Street Photography Entrepreneurship Philosophy

This has been my personal street photography entrepreneurship philosophy which has helped me succeed:

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1. Free is good.

When you’re starting off, one of the best ways to grow your business and name is to give things for free. Free talks, free presets, free books, etc. Deliver the most epic value at zero cost for the other.

2. Personal curiosity

The best motivating force is your personal curiosity. Leave no stone unturned. Relentless experimentation with all street photography approaches, techniques, and philosophy.

For example:

• Film street photography (35mm).
• Color street photography
• Monochrome street photography
• Street photography with different focal lengths (21mm, 24mm, 28mm, 35mm, etc).
• Digital medium format street photography
• Medium format film street photography
• Monochrome or color film street photography
• Rangefinder, slr, tlr, Hasselblad, compact
• Urban landscape street photography
• Street portraits
• Candid street photography
• Learn from all the masters of street photography

3. A new vision

When I started street photography I was around 18 years old. I’m 32 now. I started my blog around age 22. So I have been blogging solidly for almost a decade+.

So the question I got for myself:

How do I keep street photography interesting to myself, to continue to pave new knowledge for street photography, and to elevate the genre to the next level?

4. A new frontier in street photography

Some ideas:

1. Expanding the notion and concept of street photography, to encompass (almost all) forms of photography.
2. To make street photography the dominant form of photography.
3. To experiment and create new approaches and techniques in street photography (what new street photography techniques and approaches have yet been discovered? Has anyone shot street photography with only a selfie camera on a phone for example?)
4. Getting more iPhone photographers into street photography. Perhaps iPhone Pro becomes dominant street photography camera (lots of hope with new street photography compositions with the ultra wide angle lens).

5. More street photography bloggers

This is key:

No Instagram; blogging is king.

I think Instagram is good for individuals and developing economies who cannot afford $10 a month in hosting fees. But if you are an individual who likes to drink espressos or eat out often, it is bollocks to say you cannot afford $10 a month in web hosting fees.

1. To start your own blog, sign up on 1and1.com or bluehost.com
2. Install WordPress.org framework
3. Start blogging and sharing your own photos on your own blog!

By only using social media for your photos you become a digital share cropper. And question:

Will Instagram still be popular 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, or 50 years from now?

It might still be used, but look at what happened to Xanga, Live Journal, Poaterous, Flickr, Tumblr, and all these other photo sharing platforms. Even young people nowadays don’t like to use Facebook, they’re mostly on Snapchat.

Social media won’t last; but the “world wide web” (and blogs) will.

Even now; I’m starting to try to ween off uploading to YouTube. Why? It’s becoming overridden with advertisements, and aesthetically it’s super ugly now. I’m starting to upload more to this blog (WordPress Jetpack has video subscription service). I think this will be a good long term strategy:

6. Street photography will always exist (as long as cities exist).

One of my biggest personal draws for street photography is that I’m endlessly fascinated by people, sociology, architecture, urbanism, and cities.

The trend is more and more people are moving into cities, cities are becoming more populated, and more people are getting into photography (via iPhone). Therefore I predict the trend will be:

Street photography will become indefinitely more and more popular, and will become the dominant photography form.

It’s a brave new world and bright new future for street photography. Don’t be left behind!

ERIC

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