YOU CAN READ OR WATCH

Prefer to watch? Here is the video version. Below it, the same thing in writing.

Street photography has been trendy for several years, and everyone throws the term around. And it gets applied to all kinds of work that has very little to do with street photography.

So today, I want to try and clear that confusion and draw a line between what is street photography and what is a photo that is using the street as a backdrop.

BEFORE WE START, ONE THING

None of this is a ranking as something as good or bad.

A street portrait is not a lesser photograph than a street photograph. Urban photography is not a lesser photograph. There are some great images produced in every style.

So this is not about who is allowed to use the word. It is about knowing what you are actually making, because that is what lets you get better at it.

If you are trying to build a street photography practice and half of your work is actually street portraiture, you will keep wondering why your candid work isn't improving. It is because you are practicing something else.

THE ESSENCE OF STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

Everything that I have learned about street photography through the years boils down to one thing. It is an art form of the candid.

When you start hanging out in street photography circles, you often hear about the decisive moment. That one moment that cannot be repeated and makes the photograph special.

And yet today, more and more photos are labeled as street that have nothing to do with a moment or candid photography. That is why so many people get confused. The line of between classic street photography and other new styles blurred.

But the core remains.
Street photography is candid. If it is not candid, it is something else.

If you want the wider definition about street photography and it's styles a, I wrote a separate practical guide to street photography.

STREET PORTRAITS

A portrait taken on the street is a street portrait. Unless it is candid, it is not street photography.

If someone is posing for you, even someone you have just met, the candid moment is gone. The spontaneity is gone. It becomes a person photographed in a street environment. That is a street portrait, and it is a genre with its own history and its own masters.

For a portrait to sit inside street photography, it needs to capture a real reaction. A genuine response. That instant of surprise, discomfort, curiosity, that raw look someone gives when they suddenly notice your camera.

The moment there is a smile and conscious eye contact, you have moved into portraiture.

THREE LEVELS OF AWARENESS

It helps to think about it in three levels.

Totally unaware. Pure candid.
The subject is in their own moment. Walking, reading, interacting with someone else. They are not aware of your presence. This is street.

Aware but disinterested. Tolerated presence.
The subject saw you taking the photo but didn't pose or acknowledge the camera with a direct, conscious reaction. They tolerate or ignore your presence.

This happens after you have been in the same place for some time and the people around you have lost interest in you, or they are simply busy doing something else. This still counts as street, because the primary action and emotion were not for the camera.

Aware and interacting.
The subject actively poses, smiles directly at the camera, or stops their action to engage with you. This is the moment the photo transitions from a found moment to a made portrait.

If you want to go deeper into how you actually get to that first level, I wrote a full guide on how to photograph people on the street.

ABOUT ATTACHING FAMOUS NAMES TO IT

Something I see often is posed portraiture being justified as street by attaching a famous name to it.

You look at Bruce Gilden's work, you see posed portraits in it, and you connect the dots. Well, Bruce is doing these posed portraits and he is a street photographer, so this must be street.

It sounds logical, but it is more complicated than that.

The truth is that no photographer is purely a street photographer. Photographers do a lot of different things throughout their career. That is how they grow. They move between documentary, fashion, portraiture, commercial work. So a photo carrying a photographer's name does not automatically carry that photographer's most famous genre.

From the interviews I have watched with Bruce Gilden and Martin Parr, both of them were careful about this. They would say which body of work was candid and which was portraiture. They had a clear separation of what is what.

STAGING A SCENE

Some photographers go further and stage the moment. They ask a couple to repeat a kiss, or tell someone to stand in a certain way, with the intention of imitating a candid setting.

That is a made photograph, not a found one.

The usual defense is, why do you care, nobody will know.

And that is fair enough as far as other people go.
But you will know. Integrity is something that matters, it is not about anyone else's opinion of your work.

Street photography is built on the fact that the thing happened.
Once you arrange the moment, what you have is theater.
You might fool others. But you won't fool yourself, and no amount of likes or awards fills that gap.

WHERE THE LINE BLURS MOST

There is one situation that confuses people and that's the moment after the candid shot.

You catch a candid street moment, and the subject suddenly notices you

And then you take a second shot.

The first photo, the one that caught the unguarded moment, is candid.

The second one is leaning more towards collaboration.
It is a documentary portrait that grew out of a street moment, and it can be a wonderful photograph and a great memory. But it lacks the core element of the genre, the unguarded subject and the unpredictable moment.

It is worth not confusing the goodwill of that interaction with the definition of the work.
When you ask permission, or when you receive a voluntary pose, the process has shifted from finding a moment to making a portrait.

SO WHAT IS PURE STREET PHOTOGRAPHY?

At its core, street photography is about the moment. Fleeting, unpredictable, un-repeatable.
And it has to be honest.

That is what attracts people to the genre. We have enough manipulated photography, and with AI it becomes more so every year. That honesty is what makes street photography such a pure art form.

You can recognize good street photography by it being raw, imperfect, but real. The emotions in it are genuine because the moment is.

There is more on why the moment carries a photograph in my piece on what actually makes a photograph work.

STREET WITHOUT PEOPLE

Can you make street photography without people in the frame?

Yes, but the human presence should be felt. A shoe left behind, or any other mundane scene, as long as it carries the pulse of human life.

There are photographers who are less comfortable photographing people, and there are countries with legal restrictions on it, so they focus on traces of life rather than life itself. It is a completely valid approach.

The one thing that changes it is staging. If you start arranging objects to get a nicer composition, you have moved into still life.

STREET ANIMALS

Animals show up constantly in street photography collectives. Street animals are part of the street and they can absolutely be street photography, as long as they are integrated in that street setup.

A dog sleeping on the stairs, two dogs chasing something, a cat under a food stall, pigeons flying around. All of these speak about the animals, but also about their urban environment.

If you isolate the animal from its human environment, it becomes animal photography. Context here is everything.

You can see that it is less about the subject and more about the context, the environment where the action is happening. And again, the moment. Look for that moment.

GRAPHIC AND ABSTRACT STREET

Now to the modern branches, the ones that raise the most questions among photographers.

GRAPHIC STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

Here the human element is usually anonymous, often very small, used as a figure to complete the geometry of the frame.

These are usually made with the fishing method, where the photographer picks a place with a strong composition and waits for someone to enter the frame and complete it.

It is less about moments and more about light, shape, form and visual tension. But it is still street, because those small traces anchor the photo to life in a public space. Think Fan Ho, or Pinkhassov. People as design elements within chaos, rather than protagonists.

ABSTRACT STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

Strip away the story and focus on perception. Reflections, color interplay, a human element lost in puzzles of street abstraction.

Think of Saul Leiter. For him the street was almost a state of mind rather than a location. He would often use a long lens focusing on an abstract representation of the street, on the forms, light and colors rather than on the subject.

It is still street if it comes from real public life. Glass, shadows, motion blur, other street elements. Once the image could have been made anywhere or nowhere, and is no longer connected to the street, it has become fine art photography.

URBAN VS STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

Urban photography has become very popular and is often presented as street. Here is the difference.

Street is about life happening. Urban is about the stage where life happens.

A photo of an empty alley with leading lines is urban. Someone walking through that alley, creating a moment, is street.

And here it gets more confusing. That moody, color-graded night shot with an anonymous silhouette? Beautiful, cinematic, but often detached from a human story. It has less to do with the human in the photograph and more with the aesthetics of the frame. That is urban.

Heavy color grading pulls in the same direction, because it moves the image away from how the place actually looked.

There is a very thin line here. A guideline that helps:

• When you look at the photograph, are you feeling the city? That is urban.
• Are you feeling the human element, and does it feel genuine? That is street.

Another way to hold it: street is documentary-driven. Urban and cinematic are design-driven.

POST-PROCESSING AND COLOR GRADING

Street photography today often comes with heavy editing. Desaturation, neon glow, film emulations.

Editing is fine. The question worth asking is whether the image still holds the truth of the street. Or whether there was nothing there and the feeling arrived through the color grade.

That feeling adds to your aesthetics, but not to your story.

A test I use: how would that photo look in black and white? Would it still be interesting to look at?

REMOVING OBJECTS

With AI removal tools it is now very easy to take an object out of a photograph. So is that okay in street photography?

Among photographers who see street photography as a form of documentary, the consensus is that removing objects is generally considered off limits.

Basic adjustments are accepted. Exposure, contrast, cropping, converting to black and white. Adding or removing elements crosses into photo illustration, and moves the work away from documentary. Removing an object, even a distracting one like a sign or a piece of trash, changes the scene as it actually existed in that moment.

