Safuan Shahril Photography: Street Photography

Hi everybody! It's Sunday and I would never thought I would write something on the weekend but hey I guess it might be your day ;). Anyway, how was your week? I hope you guys are well and my week has been pretty good. Last weekend, I was on my computer doing some research on street photography and all of sudden on Monday I brought my camera with me to college. I left my house early than I used to. Then once I got out of the bus, my hand went straight into my bag and brought out my camera but I only snapped a few because I was still struck by Monday Blues. However, once I finished college I spent at least an hour just taking pictures of the street. Pffftt... when I got home I wasn't happy with my results and at that time I felt determine to go on the streets the next day to take some more pictures.

Haha... There you go my first day with street photography. Yes I'm falling in love with it at the moment and I'm probably going to do this for a bit longer. So, you would expect a lot of street photography posts in the future and tips to share. Since this post is about my first steps into street photography, I'm going to share what I learned from last week:-

1. Get use to Fear

It's true. Whenever I take a picture of people, I will always get this feeling. I feel scared whenever I lift my camera to my eye. I'm sure everybody would feel the same especially if anyone whose not used to doing this. Like street photographer, Martin Parr says, "You need obsession, dedication and balls. Get out there while you still can". That's definitely what would strive you to feel hunger in street photography and it definitely affect me. I've been using this technique called "shoot-from-the-hip". I'm sure most of photographers know this but I still have a lot to improve myself.

2. Buy Books, not Gears

Haha... I guarantee 100% that most people will always dream to have a new camera and probably have a certain cameras or lens in their mind. Last week, I bought two new photography books, which are STREET PHOTOGRAPHY NOW and THE PHOTOGRAPHER'S VISION. I haven't finish reading it but for once it's worth of money buying some inspirations and knowledge that could last for the rest of your life. However, even though people could access internet easily and people could easily look at pictures on various site, such as flickr or 500px or flickriver or even Facebook! My point is that you could always refer to your favourite pictures from a book and you could look at it most of the time. Not to mention the pictures are top class and the advice that they give are beneficial for you as a photographer.

3.Black & White is better than Colour...
... or you could say the either way but I'm not going to argue with it because it's a subjective comment from me. Let's not get personal. I think if you see any of a photo classed as a street photograph, it's a pretty clichéd thing that all of the photos are mostly black and white and from my point of view you I can see why they do that. Not that I'm saying the fact that street photography started ages ago back in the 1930s (correct me if I'm mistaken), most photographers uses black and white film and there's something effective about black and white. I can talk about this as long as I want too but I'll talk about this a little in-depth in another post soon. ;)

I will finish this post by posting my favourite pictures from my street photowalk. I hope you like it and wish you good luck in your new week! Enjoy and Laters!