recently concluded Assignment No. 4 yielded a lot of great and creative executions which you can view again here. Thanks again to everyone who joined and to Bertrand Domas who gave us that assignment. Moving on, it’s Editor’s choice Florin Ghebosu‘s turn to give us our assignment for the coming weeks! It is something very timely that fits on the spooks and spoils that occur during the end of October:

Advice for Aspiring Full-Time Photographers

Recently I gave a short 2-hour presentation on street photography at one of the photography clubs at UC Berkeley. It was great being surrounded by students again– with all of the energy, enthusiasm, and passion that college kids have.

Some of the students asked me how I went from college to surviving off photography full-time as a living. I gave some of my personal experiences– and I had the realization: perhaps this was information that may be useful to other college students (who want to make photography their living), or anyone out there with a day-job who wants to make photography their living:

Guide: How to Teach a Street Photography Class, Workshop, or Course

One of my biggest beliefs in life is in transparency. Whenever I learn something potentially useful or insightful– I don’t want to simply hoard the information to myself. Rather, I want to share it with as large of an audience as humanly possible.

I wanted to share how I teach my street photography workshops— and I hope this can be used as a blueprint for anyone out there who wants to teach their own street photography workshop. I believe what I am sharing here doesn’t only apply to street photography workshops– but any photography workshops (or teaching in general).

A lot of the philosophies I will share are based on personal experience, and also from the honors pedagogy course I took at UCLA (USIE: Undergraduate Student Initiated Education). I learned a lot from the USIE course at UCLA, where I taught a 1-unit seminar (we met once a week) for a quarter. I taught a course: “The Sociology of Facebook and Online Social Networks” where I made a blueprint for a course, gave assigned readings, assignments, and had once-a-week course discussions. I credit my mentor Kumiko Haas for all of my pedagogical training.

Take everything in this guide with a grain of salt. This is just my personal philosophy– and won’t work for everybody out there. But I think you might learn 1-2 things that you will find helpful in your own teaching (or learning).

“Letters from a Street Photographer” #3: How to Focus on Your Life’s Work

There are so many distractions out there. We live in an age where it is almost impossible not to be distracted.

Our phones are constantly buzzing. We see thousands of advertisements a day that are vying for our attention. We are bombarded with emails from spammers, we are bombarded with notifications, we are bombarded by new technologies that promise to make our lives more “efficient” and “optimized.”

I read something online that the average office worker is interrupted every 20 minutes– and it takes an average of 20 minutes for a worker to re-focus on work.

Many of my friends who work in the corporate world complain of constantly being texted, IM’d, emailed, and sucked into meetings at work– which prevents them from getting any “real” work done. (As a side note– Paul Graham has an excellent essay on managers versus creative time schedules which I highly recommend).

I think focusing is easy– only if we have no distractions. But how do we escape distractions and focus on the work which is truly meaningful to us?

4 Ways of Introducing Street Photography to People

Parents — I invited my parents to go to a photo walk with me

I’m sure that at one point in our lives as photographers shooting the streets, there was a time that we get asked to explain what street photography is. When I was starting out, I had no concrete idea what street photography is, let alone explaining to my family and friends. So here’s a simple list that could hopefully help you in telling friends and family about our artform.

Streettogs Academy Assignment No. 4 “Strong Light” Results and Analysis

Assignment No. 4 has probably the most number of beautiful images I’ve seen in an assignment. There were plenty of great photographs that adhered to our theme of “Strong Light” as well some creative executions that still fits the theme well. I give my thanks to all of those who participated for this assignment and of course to Bertrand Domas for giving everyone in the group an amazing assignment. I sure hope many were able to learn and harness the creative possibilities of “Strong Light”.

Without further ado, here are some of the interpretations of Assignment No. 4 “Strong Light”

Before/After: SF Intermediate/Advanced Street Photography Workshop 2014

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Student Photo from SF Workshop: Hakim B

It was an absolutely incredible weekend teaching the Intermediate/Advanced Street Photography Workshop in San Francisco. We had folks come from all over: Seattle, Texas, Zurich, Tokyo, and all over the Bay Area in California. I am so proud of the friendships we made during the workshop– and the huge before/after improvement after the workshop.

Side note: If you’re free this Friday at 6pm — we are having a meetup in Berkeley, California at Artis Cafe. RSVP on the Facebook event.

Read more to see all the epic before/after student photos! Also check out all of my upcoming street photography workshops.

“Letters from a Street Photographer” #2: How to Deal with Negative Criticism (Part 2/2)

This is Part 2/2 of my chapter on How to Deal with Negative Criticism. Read Part 1 on How to Deal With Negative Criticism.

How to Make Memorable and Meaningful Street Photographs

We all want to make a memorable street photograph. An image that burns inside our memory. An image that touches our heart and touches our soul. We want that image to be epic, energetic, edgy, and emotional. And of course, we want external validation for our image (via respect from other photographers, validation on social media, and possibly having our image be timeless).

“Letters from a Street Photographer” #2: How to Deal with Negative Criticism (Part 1/2)

For this chapter in my on-going “Letters from a Street Photographer” book, I wanted to write a topic that I am very familiar with– how to deal with negative criticism (and thrive and benefit from it).

