Unlock the Secrets of Street Photography: Real Advice from 20+ Global Street Masters
Welcome to this edition of [book spotlight]. Today, we uncover the layers of 'The art and science of street photography,' by Ivan Kuznetsov . We'd love to read your comments below about these insights and ideas behind the artist's work.
When you think about street photography, you often picture candid, raw moments from everyday life, the kind of images that tell stories without saying a word. Ivan Kuznetsov, a seasoned journalist and photographer, wasn’t always fascinated by this genre. In fact, his love for street photography emerged almost accidentally when he started interviewing masters of the craft. What began as a freelance project to make ends meet soon evolved into a deep passion, leading him to create “The Art and Science of Street Photography,” a collection of conversations with some of the world’s most inspiring street photographers.
Ivan’s journey from a casual observer to an active street photographer is a story of exploration, self-discovery, and creativity. Through the interviews he conducted, Ivan not only captured the essence of street photography but also transformed his own approach, blending intuition and patience, art and science, into his work. Today, his book stands as a resource for aspiring photographers, offering insights into the techniques, philosophies, and unique perspectives of street photography’s biggest names.
A man walking the stairs on the Ganges river, India. Marcin Ryczek
What inspired you to create a collection of interviews on street photography, and how did you choose the photographers featured in the book?
When I start a new series of interviews, I always keep in mind that it could be made into a book. This is a common practice in journalism. Plus, I’ve always wanted to publish books. That’s a hobby of mine. Life has made me a journalist and editor. It’s partly a joke.
My other main series in the past are with famous Russian-speaking travelers, with emigrants to different countries, with locals in remote parts of the world compared to the US and Europe. The new series is with the pioneers of bikepacking, a trendy type of cycling tourism in Italy.
The street photographers were somewhere in the middle. I started recording these interviews because I was looking for opportunities to collaborate with different travel and non-travel publications. To put it bluntly, I urgently needed to earn something somewhere and preferably not just once, but several times. This is again a common story for freelance journalists.
That’s how I accidentally found a Ukrainian photography magazine called Bird In Flight. They didn’t have a travel section. Street photography turned out to be the closest thing I found. But I liked it, even though I haven’t lived in cities since 2013 — I’m only interested in nature now. It is a very creative field.
At first, I looked for photographers among friends and acquaintances, but then I realized that it’s easier to get some books where they are already collected. Typing this into Google, I found “100 Great Street Photographs” (Prestel, 2017) by British photographer and author David Gibson. It’s a book about the digital, mobile and social networks age in street photography or its second birth. He has other books as well.
If someone had told me back then that I would send him my collection of interviews for review, I wouldn’t have believed it. No matter what David will reply.
However, those interviews were on the internet and my computer in their original form for a couple years. I finally got around to making a book out of them. This year my girlfriend and I opened our little creative studio, Panoramica. In it, we will publish my other anthologies and many new projects. We hope to do it.
The passengers of a Moscow metro celebrating a birthday, Russia. Alexei Domrachev
In your journey from an amateur photographer to a more serious street photographer in 2017, what role did conducting interviews with street photography masters play in shaping your own approach?
Before recording these interviews, I had no interest in street photography. I didn’t even know it was called that. Although of course, I had photographed some people on the streets in their everyday activities before. I usually just did it during my travels.
But of course, when I started interviewing, I became interested in street photography myself. I even remember a specific moment.
At that time, seven years ago, I almost simultaneously bought my first iPhone instead of my usual digital camera, which I was tired of taking with me on walks on purpose. I was living in the city of Sochi on the Black Sea coast in Russia at the time. Almost every day I went to the pier to watch the sunsets. They are very beautiful there — the whole sky turns pink about once every three-four days. When I was once again photographing a sunset, I took a random shot of a boy who was running towards me as if from “an incredibly beautiful sunset” — that’s what I called this photo. At that moment, I understood, “I took a street photo!” Just like the characters in the book. Though of course, I will repeat, I’ve taken some street photos before.