There is a genuine counter-argument. Street photography is an art form, and some photographers hold that they have the creative license to serve their vision, and that removing a lamp post which does not change the story is fair.

Where it stops being a matter of opinion is competitions. Most reputable photography competitions have explicit rules forbidding the addition or removal of elements from the original scene. So if you plan to enter your work anywhere, the decision is already made for you.

THE PUBLIC SPACE FACTOR

One more that comes up often.
Street photography happens in public space. The street is a social stage of sorts, a theater of everyday life. That is the setting the genre is built on.

WAS IT FOUND, OR WAS IT MADE?

Street photography isn't a trend or a particular look. It is a photography of truth, with a small twist that separates it from documentary photography.

The core of it is timing and authenticity.
You can't fake honesty.
And you can't stage coincidence.

So before you call a photograph street, there is one question worth asking:

Was it found, or was it made?

That single question draws the line. And whichever side the answer falls on, it does not make the photograph better or worse. It just tells you what you made, and what to practice next.

In a previous articles I’ve mentioned that in photography we often think we photograph the street, but in reality we photograph ourselves.
We use the streets and the city as elements to construct our own self-portrait. The direction you choose in your photography has a lot to do with you.

I am curious where you find this hardest to call. Is there a photograph of your own you have never been sure how to classify? Tell me in the comments.

If you want to work on the candid side of it specifically, you could try and take the 30 Day Composition Challenge.
These are 30 sessions, where you follow and learn to see one idea each day.
Most of it is about noticing what is already happening, which is the whole skill this article is about.

I hope it was helpful.
Happy shooting and see you next time.

YOU CAN READ OR WATCH

Prefer to watch? Here is the video version. Below it, the same thing in writing.

DO YOU ACTUALLY MOVE?

I want to start with a question.

When you are standing in front of a scene, how much time do you spend making sure you are getting exactly what you want?

Are you exploring angles? Are you actively searching for a better composition?

If the answer to these questions is that you don't, here also lies the answer to why you need to work on the composition of every photo when you get back home.

The first photo you take when you see a scene is almost always a mistake.

Because that first frame is not a composition.
It is just your physical reaction to noticing the subject.

The default spot where your feet naturally stopped is rarely the best place for your camera.

So ask yourself.
When was the last time you moved while shooting?

Not by zooming in and out. Not cropping at home later.
Actually moved.
Walked around the subject.
Actively examined what happens there?

Be honest with yourself.

It might surprise you but this is something that a lot of photographers don't do.

And this is also the reason why they stay stuck at the same level for many years.

Someone who doesn't move can buy all the lenses in the world and get the best cameras that are out there. But that will not change the images this person produces.

To close the gap between your current work and where you want to be is not the path of improving your tools, but improving the way you photograph.

And a big part of that is composition.
And composition starts with movement.

I know all that because I was that guy with a kit of the latest gear and very average photographs.

THE PATTERN THAT KEEPS PHOTOGRAPHERS STUCK

The destructive pattern is simple:

You see something.
You raise the camera.
You press the shutter.
And then you move on.

You might not like the image straight away, but instead of working towards a better one you just carry on.
And be like… Ah, I'll fix it later.

A beginner will walk on the street and have 400 photos of 400 different situations.

An experienced photographer will also have 400 photographs, sometimes even more, but he will work 10 to 20 potential situations.

The first one is luck. The second is a deliberate approach.

So today, let's talk about what happens in that moment.
The moment before the shutter is pressed.

A SMALL STORY FROM HOI AN

But first, a small story. With a few images.

I was in Hoi An. A small city in the center of Vietnam.

The yellow walls are one of the city's signature looks, and naturally a lot of people take photos there. But I wanted something more than just someone standing next to a yellow wall.

So I found an area where people come to take photos of themselves and hung out there for some time. The place was really fruitful and I got plenty of different images that I liked, but I will focus on a small part from that day.

There was this couple.

They were wearing matching outfits. Believe it or not, but this is a big thing in Asia and it is always an opportunity for the photographer. So I recognized a scene with potential and took a few photographs.

The first photograph was about them, a very simple approach. I was even waiting for other people to pass, so they don't accidentally pollute my frame with their presence.

But then the idea changed.

I said, well, why only them? They are good looking with their matching outfits, but why not do something else.

So I decided that instead of waiting for the passing people to pass, I would actually try and integrate them in the frame as contrasting elements.

So what I had now was the strong visual anchor, the matching clothes couple, but also some different images that introduce unrelated people getting into the scene.

Now I had different variations and some interesting photographs.

Now the photos were not only about the couple, but about what else is happening there. If I would just come and take a photo and go, I would miss this wonderful opportunity.

The decision to give the scene the opportunity to develop led to a richer photograph.
And in the end I remained with this image.

SO WHAT IS WORKING THE SCENE?

And why do we need to do it?

Some photographers call it working the scene. I usually call it recomposing. It is the same thing.

You see something worth photographing. And instead of just pressing the shutter from where you're standing, you move.

The default position from where you noticed your subject is in most cases not the best one. You need to change something physical in your relation to it.

So you move around and you explore.
You circle.
You wait.
You observe.

And then, when through exploration you stumble into an angle and moment where everything connects together, you press.

Sometimes you might stumble. Sometimes you might have a clear idea and just search for the best possible way to execute it.

Now, what that movement, that dancing around, does to the image is where it gets really interesting.

A lot of photographers would think that when they recompose, they simply change the framing. Where the subject sits in the frame. Basically the rearrangement of things.

And that's true.

But it's only the beginning.
When you move, everything changes.
And I mean everything.

So why recompose? We recompose to find a better way to tell our visual story and communicate our visual idea.

Here are the eight things that change the moment you move.

1. LIGHT

Let's start with the one that has the strongest impact on how your image reads. And it's light.

Light has a direction.
Light has an angle.

When you are standing in one place, the light hits your subject in one specific way. Shadows fall one way. The light either shapes your subject, or it flattens it.

The moment you take a step to the side, that relationship completely changes.

What was flat can suddenly have depth.
What was harsh can become soft and beautiful.

And this is something you cannot replicate at home.
You cannot crop your way into better light.
But you can definitely find your way into better light.

That light is there, the subject is there, all you need to do is find how that light illuminates your subject in the way that best communicates your visual idea.

Let me show you a practical example. These photographs were all taken in the same place within a five-minute interval.

Look how different they look. It is the same lens, same camera. What is different is my angle in relation to the subject and the way the light works from that particular angle.

So the first reason to work the scene is light, and the way light communicates with your subject and the environment.

If you want to go deeper on this, I wrote about working with hard light and about how to use color in photography.

2. SIZE

The next thing that recomposing has an impact on is size.

When you move closer, the subject gets bigger. And more dominant. This is a great way to put emphasis on something.

Quite simple, right?

And you could argue that this is something that is easily done at home with the crop tool.

But here's what's not so simple.

When you move closer with your feet, the relationship between your subject and everything around it changes.
The background compresses differently.
The foreground shifts.
The subject doesn't just get bigger, it becomes more present.
And more connected to where it actually is.

When you step back, the opposite happens. The subject becomes smaller, yes.

The smallness also means something. It can be used as a compositional way to reduce someone's significance, make him smaller in comparison to the rest of the world.

There is no right or wrong about how much a subject should take in your frame. But by getting closer and further away, you explore your subject's meaning in the environment and stop when you feel that it fits your idea.

You can of course explore these choices back home, but you will be losing a lot of the geometric impact of a crop choice versus a distance choice. There is more on that in my piece on shooting wide vs. tight.

3. ANGLE

Now the third one. The angle.

The angle changes everything about how the viewer feels toward your subject. The angle you are shooting from can define many things.

A photo from above, the subject feels small.
Perhaps vulnerable.
You are literally looking down at them.

If your subjects are at your eye level, they feel equal. This is how we naturally perceive the world and this is how we participate in human-to-human conversation.

If you shoot from below, you give your subjects power.
They feel strong.
Larger than life.

So if you photograph the same person.
With the same light.
In the exact same moment.
If you change the angle you will have three completely different stories.

And it doesn't end there.

Shooting angle is a great way to connect things, or align things in the frame. Changing your angle can connect objects together or push them further apart.

A lower or higher angle is also a great way to deal with busy scenes and distractions. Now suddenly your subject has the sky as a background instead of the huge crowd of people.

And you cannot recreate this in post.
The angle is decided the moment you press the shutter.
If you didn't think about it, you got whatever angle your body happened to be in.