For those of you who have followed me and my blog for a while– you will know that I have a fair amount of negative critics and negative criticism. Here are a list of things I have been critiqued (or criticized, hated for) – and a list of (sort of similar to real-life) comments I’ve gotten:

“Letters from a Street Photographer” #1: How to Live and Shoot without Regrets

This is Chapter 1 on a series of blog posts I will do on the philosophy of Stoicism, and how I relate it to street photography. I draw upon the book: “On the Shortness of Life” from Seneca. The title of this series is inspired by “Letters from a Stoic” (also by Seneca).

I have recently been reading a lot of literature on “time management” and have discovered a new angle– “attention management.”

The basic premise is this: time management is overrated. We have all the time in the world. However what we don’t have is attention.

15 (More) Lessons Taoism Has Taught Me About Street Photography

I have been a long-time admirer of the philosophies of Zen Buddhism, Taoism, and Stoicism. In-fact, I have gained more insights about photography from these philosophies (than I have from any book on photographic theory).

I recently re-read a new english version of the “Tao Te Ching“– the classic manual on the art of living. It was a version written by Stephen Mitchell, and I like the flow and how it reads in English.

In my life and photography– I often feel a lot of anxiety, frustration, stress, and the need for external validation. However reading these Taoist philosophies have helped bring peace to my day-to-day life, and I hope these lessons I’ve learned can help you as well.

I am no expert in Taoism, Zen, or any of these philosophies– and I have a lot to learn. But I will share what helps me fall asleep at night– I try my best to follow these principles that I learned from the “Tao Te Ching“:

On Opportunity Costs in Street Photography

Life is short and limited. We only have so many days to live. We only have so many zeroes in our bank accounts.

We all want to live happy, productive lives. We want happiness in our photography. We want to creatively thrive, and live a life which we don’t have any regrets.

I have lots of temptations in my life. To earn more money, to buy more physical possessions, which creates a lot of distractions in my life. But what really matters in life?

8 Lessons Mary Ellen Mark Has Taught Me About Street Photography

All photos copyrighted by Mary Ellen Mark.

I remember when I first saw the work of Mary Ellen Mark, I was blown away. Her work had such a deep sense of love and empathy for her subjects. Not only that, but her compositions and framing was brilliant. I always noticed that around the edges of the frame– she always had great little details which made her photographs great.

Even though Mary Ellen Mark is more of a documentary photographer– her photos have a very strong “street” feel. She photographs people, and her images have emotion and soul. I feel that we can all learn a lot from her life’s work.

Don’t Miss Your Chance: Introduction to Street Photography Workshop in Stockholm (October 29-30th, 2014)

Hey Scandinavian (and European) streettogs– I am excited to share that I am hosting an intimate 2-day Introduction to Street Photography Workshop in Stockholm limited to 6 students (October 29-30th, 2014). I know it is a bit last-minute (and in the middle of the week), but I wanted to have a chance to host a workshop open to the public before I do another workshop for adopted children in Stockholm (that same weekend). I don’t know when the next time I’m going to be in Stockholm (or anywhere else in Scandinavia) — so don’t miss out ;)

If you are a bit timid in your street photography (and want to build up your courage), if you want to improve your compositions (or style or vision), or meet other passionate street photographers– this workshop is perfect for you. Don’t miss out on this experience to make new friends, have great food (and strong coffee), and of course hit the streets of Stockholm together.

If you want more information about the workshop, read more. If you can’t attend this workshop, make sure to check out all of my upcoming street photography workshops.

Street Photography Book Review: “Minutes to Midnight” by Trent Parke

I’m not 100% sure how I stumbled upon the book: “Minutes to Midnight” by Trent Parke. But when I did— I was blown away by Trent Parke’s incredible story-telling, visuals, and vision. It inspired me to write my first article on him: 12 Lessons Trent Parke Has Taught Me About Street Photography.

Steidl has recently re-published “Minutes to Midnight” — and it has been a massive hit. It is hard to find copies that aren’t sold out, you can currently get some more pre-orders on Amazon.

For the Steidl re-print, there has been a slight change to some of the images, formatting, and printing (all in a positive way). I currently have my copy of “Minutes to Midnight” in my street photography library— and it is one of the most precious black and white books I own.

I wanted to write this article sharing my thoughts on the book, why I think it is a great body of work, and I hope you find this article useful.

Book Review: “Road to Seeing” by Dan Winters

All photographs included in this article are copyrighted by Dan Winters.

My good friend Bill Reeves recently bought me a copy of “Road to Seeing” by Dan Winters. I’ve always known Dan Winters as being a quite edgy portrait photographer– and had no idea that he was actually quite interested in street photography, and had quite deep philosophical views on photography.

When I first got the book, I was pretty astounded. It is a thick book (about four-fingers thick) and has amazing typography, binding, and the photos in the book look like small prints.

The other day, I devoured the book– it took me about 5 hours and I also jotted down some of my favorite quotes and ideas from Dan. Through this post- I want to share some of the lessons I’ve learned from Dan, while also giving an overview of the book.