Street photographers have taught me perhaps the most important thing about this genre. It’s remarkably simple — always and everywhere bring your camera with you. That’s the main advice that can be given.
From that moment on, I started taking more photos. I think they’ve gotten better as well. Well, as I see it myself. I started specifically looking for unusual moments like this. I began to look more closely at photos already taken that didn’t seem to have anything interesting in them. But often if you look long enough, you can still find a story in them. Sometimes you have to look at the same photo several times. Framing also helps.
In short, since I wasn’t a real street photographer, I learned the most basic things from the heroes of my book. It was like a free course or rather a series of personal courses. That’s why I love my profession: the pay is small and irregular, but it’s interesting.
I also learned from them the art of living. Usually, all my interviews are quite philosophical. This is because I am a philosopher myself and I ask people about the most important things — how to be your true self, how to help others, what the meaning of life is, and so on.
Today I have about 200 street and travel photos on my iPhone. In seven years of more active smartphone photography, that’s not many. Probably only about half of them can be called good. Masters of street photography will pick only 10 and say that the rest is bullshit. But that’s okay. I know it myself.
A couple on the corner on 34th Street in Manhattan, New York, USA. Mathias Wasik
Street photography often captures spontaneous moments. What do you think is the “art” and what is the “science” behind these candid shots, as suggested by your book title?
That’s just a great question. I’ll answer it with an example.
After I published the book, I put together a manual with street photography tips. I plan to share it at public talks based on the book. Maybe I will also publish it as a separate small manual in addition to the book.
In these tips, I tried to summarize everything I’ve learned from photographers. To do this, I went through the whole book again, picked out their best quotes on different topics — a few hundred in total, grouped them, and put them in order — from getting out of the house to editing.
So, one of the tips goes like this: be quick and wait.
Being fast is an art. In street photography, you have to shoot fast, trust your intuition, and listen to your heart.
Waiting is a science. Sometimes, on the contrary, you need to stop and wait for a good shot — for example, a passerby on the sidewalk. Without it, it will just be white stripes.
I think this advice illustrates well what you asked.
I’ve concluded that to make good street photography, you need to have both of these skills equally — speed and patience. More importantly, you need to be able to balance the two. Yes, just like a Buddhist on the Middle Way.
A scene of unclear content in some place called “Galeria” in Brasília, Brazil. Gustavo Minas
With interviews from photographers across three continents, what differences or similarities did you notice in their approaches to street photography, considering their cultural backgrounds?
That’s another great question. But unlike the previous one I need to think about it a bit longer.
Most of the photographers in the book are from Europe, including a person from Czechia, Julie Hrudová, a few from the US in the New York example, a few in Southeast Asia, and one from Brazil.
...
In fact, of course, you can find differences among them. But I would say they have more in common. They’re a lot alike in that they’re all incredibly creative people.
Another of the main things I realized while recording these interviews is that street photography is a community. In particular, there is a thing such as collectives. I haven’t seen that anywhere else. They can be based on cities, countries, and even regions, or they can be based on some themes. But usually the former. For example, the New York Street Photography Collective (NYC-SPC). It’s probably the best-known in the world. In the book, I talked to seven of its more than 20 members to make a collective portrait of the city itself through them.
My point is that all street photographers, no matter where they’re from or what their cultural background is, are constantly looking at each other. For example, Akkara Naktamna from Thailand came into photography inspired by one of Elliott Erwitt’s books, a French-born American photographer from the famous Magnum Photos photo agency. Giedo Van der Zwan from the Netherlands this year started a workshop collective “Shoot Like a Local”, which he organized together with local photographers from around the world. Gustavo Minas from Brazil is scheduled to appear in Rome this October together with the organizers of the Italian Street Photo Festival (it takes place in April). Many photographers, including the same Gustavo, have had their latest books published by the Italian publisher Eyeshot. They make print-on-demand books. You see? They are all connected.