And that is almost always a mistake.

4. RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN ELEMENTS

And that brings me to number four, relationships. This is where photography gets really interesting to me.

Every photograph has more than one element.

Yes, there is the subject. But there is also everything else, walls, signs, other people, objects, colors, hands, reflections. Basically everything that ends up inside the frame.

When you stand in one place, these elements have a specific relationship to each other. And if you are not careful, they can overlap and create a visual mass, overpower your subject, or simply feel unrelated to the image you are trying to create.

How many times did it happen to you that you came home and in front of the computer you discovered that there is something in the frame that ruins its readability?

A spot of light.
Someone's plain white back.
A line that cuts through the middle of the frame in an ugly way.

At the moment you move, those relationships change. It's like a magic puzzle, you do a small adjustment, but that has massive impact on all these relationships.

The head of the person is landing on a background with similar tonality and is unreadable?
A step right and your subject is now readable and properly isolated.

And this can be done with anything. Once you develop the habit you will realize how much you can change by simply moving.

When you are dealing with composition you are the maestro of the visual opera. And you manage the visual relationships between all the elements. That is the whole subject of my online photography composition course, and it is also why balance and layers are worth understanding properly.

You can't do that from the couch, you can do it only on the spot.
And you do it by moving yourself.
That's the work.
And it only happens in the field.

5. BACKGROUND

The movement through the scene brings me to number five, the background.

I have ruined a lot of photographs with a bad background. More than I want to admit.

Actually I didn't ruin them, I was simply unaware of its strong impact.

You see the subject.
You focus on the subject.
You press the shutter.
And later, there is a garbage bin, a bright blown out window, right behind them. And that is pulling all the attention.
And weakening our photograph.

When you move, the background also changes. You can drastically change your subject's background by simply exploring the 360 degrees around him.

A background can be the difference between an okay photo and a great one that you can put proudly on your wall.

I do have an extensive video about the background mistakes you should avoid. You should check it out.

6. DISTRACTIONS

Now we are going deeper with number six, distractions.

Apart from the background you can have all kinds of distractions. They don't necessarily sit at the back of your frame, but they can be on the sides and even before the eye reaches your subject.

Something in the foreground the eye keeps returning to.
A tree branch that snuck into your frame.

Cropping can help when the distraction is at the edge. You can cut it out.

But some distractions are inside the frame.
And cropping doesn't touch those.
Moving does.

When you develop the habit of looking through the viewfinder from different positions, you start to see the distractions and eliminate them before they become a problem.

You find the place where the frame is clean.
Where everything in it belongs there.

7. THE IDEA

Now number seven took me the longest to understand. And it might be the most important one here.

When you start photographing something, you have an idea.
A reason you raised the camera.
Something you want to say.

But that first idea, it's not always the right one.
It's just the first one.
The most obvious one.

Through exploration, when you keep moving, when you recompose again and again, something starts to happen.

You see things you didn't expect.
A relationship between two elements that was invisible from where you were standing.
An angle that changes what the image is actually about.

And sometimes the photograph you end up taking is completely different from the one you started with.
Not just in terms of composition.
But also in meaning.

Let me give you a practical example of what that looks like.

This photo was taken in Vietnam. There is this tradition to gain merit. You buy a fish and release it into the pond or river.

On the first photograph you can't really see what is happening. There is a girl near the water, a man is standing behind her and there is another girl looking at them. The photo was taken from the first angle I saw them.

If you look at it carefully it does tell the story, but it's just okay.

Now here is another photo several moments later.

Everything changed here.
The background changed, the framing changed, there is one participant less.

But also the idea changed.

Now it is about family, about connection, about tradition, not a documentation of what happens.
The idea penetrates deeper.

And I only found it because I moved.

That's what recomposing does to the idea.
It develops it.
It takes it further than you could get standing still.

Many of my better photographs were born that way. If you want to go further into how an idea becomes a photograph, I wrote a whole piece on storytelling in photography.

That's how it often happens, you start working in one way and you arrive at something else.

This image is one of the more popular ones I took. But this was not the first image.
It was actually the ninth one.
And I took 6 more after getting it.

I tried several compositions and timed myself to different variations of the scene once I liked the composition. So it wasn't born like this, it was a process of discovering it.

8. THE MOMENT

And that brings me to number eight, the holy grail. The moment.

When you explore the scene, something else happens. You are not exploring only the visual part of things.

Yes, your angles and the relationships change, but as you are doing it, time gets into the equation.
The moment changes.

That moment is not sitting still and waiting for you to come up with the perfect composition. It moves and jumps around.

So what you do is: at the same time you are exploring the scene from different angles, you are also trying to time yourself to the events that are happening in the scene at that time.

You change your position, you take a shot, you change it again and you take another.

Recomposing is fine but we also need to be sure that we are not missing the moment.

WHAT CROPPING CANNOT DO

And look, cropping is fine. Sometimes it's exactly the right call.

You were responsive, you were chasing the moment, and you couldn't compose it exactly right. We are not perfect and this happens.

But now you already know what a crop cannot do.

• It cannot change your angle.
• It cannot change how the light was falling on your subject.
• It cannot change the relationship between your subject and the background.
• It cannot remove a distraction from inside the frame.
• It cannot change the moment.

Everything is fixed the moment you pressed the shutter.
Locked.

So cropping comes after that part, after the photo was taken.

Recomposing means you are still there.
The moment is still there.
And you have a chance to make a different photograph, not a trimmed version of the first one.

A different one.

• With better light.
• With a better angle.
• Better relationships.
• Better meaning.
• And a better moment.

The biggest difference that you need to take from this is that the crop happens after.
Recomposing happens now.

THIS IS A HABIT, NOT A TECHNIQUE

And this is why experienced photographers work the scene.

It's not because they follow a rule.
It's because they understand something fundamental.
A photograph is not just a subject.

They understand that all of it is connected.
And all of it changes the moment you move.

Experienced photographers don't see only the subject.
They see the whole frame.
They feel when something is off.
And they fix it now.
They keep recomposing until everything in the frame belongs there.

That's not a technique.
It's a habit.
One that takes time to build, but it will make you a better photographer.

And it starts with one decision, to not be satisfied by that first shot from the first spot.

SO NEXT TIME YOU RAISE YOUR CAMERA, ASK YOURSELF THESE QUESTIONS

• Is this the only place I can stand?
• Is this a good angle?
• Is the composition okay?
• Are the relationships working?

And maybe the answer is yes.

But still take the opportunity and explore some more options. That will allow the story and the vision to develop, and perhaps something will happen there and you will end up with a truly great image.

If you want to build the habit properly, you could try and take the 30 Day Composition Challenge.
These are 30 sessions, where you follow and learn to see one idea each day.
One of the days asks you to work a single scene for twenty frames, which is exactly what this article is about.

Happy shooting.

YOU CAN READ OR WATCH

Prefer to watch? Here is the video version. Below it, the same thing in writing.

The Hidden Forces Behind Every Great Photograph

When it comes to a good photograph, composition is invaluable. It is after all the visual language of presenting an idea.
I even have a whole online photography composition course whose sole purpose is to reinforce your skills as a photographer.

But it doesn't end there. Composition matters, of course. It matters a lot.

But composition alone doesn't automatically make a photo good.
How many times a day are you seeing a photo that is pretty to look at, but it moved nothing in you?

I have seen thousands of technically perfect compositions that have left me completely cold.
And I have seen photographs that go against the compositional rules and are great. I couldn't look away.

So today, we will put composition aside. And we are going to talk about some of the other forces at work that help make great photographs. The ones that do not get nearly enough attention.

By the end of this article, you will look at photographs differently.

Let's start.

THE FIRST FORCE: THE MOMENT

The first factor is the moment.

A photograph in its essence is frozen time. It's a fraction of a second, pulled out of an endless stream of moments. The action of photographing is making one of these moments permanent.

Having a perfect composition and no moment is having the perfect car, but no one to drive it.
Or the perfect dish, but no one to taste it.
Or the perfect dress, but no one to wear it.

I can give a thousand analogies, but the core idea is simple. When there is no moment, something is missing.

You can have perfect composition, but if you miss the moment, that's sad. When the moment is missed, no amount of composition can save the photograph.

SOMETIMES THE MOMENT IS PURE LUCK

In 1959, a photographer named Elliott Erwitt was on a commercial assignment in Moscow. He was there photographing kitchen appliances, of all things.

