There is this photographer whose images have that street photograhpy look, but are so clean and well composed. It turns out they are actually staged. She frequently scouts locations and light (time of day) with her iPhone. Once she knows what she wants, she comes back and shoots it with a real camera and models, often friends or family. I don’t recall her name though.

Nah, shifted to the opposite. Going from being indirect to way more direct and fighting any anxiety that comes from it.

Unless I’m at an event or something, yes.

Especially kids. I try to avoid having them in my shots.

Whenever I do photograph people, I usually try to do it so you genuinely can’t see their face. I wouldn’t want someone to be photographed, and perhaps have that likeness sold for profit without my permission. That’s not right.

I typically stick to animals that won’t attack me (because I once was attacked by a crow and I genuinely am concerned it will happen again, so animals are photographed very far away from me) inanimate flowers amd landscapes lol

i am rather afraid of it. when i get someone in the shot, i try to approach them and ask if they want copies. or whether they are okay with it.

people are usually fine with it, some of them even want to pose for me, going into portraits.

had a handful of negative responses so far.

with time i think i develop a sense for who enjoys being in the shot and who does not. aside from street performers, that is.

Maybe there’s an also genuine - and justified - change in people’s concerns about how their photo will be used. Probably 99% of these photos are now taken with the intention of sharing them online in some form, so the potential for your image being used or exploited in a way you don’t like or approve of, and seen by many thousands of people, is hugely increased. That risk was just not the same in the 1960s and 70s.

Also there’s always been a surreptitious aspect to it and some photographers are just more comfortable with that than others - people were using concealed cameras to do candid photography in the 1930s.

People are the reason i don’t street photography, they ether walk into a shot (i shoot mostly 35mm so that wastes a shot) and i think it’s a bit creepy taking photos of people i don’t know, i don’t want people taking photos of me of my kids.

I agree with you here. I enjoy street photography photos that maybe have a couple of people in them but the people aren’t the subject of the photo

Honestly its a fking nightmare to take photos of or with people in the streats of Germany. I would rather walk on glass shards.

You’re limiting yourself. For me street photographers are capturing life so everyone can look back in time later. It’s not about the person in the photo, it’s about how people live today and capturing it.

I haven’t had any issues and in my experience most people don’t mind or even notice, some ask for a street portrait because photographers take good photos.

Yep!

I tried to do up close street photography but 1) I never liked being that up close, and 2) human subjects are boring to me. This eventually led to explore urban photography, which I love more.

Perhaps give urban photography a try. The way I see it, it’s exploring the living legacy of people, where the urban landscape is the subject. Not the people. Shifting to having people becoming a passing element has made me enjoy photography a lot more since I’m no longer concerned about getting in people’s faces and spaces.

I like to do long exposures with an ND filter, so people are reduced to being ghostly visages and there’s little detail to glean from the person’s image.

Street photography is really people in the street photography isn’t it? When we look at people we look at their faces, so anything that doesn’t have someones face in it won’t hold much interest.

If I can avoid including pictures of people/faces, I will. Even if I have to wait a few seconds for people to walk by.

Great street photography should give a glimpse of the time it was taken in. What is life like in your time and place? I don’t think you can really show that by silhouetting or avoiding the people. You don’t have to be on top of people like a Bruce Gilden but even Joel Meyerowitz, who was not aggressive nor extremely close to his subjects, still shows the street and it’s inhabitants clearly. Even posed work like Jamel Shabazz’s manages to give you a view of what life was like in a given era. So no, you don’t need to be aggressively close or even candid to do great work but you do need to show what life is like. That only happens by clearly including people.