All the photographers also travel extensively in their home countries and other countries. Of course, most of them are known for series and individual images from their hometowns or where they live, but... They’re big travelers. There’s even a practical side to it — the light in the northern hemisphere is not the same as in the southern hemisphere, “you have to tame it,” as another photographer said in an interview that didn’t make it into the book because he shoots more in the humanitarian genre. He moved from St. Petersburg to Israel. West and East are not the same. The second is considered more colorful. By the way, Thailand and India also have street photographer collectives.
In short, they have more in common than differences, no matter how different they may seem. Or better yet: they are inspired by each other’s differences.
Residents or visitors of the Scheveningen, the Hague, the Netherlands. Giedo Van der Zwan
Marcin Ryczek mentions the importance of knowing oneself and recognizing one’s motivations. How do you think this philosophy applies to street photography and creativity in general?
It was one of those amazing things worth recording interviews for.
There are times when you ask a character about something in full confidence that you’ve asked a great question. You’re pleased with yourself as a journalist and just a thinking person. You don’t expect a special answer — any answer will do. But the hero answers in an unexpected way. It turns your brain upside down.
I asked Marcin about the famous rule “10 percent talent and 90 percent labor”. I asked: where’s the luck? It’s important too. He answered: it’s even more important to know yourself.
Think about that yourself for a minute. Maybe that is our luck only under a different word. We all want to be lucky all the time. We want to achieve something easily. That’s okay because not everything in life is up to us. But we need to want to know ourselves more. Yes, knowing yourself is harder. But by that logic, if you know yourself once and continue to believe in yourself, you will always, well almost always, be lucky. Everything in your life will work out sooner or later. You, on the other hand, like me, are unlikely to ever win the lottery.
Personally, this is how I decoded his answer for me.
It turns out that this simple philosophy is directly applicable to street photography, where luck is very important. Likewise, it applies to creativity and life in general. Street photography is just a small part of everyone’s big creative life, which includes nature, love, traveling, and more.
You come from a family of amateur photographers and started with an analog camera. How has your approach evolved with the shift from film to digital, particularly through using a smartphone for street photography?
My first film camera was an Olympus Mju II. My dad gave it to me before my summer trip to the US on the Work & Travel USA student exchange program. I photographed a lot of streets — without people (smiles).
Next, I borrowed various regular digital cameras — mostly Canon — from relatives. I still don’t have my camera. I just didn’t have time to buy one because smartphones came along.
Answering the question, certainly, mobile photography has changed this kind of creativity in general, not just street photography. But for the latter, it’s perfect. Of course, the iPhone is incredibly convenient. It’s as comfortable as the iPod was compared to CD players. I also see that almost all street photographers mostly shoot with compact mirrorless cameras. They’re more convenient than full-frame cameras, too.
As for the shooting itself, film cameras had softer shots. That’s what they all say. Anyway, like everything analog: sound, movies, painting... But some older digital cameras had it too. For example, my Canon PowerShot S5 SI with 8 megapixels, which I got in 2007, shot almost like a film camera. But the Canon PowerShot SX400 IS with 12 megapixels that I got to replace it, on the contrary, was very grainy. The newest iPhones take pictures very clearly. Compared to them, the earliest ones look like film smartphones. But, of course, they weren’t. Maybe just the Polaroid.
I hope I didn’t sound like a complete amateur just now.
By default, all cameras and smartphones shoot differently. I guess in a camera you just have to like the same light that you get on the streets, in nature. I mean, how they render it. For example, I like the Sony Alpha NEX-5T. It’s one of my girlfriend’s cameras. The reason is not ergonomics, but the fact that it also looks like a film camera in the way it shoots.
I catch myself thinking that we look for the same kind of light in digital cameras that we had in analog cameras. But we use digital because it’s convenient. I’m not ready to develop films anymore. But there are photographers, like Dzesica Devic from Canada, another heroine of the book, which is also in David’s book, who shoot only with analog cameras. She has a lot of them.