This is how he described it:

"I was working on a commercial assignment on the fair. I was hired by Westinghouse Refrigerators, but I carried my private camera as well. I just happened to be in the right spot at the right time. It's very difficult to work in a crowd, especially a huge crowd. You can't move. But by sheer luck I was able to get into the Macy's kitchen display, behind the fence that separated it from the crowd. I was in the kitchen, free to move, and they just happened to come right up to the fence, so it was like shooting fish in a barrel."

Nixon and Khrushchev happened to walk by. They were mid-argument. The pair happened to have some particularly heated debate near a model of a typical American kitchen, designed to showcase the comforts of the American lifestyle, and so the confrontation gained the name "The Kitchen Debate."

What happened there, that for one second, Nixon jabbed his finger into Khrushchev's chest?
Erwitt was the only photographer in the room.
And he caught it.

That single frame became one of the most reproduced photographs of the Cold War.

Erwitt himself said something I think about a lot:

"The best things happen when you just happen to be somewhere with a camera."

BUT LOOK AT THE CONTACT SHEET

Now, when it comes to moments there is often the idea of the singular, one-time event. But let's look at the contact sheet from that shoot.

Was this a single moment? Not really.
Was this the first shot the photographer took? Not really.

The number under the circled frame is 57, 58. And the whole sequence runs from frame 7 to 76.

So it took the photographer some time to get to that "decisive moment." He was photographing the moment and trying to capture micro gestures. And one of them was that finger-poking one.

Now, eventually the image was taken out of context and was shown to display the tension between the US and Russia. But the contact sheet tells a completely different story from the single iconic frame.

Looking at the surrounding frames, the debate was actually a fluid, semi-friendly argument, primarily about consumer goods, things like cabbage soup vs. red meat, and the domestic lives of citizens. In other frames, Khrushchev is seen making the exact same animated gestures back at Nixon.

Alright, this history of the image got me a bit excited and diverted me from what we were talking about. Haha.

So was this image greatly composed?
Well yeah. The way the figures are distributed, the way the attention goes to the right spot, is done really well.

But you can see on the contact sheet that he worked his way toward that framing. The previous images included the white fence and were taken from a bit of a larger distance, and weren't as good compositionally.

So it happened here that as he was building up his composition, in parallel the moment was building itself, and in one perfect instant, the photographer noticed.
Aesthetics and moment met and created this strong photograph.

Moment does make the photograph far more significant.

You cannot manufacture the moment. Well, you can try, but there will be some unease felt.
What you can do is, first, be ready for it.
And second, once you smell it, work your way toward it, by taking various images and improving your composition with each attempt.

Being ready is mostly about being present, and that is harder than it sounds. I wrote a whole piece about why photographers miss the moment and what to do about it.

I also have a video about how the decisive moment is made, where I go through several of my own contact sheets. You can take a look at it to get a clearer idea.

The question to ask yourself in the field is not just "how do I frame this."
But also: how do I time myself, so I don't miss what's happening in front of me.

THE SECOND FORCE: THE STORY

A photograph can be beautifully composed and still say nothing.

What separates a photograph from a snapshot is that it implies something beyond the frame. And that's context, or story. Basically, it's the "what is this photograph about."



When we work with composition, we can create images without story. Take abstract photography, for example. There's no need for story there. But normally, the story is what gives the photo meaning.

Now let's take that previous photograph of Elliott Erwitt and look at it from that point of view. It has a very strong story. And it had a very strong resonance because of the context, the nature of the relationship between Russia and the US at that time.

The photo mirrors that interaction between the two leaders and applies it to the political relationship between the countries. A small moment out of a larger event.

If you want to go deeper into this, I have a full guide on storytelling in photography.

SOMETIMES THE STORY IS WHAT IS NOT THERE

The story can sometimes not be about what you show.

In photography, you are always tempted to show something that is happening. That's the natural approach. But sometimes showing what is not happening can be even more powerful.

To understand that, let's go to another story.

In August of 1968, Soviet tanks rolled into Prague. A young photographer named Josef Koudelka climbed onto a rooftop overlooking Wenceslas Square.

The square should have been full of protesters. But the people of Prague had decided not to demonstrate, so as not to give the occupiers a pretext for a massacre. So the square was empty.

To show just how empty, Koudelka stuck his own arm into the frame, wristwatch facing the camera, marking the exact time.

And this image became iconic.
No tanks. No soldiers. Just an empty street and a watch.
And somehow, that said more about invasion and history than a photograph of the tanks themselves ever could.

Worth knowing what it cost him: Soviet soldiers spotted him up on that roof, thought he was a sniper, and came after him.

I was in China during the beginning of the pandemic. Being in Chengdu, a city of 15 to 20 million people, it was surreal for me to go to places and find them empty.

The subway was empty, the main shopping areas were empty. This square in front of an Apple Store is always full of people. So I also used Koudelka's method, of showing what wasn't there.

You do not need to show everything.
Sometimes showing less says more.
But you need to have some context.

THE THIRD FORCE: LIGHT AND COLOR

The third component that defines how a photograph feels is the light. Simply, how the combination of light and color works, and makes you feel. There's enough here to discuss for hours, but at its basics, it works like that.

Composition arranges the elements, including light and color.
But light and color decide how those elements feel.

Saul Leiter spent decades photographing New York, mostly the two blocks around his own apartment. He shot through fogged glass, rain-streaked windows, half-obscured reflections.

Technically, a lot of his frames break the rules. Soft focus. Obstructed subjects.

But the light, the way color bled through a wet window, the way a red umbrella glowed against grey rain, that's what made those photographs unforgettable.

He once said:

"A window covered with raindrops interests me more than a photograph of a famous person."

For him, it was never about the subject. It was about the graphics of the shapes, the colors, the light, the aesthetics, and how the image makes you feel.

For decades, almost nobody was paying attention to his work.
Then, late in his life, everybody was.

Light and color are mood. Learn to see it, that will help you a lot.

I have two pieces that go much deeper here: one on how to use color in photography effectively, and one on working with hard light and chiaroscuro.

THE FOURTH FORCE: POINT OF VIEW

The next one is your point of view.

We photograph the same subject.
With the same light.
The moment is the same.
But photographed from a different point of view, it will look different.

In a photography composition course we all learn that different angles will have a different impact on how the photograph is perceived. But somehow, a lot of us don't really explore that angles thing, and stay shooting from the eye level.

Your vantage point is part of your statement.

In 1971, Daido Moriyama stepped out of a hotel near a US military base in Misawa, in northern Japan, and saw a stray dog sunning itself in the street.

He didn't shoot it from standing height, looking down at the animal.
He got down, to the dog's own eye level.

Usually we would go somehow in front of the subject we photograph, but here he is photographing it from behind.

It was a stray dog. But that over-the-shoulder eye contact made this photograph feel like photographing an equal. A conversation partner.

It's now one of the most recognized images in Japanese photography, built entirely on where he chose to put the camera.

Low angles work great. Your subjects feel larger than life, and empowered.

High angles look great as well. Especially bird's-eye-view ones.

You can create a whole series of "lonely people," shot from the top.
Angles are limitless.

One exercise that's popular in photography universities is to choose one subject and photograph it from a hundred different angles. The key idea behind this exercise is to understand how these different angles explore the subject, but also its relationship to the environment.

If you want a structured version of that kind of practice, my 30 Day Composition Challenge has two days built exactly around this.

Where you stand is a decision.
Not a default.

THE FIFTH FORCE: EMOTIONAL CONNECTION

Now let's move to the last one. This is the one that ties everything else together.

You can nail the moment.
You can imply a story.
You can find beautiful light.
You can choose a striking vantage point.
And the photograph can still leave people cold.

In 1983, Mary Ellen Mark spent months on the streets of Seattle with a group of homeless teenagers, photographing their daily lives for what became the project Streetwise. One of the kids, a young girl who went by "Tiny," became the center of the work.

Mark's photographs of her are not technically flashy and they don't need to be.
You look at them and you feel like you know her, even from a single frame.

That's not composition.
That's proximity, trust, and time.

Mark kept photographing Tiny for over thirty years, long after the original story ended.

Emotional connection in these kinds of works breaks the simple compositional rules, because it manages to transform that connection into a viewing experience. You can feel that the photographer deeply cares about the subject they photograph.

Getting close enough for that to happen is its own skill, and it is mostly not a camera skill. I wrote about the whole approach in how to photograph people on the street.

Another great example would be Sebastião Salgado and his project Sahel. He documented the people suffering from the drought and famine across Chad, Ethiopia, Mali and Sudan. And their suffering is felt in every frame.

