{"id":988,"date":"2010-10-13T18:34:20","date_gmt":"2010-10-13T22:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=988"},"modified":"2010-10-14T13:15:59","modified_gmt":"2010-10-14T17:15:59","slug":"featured-street-photographer-neal-bingham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/13\/featured-street-photographer-neal-bingham\/","title":{"rendered":"Featured Street Photographer: Neal Bingham"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note<\/strong>: I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to feature some truly extraordinary photographers that I have met on the internet. For the first featured photographer, I decided to feature Neal Bingham, who is also one of the Admins for the “Aspiring Street Photographers<\/a><\/em>” Flickr group that I founded a few months back. Neal shows great passion for street photography, which is apparent through his work. I hope you guys get to know more of his genius through this short bio of him! <\/em><\/p>\n

How did you get started in street photography?<\/h2>\n
\"Signs<\/a>
Signs of Rain - Neal Bingham<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I first discovered street photography through the BBC documentary \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThe Genius of <\/a><\/span>Photography<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, and was inspired by the powerful images I saw from legends such as <\/span>Garry Winogrand, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Joel Meyerowitz. I had recently taken\u00c2\u00a0up photography but had yet to find a genre that really captured my imagination \u00e2\u20ac\u201c <\/span>street photography very quickly became my passion.<\/span><\/h2>\n


\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Having only started shooting on the streets a little over a year ago, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still very much\u00c2\u00a0learning the art form. I share my images on Flickr and it has played a big part in my
\ndevelopment so far as a street photographer. Flickr is huge but as a community it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0relatively small \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and the ability to connect with like-minded people from across the\u00c2\u00a0world, and share feedback and support, is hugely helpful and rewarding.<\/p>\n

I draw inspiration from contemporary photographers, such as the members of In-Public, just as much as I do from the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcgrand masters\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not setting out to\u00c2\u00a0deliberately emulate any one particular style \u00e2\u20ac\u201c instead I hope that over time, my own\u00c2\u00a0individual style will emerge.<\/p>\n

How do you shoot in the streets?<\/h2>\n
\"Pattern<\/a>
Pattern Recognition - Neal Bingham<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/a>
\nThe first mistake I made when I first started was going out and buying a telephoto\u00c2\u00a0zoom, on the assumption that it would make it easier to take candid pictures of\u00c2\u00a0strangers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in fact I found the opposite, and felt really conspicuous walking round\u00c2\u00a0with such attention-grabbing gear. Ditching the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcbazooka\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 for something more\u00c2\u00a0discreet was when things really began to click for me (no pun intended!).<\/p>\n

I usually shoot with a Nikon D90 SLR<\/a> and a 35mm prime lens, or a small fixed-focal\u00c2\u00a0length compact camera (Ricoh GR Digital III<\/a>). Not being able to zoom in forces me to\u00c2\u00a0move in closer to my subjects (\u00e2\u20ac\u02dczooming with my feet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 if you like) and to think more\u00c2\u00a0carefully about my compositions.<\/p>\n

I live in London, which is where I do the majority of my shooting \u00e2\u20ac\u201c fortunately, my city\u00c2\u00a0is full of potential for a street photographer. I tend to stick to busier areas of the city\u00c2\u00a0and walk around looking for interesting situations or scenes developing in front of\u00c2\u00a0me. I look for people interacting, unusual combinations of elements, and graphical\u00c2\u00a0compositions.<\/p>\n

The pictures I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m interested in are candid, unplanned moments \u00e2\u20ac\u201c so my approach is\u00c2\u00a0to try and avoid interfering with the scene that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m photographing. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ask
\npermission, as that would create a different type of shot to what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m after, so I do my\u00c2\u00a0best to blend in to the environment as much as possible, without doing so in a way
\nthat would appear sneaky or sinister. Most of the time, people just think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m taking a\u00c2\u00a0picture of something else.<\/p>\n

What do you love most about street photography?<\/h2>\n
\"The<\/a>
The Right Angle - Neal Bingham<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The challenge of creating a beautiful or interesting image when so many variables <\/span>are out of my control is highly motivating, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what spurs me on to keep <\/span>walking the streets in all weathers, looking for the right moment to shoot. Getting the <\/span>timing right and nailing a difficult shot without interfering with a scene is a great buzz. <\/span>And the unpredictability – never knowing what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to photograph until I see it \u00e2\u20ac\u201c <\/span>makes it a photographic genre that I could never get bored with.<\/span><\/h2>\n

Street photography has made me see the world differently. Now even when I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t\u00c2\u00a0have a camera with me, I still see the streets in \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcframes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122; because once you start to\u00c2\u00a0look, you begin to see interesting things happening all around you that you\u00c2\u00a0previously never paid attention to. The pace of city living makes it difficult to step\u00c2\u00a0back and observe these fleeting moments. Preserving these instants with a camera\u00c2\u00a0gives me the opportunity to take that step back.<\/p>\n

\"Wrapture\"<\/a>
Wrapture - Neal Bingham<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Links:<\/h2>\n

Add Neal Bingham as a contact on Flickr<\/a> and Follow him on Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Got a question for Neal or want to show him some love? Leave a comment below! :)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to feature some truly extraordinary photographers that I have met on the internet. For the first featured photographer, I decided to feature Neal Bingham, who is also one of the Admins for the “Aspiring Street Photographers” Flickr group that I founded a few months […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[372],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-photographers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}