There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative. Oops! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Street photography is a challenging, yet very rewarding endeavour to undertake. You are simply an observer. You watch life pass by. And, every once in a while, you elect to press the shutter release to trigger the camera to capture a moment in time. You hope to record what you saw. The outcome is to share that moment with both yourself and others. Maybe you can relive that moment again and again? Perhaps others can see what you saw?
Street photography (also sometimes called candid photography) is photography conducted for art or inquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within public places, usually with the aim of capturing images at a decisive or poignant moment by careful framing and timing.
Although there is a difference between street and candid photography, it is usually subtle with most street photography being candid in nature and some candid photography being classifiable as street photography. Street photography does not necessitate the presence of a street or even the urban environment. Though people usually feature directly, street photography might be absent of people and can be of an object or environment where the image projects a decidedly human character in facsimile or aesthetic.
Here are some recent images captured at Niagara Falls, Ontario, in Canada. A Nikon Z9 camera was used with the Nikon 180-600mm zoom lens. Most images are at the longer end of the focal length. Almost all images were taken in the aperture priority mode with the iris wide open to defocus the background so as to isolate the subject. Images were lightly processed in Adobe Photoshop.
Even though the mighty Niagara Falls was roaring in front of us all, it is not the focus of my camera. Instead, I wanted to observe the reaction of people to the Falls. What is there reaction to it? Were they amazed by it? Or, where they oblivious to it?
About the Author:
Michael Martin is the Vice President of Technology with Metercor Inc., a Smart Meter, IoT, and Smart City systems integrator based in Canada. He has more than 40 years of experience in systems design for applications that use broadband networks, optical fibre, wireless, and digital communications technologies. He is a business and technology consultant. He was a senior executive consultant for 15 years with IBM, where he worked in the GBS Global Center of Competency for Energy and Utilities and the GTS Global Center of Excellence for Energy and Utilities. He is a founding partner and President of MICAN Communications and before that was President of Comlink Systems Limited and Ensat Broadcast Services, Inc., both divisions of Cygnal Technologies Corporation (CYN: TSX). Martin served on the Board of Directors for TeraGo Inc (TGO: TSX) and on the Board of Directors for Avante Logixx Inc. (XX: TSX.V). He has served as a Member, SCC ISO-IEC JTC 1/SC-41 – Internet of Things and related technologies, ISO – International Organization for Standardization, and as a member of the NIST SP 500-325 Fog Computing Conceptual Model, National Institute of Standards and Technology. He served on the Board of Governors of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) [now OntarioTech University] and on the Board of Advisers of five different Colleges in Ontario. For 16 years he served on the Board of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Toronto Section. He holds three master’s degrees, in business (MBA), communication (MA), and education (MEd). As well, he has three undergraduate diplomas and five certifications in business, computer programming, internetworking, project management, media, photography, and communication technology. He has completed over 30 next generation MOOC continuous education in IoT, Cloud, AI and Cognitive systems, Blockchain, Agile, Big Data, Design Thinking, Security, Indigenous Canada awareness, and more.
You just reminded me of my favorite quote from the movie Fableman
“If the horizon’s at the bottom, it’s interesting. If the horizon’s at the top, it’s interesting. If the horizon’s in the middle, it’s boring as shit.”
But how does the horizon work in a person focused shot?