As a street photographer, one of the most difficult jobs to do, but, most rewarding is to take portraits of the people you meet on the street. There are rules and regulations to taking photos of people on the street, and once you know them, then the better off you will be. Nothing like taking a photo of someone, publishing the photo, and then get a lawsuit for using the photo without permission from the model. So, let’s go through the things you need to know about taking portraits of strangers on the street:
This time we are providing you with a video. The article was done originally by Sunny Shrestha. But the Video was provided by: Jamie Windsor. Hope you enjoy:
Street Photography: Portrait Techniques
Taking portraits with a model or of somebody you know is nowhere as challenging as photographing strangers in public. You get very limited time to work, and you don’t always get to apply all the composition techniques and color theories that you might’ve studied. You need to be quick and precise. This makes it very difficult for street photographers to take the perfect street portrait. Photographer Joel Sternfeld, on the other hand, is somebody who’s brilliant at doing it. In this video, photographer Jamie Windsor discusses the styles that we can see in Sternfeld’s work:
If you study Sternfeld’s photos, you can see that they have some subtle yet impactful characteristics. One feature that you might notice in his work is how he captures individuals as they are. His images strive for an accurate representation of the individual. He avoids exaggeration or biases in any form.
“In my opinion, this is exactly what a street portraiture should do. Show a person going about their day to day life without pretense, without judgment, without mockery, but with humanity.”
You can also notice how wisely he composes his image with regards to the color palette. The subject either seems to seamlessly blend into their environment or completely stand out from it. This creates a sense of connect or disconnect of the subject with its surroundings respectively.
This is the end of this series on HOW TO BECOME A GREAT STREET PHOTOGRAPHER ! Refer to these 5 episodes to learn all that you need.
Some more great “street photos”:
