CHAPTER 6
What Makes a Great Street Photo?
Before I begin to expound on the subject of what elements contribute to producing a great street photograph, let me state upfront that what I intend to offer are well-informed opinions, not dogma. I don’t claim to have any academic training, professional certifications, or divine insights. I do, however, have 40 years of experience as a street and semi-professional photographer. I’ve won international photo contests, had my work published in several magazines and a few books, and have even sold a few hundred prints to buyers around the world.
This section is written for a broad cross-section of street photographers who may be at different stages of their artistic development. Keep in mind that the qualities I’m about to describe aren’t like a feature checklist, where the more of them you have in each photograph, the better. Some great street photos may have several of these qualities, some only one or two. Think of them as ingredients in a recipe: although the individual ingredients are important, what matters most is how they all come together.
Finally, we should all acknowledge that it’s one thing to recognize the qualities of a great photograph when you have one in front of you; it’s something else entirely to produce one yourself. Knowledge does not necessarily translate into ability. What it does provide is a sense of possibility and a standard to strive for. So with all that out of the way, let’s get started.
Strong Composition
Composition is the arrangement of visual elements (lines, objects, colors, textures, patterns, light and dark tones, etc.) in a way that suits your artistic purpose and holds a viewer’s attention. Your purpose could be to tell a story, convey an emotion, record a special moment in time—there’s really no limit. Whatever your purpose might be, the composition is the means you use to express an idea, not the idea itself. Great composition alone doesn’t make a great photograph any more than correct grammar and punctuation can mask the absence of interesting ideas in an essay.
Content aside, good composition helps direct the viewer’s eye, almost as if you were leading it along a specific path in a particular direction. With weak composition, viewers not only don’t know where to look, they also don’t see much reason to look at all. Good composition has certain elegance: it includes everything you need to suit your purpose and little extraneous information. Excess of visual information becomes a distraction. Too little information leaves the viewer feeling unsatisfied and wanting more.
Apropos of eliminating excess visual information, you have two options. The first is via framing. You can either change lenses, zoom, or change your distance from the subject to include or exclude elements. Your second option is cropping. If the full image frame still includes too much extraneous information, you can crop it out later. Some photographers are devoutly opposed to cropping, often based on the belief that not cropping is somehow more pure. I have no argument with this approach as long as the resulting images don’t look as if they could benefit from reframing. You can’t expect viewers to give you points for purity if the image doesn’t have strong composition and content. Personally, if I think I can improve a composition by cropping, then I crop. On the other hand, I also try to get the framing right without cropping, if only because it encourages rigor and discourages laziness.
Precipitation, Jenkintown, PA 2009
This photograph is an example of being in the right place at the right time. This woman turned the corner and stepped onto exactly the spot I wanted: her raincoat and umbrella against the patching on the wall create a sense of design and movement.
I imagine you’re well aware that you should strive for strong composition in your photographs. This can be a challenge when you’re shooting on the street. Unlike, for example, still life photography, you don’t have the luxury of lighting and micro-adjusting your subjects to your heart’s content, all while your camera is mounted on a tripod. In street photography you’re often faced with multiple subjects moving in different directions at once. By the time your brain registers a perfect composition and signals your finger to release the shutter, the moment may have passed. You can, however, learn to recognize and anticipate when a composition is just about to come together, where to position yourself, and when to release the shutter.
A Magic Moment
A mistake novice street photographers often make is to assume that photographing an interesting subject will result in a great photograph. Although it certainly helps to photograph a fascinating person, place, or thing, it’s how you photograph the subject that makes the photo interesting, not the subject itself. In fact, in street photography, more often than not it’s the moment you capture that becomes the true subject of your photograph.
Here’s an example: As you’re walking down the street, you notice an old man sitting on a bench, feeding pigeons. You could photograph this scene in a straightforward way and all you’d have is a sentimental photo we’ve all seen many times before. Instead, you position yourself, wait, and observe. A pigeon lands on the man’s head. You take a photo. Another pigeon lands on the man’s knee. You take another photo. Both shots are better than the first, but still nothing special. Suddenly, a boisterous child causes the pigeons to take flight. Now, instead of a few clichéd images of a man feeding pigeons, you have a photo of a man who appears swarmed by a dense flock of ravenous birds. The physical objects in your photo are the same. What has changed is how they are positioned relative to each other and when you decided to release the shutter. In other words, it’s a different moment. In a situation such as this, the moment is the true subject of your photograph.
Bird’s-Eye View, Philadelphia, PA 2010
I leaned over the railing of a parking structure and saw this kiosk below. Nothing looked particularly promising about it until this gentleman passed by with the perfect position, stride, and shadow.