Which interview or behind-the-scenes story in the book do you find most inspiring, and what do you hope readers will take away from it?
In addition to Marcin Ryczek, there are several photographers.
I already started to make a list of them with the best quotes, but I’d like to mention perhaps the most “quiet” photographer in the book — Ryosuke Takamura from Japan. He speaks very basic English. Our interview turned out to be minimalistic, i.e. not the most successful — it was short and without vivid quotes.
As it seemed to me, he is a rather closed person even among closed Japanese. At least, I think so, because I haven’t met him in person. He doesn’t lead an active life on the internet. He lived all his life in a small prefecture called Fukui in the western part of Japan, north of Kyoto. He’s only filming one main project about his home region. He does it slowly. Nevertheless, he manages to find unusual subjects even in this place without many people and events. This illustrates the idea that to be a cool street photographer you don’t need to be in the center of the world — in New York, Rio de Janeiro, London, or Tokyo. On the contrary, it can hinder you.
His project “Homework” has been recognized with several awards. David Gibson also selected one of Ryosuke’s photographs for the same book “100 Great Street Photographs”.
That’s how I found out about this photographer myself.
If we take other photographers, many of them became famous thanks to projects they dedicated to their native places or places where they spend a lot of time: Gustavo Minas, Brazil — Plano Piloto bus station in Brasília, the capital of Brazil; Giedo Van der Zwan, the Netherlands — pier in Scheveningen, the Hague, the Netherlands; Alexei Domrachev, Moscow, Russia — Moscow subway.
Giedo van der Zwan - Pier to Pier
Your book is aimed at both beginners and advanced amateurs. What is the key advice or mindset you believe will help aspiring street photographers create their first compelling shots?
I guess first we have to understand what compelling shots are.
I will allow myself to say that I have already finished my second book on photography. In a way, it’s a sequel to this book. It’s called “Travel photography as therapy”. Google it early next year. I say that simply because it’s not published yet.
The idea is that I simply collected 100+ of the best photos from my 20 years of traveling and told the stories behind the images. I did this for therapeutic purposes, to tell myself the story of my travels through these photos and to share them with others. I also gave some tips on how to take photos based on my experiences with street photographers. Still, I learned something from them, at least in theory. I didn’t use the word “street” because my photos are more about travel and nature. But there are some good street shots too. Anyway, my task was exactly what you are talking about. I didn’t have to choose the best or worst (where’s the difference?), but compelling (to myself and others) shots. That’s a good word for it.
I’m looking at them right now and trying to figure out how compelling they are, how much someone other than me will like them, and what these shots have in common.
I think my most compelling photos are the ones where I just didn’t hesitate to pull out my smartphone to photograph something unusual and beautiful. Conversely, where I didn’t have the courage to be a street photographer, I see more ordinary photos that anyone could have taken. In the first photos, I tend to be closer to people, in the latter I tend to be farther away. The first ones should have been done faster. To do the latter, I had more time. (But it’s not a prerequisite.)
The first ones are more suitable for this word, especially if we’re talking about street photography, not travel photography, which I think in general has lower requirements to the story — you are already impressed by exoticism, which is not in a usual shot from the life of your neighbors — here you need an interesting story. It’s also called “candid” or “close-up photography” for a reason.
Courage.
To discover more about this intriguing body of work and how you can acquire your own copy, you can find and purchase the book here. (Amazon, Panoramica)
Ivan Kuznetsov
Ivan Kuznetsov is an accomplished journalist, editor, and photographer who has authored over 1,000 articles across a range of genres, from travel to adventure to outdoor exploration. Based in the Italian Alps, he co-founded the creative studio Panoramica, where he publishes books, including his latest, “The Art and Science of Street Photography.” Ivan’s work reflects his deep passion for storytelling, whether through interviews with photography masters or his own explorations with a camera. He continues to inspire others with his creative projects, including his upcoming works on street and travel photography. (Panoramica)
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