It's a very heavy kind of work to photograph, and it accumulated. Years later, after covering the genocide in Rwanda, Salgado said, "I didn't have any infectious diseases but my soul was sick." He stopped photographing people for years after that, and turned to nature instead.

But his care for the people he photographed is felt in every frame.

At the end of the day, that feeling is the actual test.
Not "is this well composed."

SO IS COMPOSITION USELESS?

Not at all, and I want to be clear about that, because it's the obvious thing to take away from an article like this.

For me, learning to compose images is the first step. The end goal is emotional resonance. If you manage to get there, you are a master.

Composition is still the skeleton. It's what lets you execute all five of these with intention instead of luck.

Think about the Erwitt photograph again. That moment was luck. The framing was not.
He worked his way toward that frame over sixty exposures, and when the moment arrived, he was already in the right place with the right composition.

But after you learn composition, the rest is all about you.

THE FIVE FORCES, TOGETHER

So: moment, story, light and color, point of view, emotional connection.

These are the five driving forces of a great image. And they don't show up on a rule-of-thirds grid.

All of them are the result of your visual perception, your observations, and mostly your heart.

If you want to work on the seeing itself, I wrote a longer piece on how to develop your photographic eye, and another on what actually improves your photography.

You could also try and take the 30 Day Composition Challenge.
These are 30 sessions, where you follow and learn to see one idea each day.
At the end of the challenge you will learn how to see a lot of what was hidden to you.

I hope it was useful.
Happy shooting.
And see you next time.

Here is what a high megapixel count actually does to your photographs.

You Can Read or Watch

I had a conversation with a photographer the other day about a photograph he took.

It was a shot with people, one clear dominant group and another group that seemed completely out of place, making the whole image feel unbalanced.

When I asked what the scene was about and why he included the other group, he said he always shoots a bit wider and includes more because it allows him to crop afterwards.

That didn't sit very well with me, and I went on untangling the whole idea in my mind, and this untangling became the video above and this article.

You see.

The only real reason to buy a high megapixel camera is if you actually need the fine detail and resolution that it provides.

What the Marketing Departments Are Really Selling You

I know that you can crop.

That's exactly what camera marketing departments tell you. They push high megapixels so you can feel safe that if you didn't frame well, there is always that ability of cropping.

Fuji, for example, took it a step further, recommending cropping as a way to overcome the limitations of a fixed lens on the GFX100RF.

Here is a quote from Fujifilm regarding the GFX system:

"Explore Aspect Ratios With the GFX System. Find a new view by changing aspect ratios and discover how they can improve your photography."

And in the same article, here is the reasoning underneath it:

"Fortunately, your G Format sensor has such a high resolution to start with that this isn't a problem. So, if you decide to use the 1:1 aspect ratio with the GFX50S or GFX50R, you'll still end up with a big 6192×6192 pixel file."

They even have a whole marketing story published all over on how changing aspect ratios can boost your creativity. Everything is leaning heavily on that high megapixel count.

The truth is that cameras are already very good for the last decade and since then the technological improvements are minor.

Cameras with high megapixels are always great for marketing. Camera manufacturers want you to believe that more megapixels will make you a better photographer.

And Fujifilm is not alone in this story.

• There is Hasselblad.
• There is the Sony a7R VI with its 66.8MP sensor.
• Even the Leica Q3 is with 60MP today.

Almost every high megapixel camera is sold on the promise that you can just click now and figure out what your photo is actually about later.

Well, not in these exact words, but the overall message is:

"Don't worry, we got you, you have the megapixels."

My Problem Is Not the Resolution

Now, I don't have a problem with high resolution itself. Or any resolution in general.

My issue as an educator is that it breeds photographers who rely on sensor specs instead of developing their own compositional skills.

A lot of megapixels in the hands of an experienced photographer, or an artist with a clear idea, can be a miracle making machine.

Look at this photo of Messi and Ronaldo by Annie Leibovitz. It was shot on the GFX series for a Louis Vuitton campaign.

And this is actually a composite. Messi and Ronaldo didn't even sit in the same room. The photographs were photographed separately and joined later.

Now we can argue if that's photography or visual art, but what I try to say here is that the photographer had a clear idea what she is going for. And the megapixels here played a minor part.

The Two Types of Framing

So let's move further.

There are two main framing approaches photographers use. One approach justifies cropping. The other doesn't.

Loose Framing

It's used mostly in reportage, sports, or wedding photography, where you don't have time to compose perfectly.

Because it's often a reactive photography you just have to chase the subject and the moment, you just have no choice, everything moves way too quickly.

So you leave extra space around the main subject as a guarantee, that you can tweak the composition later.

And that is perfectly fine.

Intentional Framing

This is when you consciously frame the exact way you want your photograph to look like, and you do it before hitting the shutter.

It doesn't mean your subject has to be static. It just means you know exactly what you're going after and you execute it as precisely as possible.

The benefit of this type of framing is that it will teach you much more about photography than loosely chasing moments.

Now sometimes we have no choice, we HAVE to frame loose. Just don't make a habit of it.

How to Master Intentional Framing (And Skip the 100MP Camera)

Now let's go deeper.

To become better in photography and faster, you need to master the intentional framing. It will also help you when you need to shoot loosely, you will just be better in it.

To do that you need to cultivate a few core qualities.

1. Learn to See Frame Structure

The first one is that you need to learn to see the compositional elements of the scene in front of you.

You must learn to recognize these compositional elements before you press the shutter. If you can't see the structure of a scene, you can't compose properly. You won't know what belongs in the frame and what needs to be left out.

The precondition to intentional framing is learning to truly see.

You can grab my 30 Day Composition Challenge to work exactly on this. It has 30 exercises that will gradually teach you to see better with every single day.

If you want the full structure rather than the exercises alone, this is what I break down module by module in my online photography composition course.

So the precondition to compose intentionally is to learn to SEE.

2. Focus and Stay in the Moment

The second one is to learn to be in the moment.

It might seem to you that you are focused on the task, but the truth is that most of the time the mind is filled with random thoughts that have very little to do with photography.

So when you are thinking about an argument you had earlier or what type of pizza you are going to eat after the shooting, you are not really focused on what is in front of you. You are kind of there, but not really there.

And then in one moment you snap out of the thought and realize that you are in the middle of a photography session and you start chasing.

So to avoid that chasing, learn to be in the moment. I wrote a short article about meditation and photography that might give you some ideas how to work on that.

3. Learn to Anticipate

The next one is to learn to anticipate.

It's connected to the previous one, but it extends further. If you learn to observe what is in front of you, you will notice reoccurring patterns.

And with time you will learn to see how these patterns develop and the moments build up, which will allow you to be ready with your framing for its climax.

4. Build Speed in Execution and Scene Processing

But so you do not miss that climax you will need to learn to be very fast, which involves 2 things.

The first one is genuinely knowing how to operate your gear as quick as it's possible. If you still freeze and think of your camera settings, thinking that the world will stop until you set your camera and you are ready, you are far behind.

The second thing is to learn to visually process the scene fast. And that again comes to seeing what is in front of you and making quick decisions of what stays in and what goes out.

Intentional framing doesn't mean slow framing. It means fast, decisive framing.

The urge to shoot loose and crop later often comes from panic, and from fear of missing the moment because your visual processing is too slow.

By practicing quick scene analysis, you train your brain to recognize patterns, balance, figure to ground separation, and geometry in a fraction of a second.

That is allowing you to lock on an intentional composition quickly, even with fast moving subjects.

5. Develop Spatial Awareness and Distance Management

Intentional framing heavily relies on moving your body.

You need to instinctively know how your focal length interacts with physical distance to your subject.

You need to be able to calculate your subject's trajectory of movement, and anticipate where you need to intercept them, and evaluate how the background and light interact.

All this makes it one hell of a calculation habit to make. But trust me, it is possible.

The key for this is that you don't shoot from where it's comfortable, that spot when you saw the subject, but rather from the spot where the frame demands you to be.

6. Practice Post Capture Discipline

A key quality of intentional photographers is strict discipline. You need to learn to be self restrained during selection and post processing of your photographs.

Cropping should be treated as a surgical tool to correct minor leveling or do small fixes, not as a rescue mission for a lazy composition.

Deciding ahead of time that you will not alter the fundamental framing in post production forces your brain to take responsibility during the actual shooting process.

When photographers rely on high megapixel counts to fix mistakes later, they tend to shoot loosely and excessively without editing in their mind first.

True discipline comes from cultivating selectivity, the willingness to not press the shutter when the elements in the scene are not ready for it.

High megapixel cameras create a safety net that encourages a lot of sloppy decisions. Developing a higher standard for what deserves a frame forces you to commit to the geometry before you take the shot.

And overall, cropping post facto is often a manifestation of perfectionism and fear of failure. When you shoot with the mindset that "I can always fix this later," you remove the stakes from the process.

Developing personal accountability means owning the frame as you captured it.

If you miss the composition, accept it as a learning point rather than masking it through heavy cropping. This mental shift builds deep creative confidence and accelerates your growth. It is much better for you than a high res sensor.

So, How Many Megapixels Do You Actually Need?

Personally, I shoot with 24MP.

I used a 40MP sensor for several years, and it felt like overkill.

The sweet spot for most working photographers today is around 32MP, which gives you plenty of detail without tempting you to throw away 70% of your frame in post.

High megapixel cameras are not a sin. It's all about how you use them.

Just don't let a marketing narrative slow down your growth as a photographer.

Shoot intentionally, and the progress will follow.

Happy shooting, and see you next time.

Keep Going

If this made sense to you, the natural next step is to train the seeing itself. That is the whole subject of my online photography composition course, where I break down how to read a scene and build a frame on purpose, module by module.

And if you want to start for free, take the 30 Day Composition Challenge and give it thirty sessions.

You know the nature of my work puts me in the position of giving feedback on students' photography.

And there is a funny phenomenon. There is a typical answer that always comes back when you ask why the photographer didn't do something - recompose, or try another angle- and that answer is always the same: “It all happened too fast, I had no time to respond,” or “I had time only for this one shot, and that's why I couldn't get a better one.”

And while it might sound like a valid reason, one many of us can identify with, the real reason underneath it is that the photographer wasn't ready.
Something happened just next to him, but his mind was busy with something else, and he didn't have the time to take the extra step, to move aside for better framing, or to put the focus point on the subject - and instead he nails the background in focus.

And why is that? Wasn't he standing at that place? Wasn't his eye open? Didn't he hold the camera in his hands?

Why do we catch the moments in their last moment?

THE SINGLE-POINTED MIND

The reason for that is the single-pointedness of the mind. The mind can know only one thing at a time. We often think that we are multitasking, but that's far from the truth. We are just jumping quickly from task to task.

So when that moment was happening near us, our mind was simply occupied with some other task. And that can be anything. You can stand there with your eyes wide open, thinking that you are looking at the scene and searching for moments. But in the back of your mind, you might be thinking about something that happened to you earlier at work, about a conversation you had, or just running through your to-do list: I'm going to do this and that.

Our minds are rarely in the moment. They are always processing something, always busy doing something. They are rarely 100% on the task we have assigned to them. Like photography :))

We can blame social media, phones, or anything else, but the truth is that we today are much less focused than we were 20-30 years ago.

This is really the same idea behind what actually improves your photography: it always comes back to attention, not gear. I've written about that here.

But there is a way. Even two ways.

THE FIRST WAY: MEDITATION

The first one is to train the mind to stay with one mission for extended periods of time, and you can do that through meditation. The first step in most meditation techniques is to concentrate the mind, and it's done by trying to keep the mind on a single meditation object for as long as possible. That develops the single-pointed concentration that we need so much.

THE SECOND WAY: LONGER SESSIONS

But let's say meditation is not something for you — there is another technique. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it in some of my videos, but I'll share it with you here too.

The second method is much easier. Just do longer sessions of photography. At first you will be distracted, but as the session continues, you become more and more submerged in the process. The important part is to try and do it alone, with the phone in your bag, and just focus on photography — searching for moments, for textures, colors, light... anything that turns on your photographic excitement.

Actually, this is also a sort of meditation. Just here, we are making the process of photography itself our object of meditation.

That last one is known to many great photographers. Some even say that real photography starts after two hours. Try it, see how you feel.

WHAT CHANGES WHEN YOU GET THERE

When you learn to be completely submerged in the process, nothing jumps on you and nothing surprises you. You anticipate.

Moments don't jump on you anymore. You see things develop, and when they climax, you are ready. So that problem you have with being surprised is solved simply by getting your mind straight.

Hope it was useful.

Happy shooting!

The reason why a photo doesn't work is rarely related to the gear you use. And it also has very little to do with the way you are editing your photographs.

When I started, I thought that getting better tools was what was going to make the big change for me.

So I got the better tools. And on the surface, it did look like things had changed for the better. The images were sharper. The sensor of the new camera performed better in low light. And the new lenses allowed me to blur the background just like the professionals do. Every time I would buy a tool, I would feel that I got better.

But then, looking at the work of some photographers I admired, I could clearly see that I'm not there. Not even close.

So then I thought I just needed to learn to edit my photos better. And then the next few years I tried to figure out the editing part. I pushed the contrast. I added more clarity to make the photos punchier, but still, the photos were average at best.

I could go on and on about the illusions that I had and the mistakes that I made, they were more than I could count. But instead, let's focus on what did work. And what does change your photographs.

IT ALL COMES DOWN TO ONE WORD

And that one thing can be summed up in one word. Which is SEEING.

That single mental skill is worth more than all your gear and your editing skills.

You simply cannot photograph something that you don't see. To photograph anything you must see it first.

And you might say, well, I have eyes, I can see, what is the problem?

There is no problem. Just that vision and the ability to see with a photographic eye have very little in common.

When I speak about seeing, it's not about vision, it's mostly about attention.

Let me ask you a question here. When you're out with your camera, how focused are you? Are you 100% engaged with what is in front of you, or are you thinking about something else, or even playing with your phone in between?

When you stand on the street in front of a scene, how much do you actually notice? Do you mind sharing that in the comments?

From my experience working with photographers, even when they are not distracted, the majority notice only the subject. The slightly more experienced ones will see the light or the background around that subject. And only a very few will actually read the whole scene.

And this is the whole difference. It's not your gear, or your editing. It is your ability to see and notice things, and then connect these things into meaningful visual stories.

The images that I have shown you here are all from the same place. They are all small parts of the same scene that eventually came together in a single image.

If I was to focus only on the subject, I would end with the second version.

The lack of exploration would deny me all these other images.

And that ability to see more and connect things together is something that you can develop.

SO LET'S SEE HOW WE CAN DEVELOP OUR ABILITY TO SEE

First, I will give you here a few exercises that you can already put into practice, and which after some time will open your eyes to a whole new world of photography.

You can also download these as a PDF with 30 exercises for 30 days. These are part of my course, but I would like you to have them too. Something small that you can keep on your phone and use when needed.

30 Day Composition Challenge

1. LOOK BEYOND YOUR SUBJECT

The first one, and this is probably one of the most important ones, is to learn to look beyond your subject.

Every time before you press the shutter button, take a second to check what else is there. What is behind the person or object you are photographing, and what is around him. When doing that, try to register as many details as possible.

Only that small change in approach will already improve your photography. Because now you know what gets into your frame and you can decide what doesn't.

Let me give you an example.

Here we can see our subject.
We can see the white birds around him.
Part of them are still, other part are flying around.
We can also see a line of birds on top, they are like watchers, or observers.

We can see that the light is soft and it comes from the left side.
We can see that our subject is wearing a brighter shirt than the background, and that actually makes him pop nicely and makes him easily readable.
We can see the background is made of rigid horizontal and vertical lines.

We can see that he has one of his legs put on the orange crates under him.This elevates him, like he is standing on a pedestal. We can see the cart on the left that creates a diagonal line that points towards our subject.

We can see the distribution of orange colors, and some blue ones.
Orange and blue is always a great combination.
But that is already a color theory lesson.

We can see that there is some water on the floor, and that it reflects some of the flying birds.
And we can see that the texture in most of the scene is kind of rough, the crate surfaces repeating and creating this gritty texture.
There are barely any smooth texture areas here.
We can also see that there is a very rigid structure, all the elements being rectangles, is what creates this structure. The birds are the ones softening it.

Now a question to you. When you are standing and photographing, do you notice all of that? Or are you like, here is a guy and some birds and I'm going to take a photo of that?

If you see only the guy and the birds, all your framing will be around that. But if you notice all these other things, or at least part of them, that will result in a completely different photograph.

There are some more examples from the same place for you to examine in the PDF.

So this is one. To notice as much as possible beyond your subject.

2. LEARN TO UNDERSTAND LIGHT

The next one would be to learn and understand light.

Light, apart from its basic qualities of being soft or hard, has a direction. And when it falls on your subject, it also falls somewhere in the background behind him or on other objects that surround him. You see, subject-background relationship again. Looking beyond your subject again.

