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How Did They Take that Photo? Behind-the-Scenes Contact Sheets of Famous Street Photography
Did you ever see a great street photograph, and wonder– “How did that street photographer make that photo?” If you’re curious like me — study CONTACT SHEETS (the behind-the-scenes of how a photographer made an image):
One of the benefits of shooting film: you can create ‘contact sheets‘, which is essentially a behind-the-scenes look into the mind of another photographer.
The best book for education is ‘Magnum Contact Sheets‘; which has given me a phenomenal master-class in street photography. I learned how the masters made the shots they did.
Lessons
When you study contact sheets, here are practical lessons:
- Never take just 1 photo of a scene. “Work the scene” to increase your chance fo making a good photo. Download PDF on Working the Scene >
- You never know when you will make a good photo. Take LOTS of photos of the same scene, to increase your chance of making a good photo.
- Vary your angles, distances, perspectives, and compositions/camera orientation (horizontal/vertical) when you’re shooting. When you go home, choose your favorite photos.
- Sometimes the best shot is in the beginning, sometimes in the middle, sometimes at the very last shot! So don’t give up; when you think you got a good shot, shoot 25% more than you think you should!
Related Articles:
- Debunking the “Myth of the Decisive Moment”
- How Studying Contact Sheets Can Make You a Better Street Photographer
Below is a further analysis of some of the famous master photographers:
Robert Frank
Bored elevator girl:
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Children playing at broken wall, Seville.
Note, Cartier-Bressson didn’t just capture 1 ‘decisive moment’. He caught 2 moments, but chose the initial shot.
Rene Burri
High angle shots of women walking by, with men looking at them:
Eve Arnold
Malcom X:
Richard Kalvar
Woman looking at herself in mirror:
Another by Kalvar: Boy with funny glasses in Italy:
Martine Franck
Boy by pool:
Playful monk, dove totally falling on the monk’s head by chance!
Steve McCurry
Women huddled around in sandstorm (shot on Kodachrome slide film):
Bruce Gilden
Bruce Gilden gets 3 ‘keepers’ in one roll of film!
Bruce Gilden and Yakuza: he saw an interesting scene of a “lesser” yakuza lighting the cigarette of a higher-ranking yakuza member, and he asked them: “Light his cigarette again!”. Note in the photo, the cigarette is already partly burned:
Martin Parr
Parr actually was so poor when he shot his project, ‘The Last Resort’, that he initially saw this contact sheet in black and white.
Parr shot the project with flash, medium-format film, on a medium-format 6×7 rangefinder:
Jean Gaumy
Women in burkas in Iran, 1986, practicing shooting guns:
Eli Reed
Kids playing soccer in Africa, note how intense they look in the shot that Eli chose, yet the other photos the kids are smiling!
Lesson: A photographer will always ‘edit’ reality, by choosing a photo which suits his/her artistic/philosophical vision:
Jacob Aue Sobol
When he shot his ‘Sabine’ project– a personal documentary of his love:
Chien-Chi Chang
He often will sketch his photographs from memory, before looking at the photos themselves:
ERIC KIM
Asking this woman to turn around to face me, reminds me like Vermeer’s “Girl with Pearl Earring”. Shot with flash:
Mikie with one eye: asking him to move around, and getting him in the corridor. Lesson: Don’t be shy, he looked ‘scary’ but he was super friendly! I ended up checking out his soundcloud (he raps on the side), and now he has a dope profile picture:
ERIC KIM CONTACT SHEETS
If you’re curious more about how to “work the scene” in street photography, download my full-resolution contact sheets for your own self-education and learning with the links below:
DOWNLOAD
For your convenience, I have a selection of my contact sheets as a .ZIP file (very big at 2.5GB) available for you to download via Google Drive or Dropbox below:
All of these photos are open-source; meaning, feel free to print, distribute, remix, or share them with others.
Directory preview
Learn the importance of “working the scene”:
Which Photos Should I Keep or Ditch?
Contact Sheet Books:
Contact Sheet Articles:
- Debunking the “Myth of the Decisive Moment”
- How Studying Contact Sheets Can Make You a Better Street Photographer
- Book Review: Magnum Contact Sheets
Contact Sheets
