3 Tips for Instantly Improving Your Street Photo Game
What's up YouTube? I just got back from vacation and I'm actually pretty excited to talk about this topic - so the best way to take the street photos is ... actually go out and take the street photos :D but you don't have to practice hard if you're gonna practice right! I'm gonna tell you how I instantly doubled the number of keepers just by following those simple rules!
Now you've probably heard a lot of times rules are meant to be broken however before you should ever do that you should build a strong foundation so you know what you are breaking! There are tons of amazing pictures breaking the rules - but - if you don't want to be just praying to get lucky - you can actually teach yourself how to subconsciously make a better composition! So let's go out and practice!
Figure-Ground Relationship
So you always have to make sure what you're shooting! Your subject is clear to read by viewer. It's a relationship between figure, your subject and the background. You are actually experiencing this principle every day while reading the text. Dark figure on the light background or light figure on the dark background! Now - when it comes to leading the eyes around the picture - you may now close your eyes, now look at this picture and try to recognize - what is the first thing that comes to your attention in the composition. Your eyes will always try to find the strongest contrast available in the photograph and then you will eventually realize whenever it is the main subject or not. When you think about it, it's kind of like changing your three-dimensional subject into a two dimensional one. By applying this principle you will be able to make your photos easier to read, and therefore more pleasing. Try to remember this when framing your shot. You can either wait for your dark subject to enter the light background or the opposite - wait for your light subject to enter at the dark background. Or you can "work the scene" and move yourself and the camera around to actually adjust the background for your subject.
2. Kissing and Overlapping
This mistake is actually really easy to avoid once you know about it and focus on it. Now... let's take a look at this photo. Well this should work for our example. So let's place her on some random background I have found. As you can see we already have some kissing errors in the picture right here, and here. Now - what it does is... when you see it for the first time it is confusing and it destroys the composition. Since I have copy pasted this girl on this background I can move her around as I like. That's what you can actually do when you are shooting outside with your subject. Now I want to move her so we get rid of both kissing points. What I'm trying to do now is to overlap my subject and the background. This is not the best background for this example since it still kind of looks like the bar is going through her head. So in the field you should either choose a different background or you can blur the background with a low aperture. What I was trying to do is to overlap my subject and the background. While you're focusing on the background and the kissing you should also make sure, that nothing is kind of like - stucked in your subject and everything is properly overlapped. If not intended this mistake should definitely be avoided. By carefully observing the background you not only can place your subject within the right contrast area to make it easily to recognisable but you can avoid kissing to prevent the confusion. To do this you have to usually wait for your subject to move or you have to "work the scene." Touching is mostly think of subject and the background so most commonly - what you should definitely watch for is the horizon.
3. EDGE FLICKER
it's very important to control the edges of your frame. But you may say - hey Martin I can always crop the the picture, right? well yes... and no. Let's now pretend you are not like the true, true street photographer that never crops a picture. And you are heavily cropping whatever picture you have. However this might not be an option in a lot of situations. Like your subject is on the way, you losing too much picture quality, you're losing the ratio you want to print out later, and so on and so on. You are doing street photography because it's fun, not because you want to win the Olympics. So the best picture (ever time) is not always the goal. I think it's important to actually learn how to do it. And not to photoshop into the best picture possible. So even though it's not possible every time, you should try to run your eyes around the frame. What we usually think by the edge flicker is... when something unneeded is entering your picture and quite similar phenomena is - when you cut something that's supposed to be in the picture. Like leg or arm or head etc. If it's not intentional - what it does is - it flickers for your attention and disrupts composition. The edge flicker can distract and ruin your photo. There are always exceptions and I'm not saying principles have to be always followed. However to be able to break the rules you should first build a strong foundation so you know what you are breaking. I mean do NOT settle with just so - or just fine! Always strive for perfection!
So to sum it up. Watch for the background of your subject and try to place them within the right contrast area. Separate your subject or overlap them. Watch for the things that might unintentionally enter or exit your frame. Anyways there will be all for today! So thank you guys for watching! Make sure you leave me or Instagram down in the comments! I will make sure to check them out and I will see you guys next time!