You need to learn to see what light does to your scene. To do that, first, be very light aware. Always look at light, even when you are without a camera. And I don't mean just looking at the golden hour light, that is not the only light out there.

Look at light directions. How light behaves when it comes from behind you. How it wraps the shape you are photographing, where the shadows go, what else it touches.

Look at how it behaves when it comes from behind the subject. What does it do to it? Are the subject's facial features visible? If you take the photo that way, how will the exposure look?

Does the subject look like a silhouette? In most cases, it is actually your exposure decision that determines how the subject will be perceived. It is your choice whether to expose for the subject, or for the background. And it is you who decides how the light will be seen at the scene.

Look at how light behaves when it comes from the side. Look how the light and shadow combination in side lighting creates volume.

You see how different types of light affect the photographs in a different way?

Now, I showed you examples. And these are just the very basic ones, light comes in many different tonalities and hardness levels. And it is up to you to learn to see this.

Put a lot of effort on that one. It is an important one. Look at light at any time, not only when you are with your camera. And look at any light. If you can see, it means that there is light there, so learn about it as much as you can.

3. LEARN THE LINES

The next thing to pay attention to is lines. See if you can identify every vertical and every horizontal line in front of you. Then search for the diagonal lines.

See how these lines split the frame and where they lead. Because the moment the eye sees a line in the frame, it follows it. So it's better if the eye follows it to some meaningful place and not just out of the frame.

Then, after you captured the photo, look at how all the lines are placed in your photograph. One line in the wrong spot can compromise the whole frame.

I have a whole article about lines in photography composition and you should probably read that one too, it will get you far deeper than these few words of explanation.

But the base for it is that lines lead, and they split the frame into parts, and each and every type of line is connected to our emotional center. The type of lines you include, and how you implement them in your framing, will have an impact on how the image feels and the viewer's perception.

4. FOCUS ONLY ON SHAPES

After lines we need to understand the role of shapes. The shapes and forms will help you to understand balance.

Each and every frame is usually made from different shapes and forms. These shapes are the image structure. And they set the emotional tone even before light and color do. Yes, light and color are the ones we wrap everything in, but the shapes come first.

Large shapes will be visually heavier than smaller ones. Darker shapes heavier than lighter ones. Squares and rectangles will infuse your frame with structure. And round forms will make it softer, more playful and harmonious.

Dominance of one type of shape will define how the frame feels. And we can mix them to achieve a certain emotional effect.

So what is the best way to look at shapes? First, try to notice the shapes normally with your eyes, but if that doesn't work, squint a bit. When you squint, that washes out the details and leaves only the dominant figures. These are your shapes, these will be the ones that the eye will read first in a photograph.

5. TRY TO CREATE DEPTH

To become better in composition, try to learn to look at what is in front of you in depth.

The majority of photographers photograph flat images. Images made out of two planes. The subject and the background. And this is simply because this is what they are accustomed to look at. Their subject.

And how about the background? Well, it's already there. But usually there is very little thought into that one. We want to change that.

Try to introduce another plane and learn to work with depth and layering. The core idea is to look at a scene with at least 3 planes of depth.

Foreground, something that is placed before your main subject. Middle ground, the place where your subject lives. And background, the stage where it all happens.

That order is not necessarily the only order. Your subject can live in any of these different planes, not only in the middle ground. But the idea is to try to create images with more than just a subject and a background. And to do that you need first to learn to see in depth.

6. WORK WITH SIMPLICITY FIRST

The best way to build up your compositional skills is to try and work with simplicity first. Start with one object and use all the previously mentioned approaches to build the frame around it. When you feel that you mastered that, make it more complex.

Add another subject. An additional subject will make things more complicated. Now you will need to prioritize and decide who is more important.
You can use the Hero concept, I have a whole article about that.

When you feel comfortable with two objects, you can complicate it even more.
But keep in mind, the more subjects you have, the more things you will need to pay attention to. It's not only about the subjects themselves, it's also about everything else around them.
You need very high scene and background awareness to navigate this properly.

But mostly learn when to simplify and when to make things more complex. You might have gotten the idea by now that making more complex images is somehow better, a sign of mastery of sorts.

Well, working with complexity does teach you much more about composition than working with simple scenes. But there is a strong "but" here. It doesn't necessarily produce better photographs.

A better photograph is not defined by its complexity or simplicity. It is always defined by the content, the way it's presented, and the way it resonates with the viewer. Actually, the emotional and engaging photographs are often the more simple ones.

There are usually two reasons to go towards complexity or simplicity. You simplify to make the frame more readable and digestible for the viewer. And you create complexity when you want more context.

7. THE ONE FOCAL LENGTH SESSION

That one thing that will help you a lot is the one focal length session.

I usually suggest sticking to one focal length for a year or two, but I know it's hard for many of you. So just stick to one focal length for a session. One session without zooming, can you make it?

When you cannot change the lens, you start moving your feet, and that is where composition begins. By moving around, you start exploring your subject, and its relationship to the surrounding objects. If you noticed at least some of them in the previous exercise, now you can move around and try to arrange them the way you see fit.

USE THE VIEWFINDER TO EXAMINE THE EDGES

I know that many of you are using the display for shooting, I've got infected by that bad habit as well. I'm blaming the discomfort of wearing glasses and my Ricoh for that. And that does breed sloppy compositions.

But if you want to achieve higher accuracy in your composition, use the viewfinder, especially use it to examine the edges of your frame.

And the reason is the same: attention. We are mostly focused on the central area and we miss the edges, which can bring us surprises that we need to crop out afterwards. And while it is okay to crop, sometimes that something we didn't notice interferes even with our crop and makes the photo unfixable. So it is better to notice the problem and make that decision to fix it or not in the field.

AND MOST IMPORTANT, REVIEW

Review everything that you capture. Try to understand what didn't work. That will also teach you a lot.

All these exercises, and many more, are in my "30 Day Composition Challenge" PDF that you can download for free.

Get the PDF. And most important, do the exercises.

Watching YouTube videos can give you the intellectual understanding of things, but only being out with your camera and trying things will give you the practical understanding.

Photography is much more about developing your eye and practice than using the latest tools. Trust me on that, I have walked the gear path, I know it leads nowhere.

I hope it was helpful.
If you have any questions leave them down in the comments, and happy shooting.

A good layered photo can be a brilliant way to tell a story, or to introduce a complex scene in an understandable way to the viewer.

And this is a technique that is learnable. Shooting in layers is something that you can learn today and apply in your work tomorrow. Layers are pretty straightforward, and once the understanding clicks, they are very easy to work with.

But somehow, most photographers struggle to understand them and often end up messing them up. So today we will work on that. We will make sure you are not messing up your layers.

THE DEFINITION OF LAYERS

In photography, layers refer to the different visual elements within a scene that are arranged in a way that creates depth and visual interest. By composing your shots with multiple layers, you position these elements in different planes within the frame, creating a sense of dimensionality that transforms a two-dimensional photograph into a three-dimensional one.

FOREGROUND, MIDDLE GROUND, BACKGROUND: HOW EACH LAYER WORKS

Creating layers in street photography involves capturing multiple elements in the scene that create a sense of depth and dimensionality within the image.

To achieve this, you need to understand and work properly with the foreground, middle ground, and background.

You as a photographer can clearly see these layers, but the viewer is looking at a two-dimensional image, therefore you need to help him. The best way to do it is to use a relatively wide lens and put the first layer close to the lens; that will create the feeling of depth.

While you can have more than three layers, these three primary "grounds" are the minimum you'll want to include to really get a feeling of layers. They also help divide and organize any additional layers in your scene.

WHY YOUR LAYERS DON'T WORK

The first issue most photographers struggle with is simply seeing layers. Seeing a scene in a layered way. If you cannot see the layer, there is no chance for you to photograph it.
So first, you need to see and recognize layers in the scene.

And here is the question: why don't we naturally see them?

Let's do a small experiment.
Take any object and hold it in front of you. Now, when you are looking at this object, are you also paying attention to what is happening behind it? Probably not.
I'm pretty sure that until I mentioned it, you didn't.
But once I did, you took an extra look to see what is behind.

And this is how our eyesight works. It is almost like we are using a telephoto lens with a low aperture: once we look at something in front of us, everything behind becomes blurred.
And we can see what happens behind only if we throw another look behind the object.

Without that second look, we are focused only on one level of depth of the scene and can't perceive its complexity. Our sight is trying to simplify things for us, and that's fine, but that's not helping us with our layers.

So what we need to do, to be able to recognize layers, is to go deeper into the scene and evaluate the depth of the image. We will need to take two or more looks at the scene surrounding us. One at the elements close to us and one at the back. And a few more, just to get a better idea of what is going on there.