This is just one example. The moment in question could just as easily be a gesture—or many people gesturing. It could be a particular facial expression, or someone caught in the middle of some action. Henri Cartier-Bresson defined his famous phrase, “the decisive moment,” as “the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression.” In other words, “the decisive moment” is all about knowing the best moment to release the shutter.
The moment can be one that evokes any number of reactions, from laughter to sadness, from mystery to insight, from empathy to disdain. The reaction you get may not be the one you intended, but if the moment you choose engages a viewer, you’ve separated that image from the countless images that make our eyes glaze over.
No one can tell you when that moment is. Sometimes it’s when the light or composition is just right; other times it’s an interesting expression or gesture. Sometimes you’ll release the shutter too soon, other times too late; but when you’ve captured a magic moment, you’ll know—and so will the people who view and admire the resulting photograph.
An Exceptional Subject
Sometimes it can actually be the subject itself that makes the photo. Brandon Stanton’s book and website, Humans of New York, is full of street portraits of everyday people—but some of his most fascinating images are of New York’s eccentrics. Diane Arbus photographed people who mainstream society would label as freaks and outcasts. Her legacy is being carried forward by photographers such as Zoe Strauss, who, among other things, photographs people and storefronts in Philadelphia’s low-income neighborhoods.
Exceptional subjects don’t have to be people. They can be animals, cars, buildings, or signs—practically anything that strikes you as being worth a second look, even when others may give it no more than a glance.
In any case, the key to success with this type of subject is to have a clear concept of how you want the resulting photograph to look. Do you want to use selective focus to make the background or foreground less distracting or are you making an environmental portrait that requires great depth of field? Do you want flat lighting or directional lighting? Do you want a bold color palette or a subtle one? These are questions to which you should give serious thought, especially when you have the time to do so. Even if the subject is more significant than the moment you choose to release the shutter, you can still make a conscious choice about how you want the subject to look. Worried? Proud? Strong? Decrepit? Relaxed? It’s up to you.
Dead Dog, New Orleans, LA 2014
This dog earned spare change for his owner by playing dead. The “dead dog” is an unusual subject, and the low angle of the camera differentiates this image from a straightforward documentary shot.
Exceptional Light
Some street photos catch our attention mainly because of the dramatic quality and direction of light. Direct early morning or late afternoon sunlight can cast long, sharp, deep shadows. Backlighting conveys a sense of mystery. Sunlight reflected by mirrored windows or cutting through narrow breaks between buildings can cast intense pools of light onto people and city streets. The same sunlight reflected off of a white wall can create a huge softbox for evenly lit portraits. In some cases, such as Bruce Gilden’s flash-lit photos of New York pedestrians, you can even carry your exceptional lighting along with you.
Practically speaking, you can’t actually photograph light itself; you can only photograph the way it reflects from surfaces. This brings us back to the physical subject, moment, or idea you’re photographing. What matters most is how exceptional light helps to create a mood: mystery, tension, wonder, drama—whatever suits your artistic purpose.
Keep in mind that “correct” exposure is a lot more subjective in dramatic or strongly directional lighting situations than if you were photographing in flat, shadowless light. Spot, side, or backlighting can create such strong contrast that it exceeds the dynamic range of your film or sensor. You may have to choose whether to expose for the highlights and let the shadows drop to black, expose for the shadows and let the highlights clip to pure white, split the difference and hope for the best, or bracket exposures to cover your butt. Luck is always a factor in street photography. I can’t count the number of times I thought I had screwed up an exposure and missed the moment I was shooting, only to find that my “mistake” was better than what I had originally imagined and intended.
Sidestreet, Philadelphia, PA 2012
The narrow alleys found in older cities can make direct sunlight even more directional and high-contrast. Using this light can add a dramatic boost to compositions that already have strong graphic design or architectural elements.
Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 2014
Back Alley, Philadelphia, PA 2009
Orange on Orange, Philadelphia, PA 2014
Music Lover, Philadelphia, PA 2013
In each one of these photographs, what initially attracted my eye was not the people or what they were doing, but rather the similarities and contrasts between a limited palette of distinct colors and shapes. This is a technique that painters use often. It’s more difficult to do in candid photographs, but it’s certainly possible, and it adds another mode of expression to your toolbox.
Selective Use of Color
Classic street photography was done in black-and-white for more than just aesthetic reasons. In the early days of the genre, color films weren’t available. Color films became generally available in the early 1940s, but because of their expense, slow speed (low sensitivity to light), and high contrast, they were seldom used for street photography. It wasn’t until the 1950s that fashion and street photographer Saul Leiter, who was also a skilled painter, demonstrated just how powerful and evocative street photographs could be if shot in color. What you’ll see if you explore Leiter’s work, such as the photographs seen in Early Color (Steidl, 2014), is a painter’s eye for color and composition. From the barrage of color that might appear in a typical street scene, Leiter manages to select only a few dominant colors and then combine them into a composition where the colors complement or contrast with each other for maximum artistic effect.
This is not at all to imply that you or anyone else should copy Leiter’s style, but rather to think of color as a design element that you can control. To put it another way, just because your camera’s default rendering is in color and the world you see is in color does not mean that there’s no benefit to being conscious and intentional in how you use color to convey certain emotions or artistic sensibilities.
Encroached by Shadows, Philadelphia, PA 2012
The selective use of color also includes the choice not to use color. Shooting in monochrome eliminates the need to factor color and all of its potential distractions into your compositions. It also provides a type of visual abstraction you can’t get with color. On the other hand, it increases the need to be that much more conscious and aware of the other compositional elements, such as contrast, tonality, texture, shape, and line. Let’s be clear: it’s not monochrome itself that contributes to a great street image—it’s the skillful use of monochrome. When it’s done right, viewers won’t notice the absence of color so much as they’ll notice the tonality of the image.
Serendipity
Some of the most memorable street photographs feature those unexpected, unplanned, yet totally amazing moments that happen by sheer luck. Page through any book or exhibition of street photography and you’ll be struck by how many images are a product of being in the right place at the right time. Of course, there’s not much you can do to prepare for the unexpected. You can, however, improve your odds of success by increasing how often you’re roaming the streets and other public places, camera in hand or in your pocket, watching and waiting, ready to respond when you see something out of the ordinary.
The possibility that you might literally have only three seconds to capture a once-in-a-lifetime situation can be sobering. It’s the main reason why dedicated street photographers insist on becoming intimately familiar with how their equipment operates. It’s also why they hate cameras and lenses that are slow to operate or don’t behave predictably and reliably: you will never be able to predict when serendipity will strike, but it’s important to be prepared for when it does.
Man With Gun and Cell Phone, Philadelphia, PA 2012
The situation behind this photo was less dangerous than it might look: this man was a movie actor, chatting with a friend or perhaps his agent during a break between takes. I didn’t expect to see him when I turned the corner, but I was ready to photograph him as soon as I saw him. Three seconds later he got called back to work.
Caddy vs. Honda, Los Angeles, CA 1990
There’s no place like the streets of Southern California for finding cars that hint at the personalities of their owners. Just as with the photo of the man holding a gun, my window of opportunity for capturing this shot was small. I photographed this scene, and within minutes of capture the owner of this tiny Honda got in her car and drove away.
Distinctive Style
This book has an entire chapter devoted to style, so it should be obvious how much I think a distinctive style contributes to great street photographs—or at least to differentiating yourself from other street photographers. What I would add here is that style is something that becomes most obvious when you look at someone’s work in the aggregate rather than individual images. In other words, although you might see evidence of a distinctive stylistic approach from looking at one image, you wouldn’t know whether it was a consistent style until you saw several more images with the same approach from the same photographer.
Keep in mind that a style doesn’t have to be exaggerated to be distinctive. Cartier-Bresson, for example, preferred to shoot in flat lighting conditions. Even when he was forced to shoot in direct sunlight, he preferred prints with extended, luminous gray tones rather than strong blacks and sparkling whites. The same could be said of many other masters of street photography. That being said, today’s photographers have options at their disposal that would have been unimaginable even 20 years ago—so many options, in fact, that it can be a challenge to choose among them, especially for photographers who are struggling to decide how they want their work to look. The benefit to finding a style that works for you and your subject matter is that people who like your work will seek it out, buy your books, attend your exhibitions, and purchase your prints.
Shadowy Figure, Philadelphia, PA 2013
All of these photographs have strong stylistic elements, but it’s only when you look at a collection of photographs by the same photographer that exhibit similar elements that you begin to see evidence of a style. You should have no trouble seeing similar elements in other photographs of mine throughout this book.
Walking Past Parking, Philadelphia, PA 2013
So in Other Words...
Greatness is the exception, not the norm. Regardless of whether it’s because of great composition, the moment, the subject, lighting, color, luck, or style, the quest for great photographs is a quest for images that offer remarkable insights into how we live our lives and the environments we live them in. Life may be a continuous flow of events from start to finish, but it’s specific moments in time that we remember most. It’s great photographs of these moments that make the most lasting impressions.
Man Behind Bars, Philadelphia, PA 2009
