{"id":91283,"date":"2018-05-31T12:45:21","date_gmt":"2018-05-31T19:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2018\/05\/31\/how-to-take-photos-of-strangers\/"},"modified":"2018-05-31T12:45:21","modified_gmt":"2018-05-31T19:45:21","slug":"how-to-take-photos-of-strangers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2018\/05\/31\/how-to-take-photos-of-strangers\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Take Photos of Strangers"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I’m in this interesting genre of photography called “street photography”. It’s a funny, fulfilling, and epic genre of photography in which we have this passion and curiosity of photographing strangers.<\/p>\n

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But before I talk about specifics on how to photograph strangers, let’s tackle a bigger question: Why<\/i> photograph strangers?<\/p>\n

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So for myself, I photograph strangers because it opens up my world, perspective, and fulfills my inner-curiosity in other people. I studied sociology (the “science” of people) in school, and have always found human beings to be the most fascinating things. Why? Because it’s practical; as humans we all have to live in society with other humans. So sociology tackles questions like, “How can I best live with other people? How can I “succeed” in a world with other people?” And the deepest question,<\/p>\n

\n What does it mean to be human?\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Xenophobia<\/h2>\n

In modern society, we have “xenophobia” (xeno: foreign \/ phobia: fright). We are afraid of the foreign. We’re afraid of foreign people; we even all them “illegal aliens” (dehumanizing them, seeing them like green aliens from UFOS).<\/p>\n

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I think street photography is the opposite reaction. We have “xenophilia” (love of foreigners). We are curious in other human beings (just like children), and we aren’t clouded with judgements, biases, racism, or stereotyping.<\/p>\n

For example, when I was a kid, I didn’t see color. My best friends when I was 11 years in Bayside, Queens (New York) was my buddies Spencer (Spanish), Aditya (Indian), Jonathan (Jewish), Christian (Brazilian), Steven Chen and Pai (both Chinese), David (Korean). We were the ultimate rainbow crew, and we never hated on one another, besides when my friends said my house smelled like kimchi, and my friend Adityas house smelled like curry.<\/p>\n

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Anyways, I also believe that photographing strangers builds empathy. We feel their pain, we feel their emotions, we see the world from their perspective. We can also feel their joy, excitement, and warmth!<\/p>\n

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Sociology was a great major, but limited. We weren’t allowed to take photos of people and communities we were studying, because of “ethical” concerns. But now, I feel like I’m onto something interesting; bringing the gap between Sociology and Photography, which is street photography or Visual Sociology<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n

We use visual images (photos, videos etc) to better understand people, humanity, and society!<\/p>\n

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How to Photograph Strangers<\/h1>\n