This is a habit that you need to develop in order to be able to find layers, and in general, it is a very good habit to develop to level up your photography composition perception.

So now, following this advice, we will be able to see layered scenes, and with some practice at looking at a scene in such a way, we will learn to recognize layers. We can practice that even without a camera. One look close, one look far, and mentally connect the scene in front of us.

THE OTHER REASONS LAYERS DON'T WORK

You are not getting close enough. A significant mistake is standing too far back from your subjects. Even if a scene has potential, being too distant will make the photo appear flat and lose its feeling of depth. This often stems from discomfort or fear of approaching strangers.

You are using too much shallow depth of field. A common error is shooting with a wide-open aperture (for example f/1.4 to f/2). While great for isolating a single subject in a portrait, it blurs out foreground and background elements, causing a loss of crucial context and making it difficult to keep multiple layers in focus. This results in "stale" street photography that lacks visual interest beyond the main subject.

You are doing a "run and gun" approach. Haphazardly walking around and snapping photos, rather than intentionally observing and composing, often leads to messy photographs and missed opportunities for complex layered shots. Layered compositions require patience and foresight.

You are ignoring the foreground. If a scene's layers don't start until the mid-ground, the photo can appear flat and lose its layered effect, regardless of other elements.

You allow overlapping of figures. While some overlap can still work, a common mistake is allowing elements or people to merge in a way that creates distracting or visually confusing shapes. Clarity for each element should be maintained as much as possible.

You have poor light management skills. Working with layers is significantly harder in flat light, as it's difficult to create separation and hide unwanted elements in shadows. Extremely bright, distracting objects in the background can also pull attention away from the intended subject.

And of course, there is the wrong gear and settings.

YOUR LENS CHOICE AND LAYERING DEPTH

Now let's look at what else can prevent us from capturing layers properly. The next one will be our lens.

It is very hard to do layers with a telephoto lens. It is potentially possible, but you will need to have a lot of space and be quite far from your scene. But not impossible.

I think for normal street photography, everything above 50mm full-frame equivalent will make your layering job difficult. Therefore, the best focal lengths to work with layers will be something between 21-35mm (full-frame equivalent).

Now when we are shooting in a layered way, we need to make some decisions. How many depths are we going for? Two depths and a background? Three depths and a background? Or even more?

Why am I asking that? Because we need to understand what kind of depth of field we will be using. But I don't want to go too technical with you, so let's go through some examples and break it down step by step. We will work from simple layers to more complex ones.

So let's first look at a flat image: an image that is two-dimensional and has no perception of depth. In these images, we will have our main object of interest and a background. These images can contain one or more subjects, but the number of subjects doesn't matter, because they are all spread across two dimensions. It's just them on a background.

The minimal requirement is to have:

• Foreground (first layer)
• Middle ground (second layer)
• And background (third layer)

So the simple layer is made up of two elements plus background. That gives us that three-dimensional feeling in a two-dimensional world.

SIMPLE LAYER EXAMPLES

One object is closer to the camera, the second is further away, and it all finishes with a nice background.

On this first image, the focus is on the first subject (he is our main figure). The second one is complementing the story.

On this second image though, we have it the other way around. We have the second object in focus, and the first is there just for extra context and giving that three-dimensional feeling.

But if you say now, "wait, aren't they both supposed to be in focus?" Well, in the traditional understanding of layers, not really.
But if we look at street photography, people will usually try to have both objects (meaning both depths) in focus.

So here we have again two objects, one closer to the camera, one further away, both relatively in focus. And this is more or less what is expected. This is shot on a crop sensor camera at f/11 on an 18mm.

The reason why the woman is not too sharp is that I'm too close to her, and the distance from her to the soldier boy is too large to hold everything in focus. The focus, by the way, is on the soldier boy.

So now you might be getting what is going on here from a technical perspective. To be able to execute layers technically, you really need to understand the concept of depth of field.

COMPLEX LAYERS: THREE KEY ELEMENTS

So okay, we did the simple layers. Let's look now at how more complex ones work. With complex layers, you will need to pay attention to three things.

The first is subject separation. All your subjects shouldn't overlap, because that will make them perceived as a single subject and will make that area of the image messy and unreadable.

The second one is distance. The objects need to be separate from each other, but also not too far in terms of depth. You don't want your layers to run too deep. It weakens the photograph.

And the third thing is background and a clear ending. To have a successful layer, you need to have a clear ending. Something to show the viewer, "okay, we finish here." It doesn't matter how many depths it goes in, the ending should be clear. Anything else will weaken the layered image.

OTHER WAYS TO CREATE LAYERING IN THE FRAME

Depth between subjects is the classic way to build layers, but it's not the only one. Let's take a look at some others.

Framing. Look for elements in the scene that you can use to create a natural frame or boundary, such as doorways, windows, or street signs. By placing your subject within this frame, you create a sense of depth and context. To learn more about sub-framing, take a look here.

Leading lines. Use natural or man-made lines in the scene, such as roads, sidewalks, or buildings, to draw the viewer's eye through the image and create a sense of depth. More about lines here.

Reflections. Look for reflective surfaces, such as windows or puddles, that can add an extra layer to the image and create a sense of depth and texture.

Foreground and background. Pay attention to the foreground and background of the image, and look for elements that can create a sense of depth and separation between the subject and the surroundings.



Motion. Incorporate movement into the image, either by photographing people or objects in motion, or by intentionally creating motion blur. This can add an extra layer of interest and create a sense of dynamism within the image.

THE ART OF STORYTELLING THROUGH LAYERS

So far we have spoken about the technical part of the layering process. But let's see what makes our layers even better.

The key to interesting layers is having a different story going on at each and every depth of the layer. That is the holy grail. That is the real mastery.

Having the same story going through the depths is nice, but being able to connect multiple story elements through layering? That is hard.

You can see how through layering I've managed to interconnect multiple unrelated elements into one story that coexist in a single frame. They are not related, but together it works

BEST PRACTICES FOR LAYERED PHOTOGRAPHY

So let's try and summarize things into best practices.

LET'S SPEAK LENSES

• 35mm equivalent lens: Often considered ideal. It provides a natural look while being wide enough to compose with multiple elements. Photographers like Alex Webb are known for using 35mm.
• 28mm equivalent: Also a strong choice, allowing you to get even closer and fill the frame, making the viewer feel "really there." However, it can make scenes messy if not controlled, and requires getting very close to subjects (about 1 meter).
• 50mm equivalent: While Henri Cartier-Bresson famously used a 50mm lens, it can be too tight for layered scenes in crowded cities, making it harder to include enough context or depth. It is better for clean compositions or portraits.
• 24mm and 21mm: Although I've mentioned them, these can be too wide, causing distortion at the edges and making elements appear small and lose focus. Difficult to control, due to too many things in the frame.
• Prime lenses over zooms. As usual, I will recommend primes. They act as a creative constraint, forcing you to move your feet, get closer, and be more creative with your framing. They are often smaller, lighter, and more discreet.

LET'S SPEAK CAMERA SETTINGS

While there is no single best setting, what we try to do with layers is to optimize the camera settings for depth.

• Aperture: Shoot at a small aperture to maximize depth of field. Recommended settings are at least f/8, and preferably f/11 or even f/16 in good light. This ensures that most elements across your foreground, middle ground, and background are in sharp focus.
• Shutter speed: Aim for a fast shutter speed, at least 1/250th of a second, and ideally 1/500th or faster to freeze any motion. Increasing your ISO helps achieve this.
• ISO: And that leads me to ISO. To compensate for the smaller aperture and the faster shutter speed, we might need to use ISO 800-1600 during the day, and 1600-3200 (or higher if needed) in darker conditions. Always prioritize a sharp photo over a noisy one.

LET'S SPEAK FOCUSING

Where do you focus in the layer?

• There is no definitive answer here. You might decide to focus on the first layer, considering it more important, but that will affect the depth of field and the next layers can feel a bit out of focus.
• If you just want to show the structure, you can try to focus somewhere in the middle. That will give you a larger depth of field and will allow you to keep more elements in focus.
• Or you can just focus on what you think is more important.
• You can use both autofocus and zone focusing. You just need to make sure you are using single-point focusing with AF, and that point should be aimed at the exact point of interest.

WHAT AFFECTS THE LAYERS?

It is mainly about figuring out depth of field.

• Focal length. We should strive to use wider lenses, in the range of 28mm to 35mm.
• Aperture. Use larger aperture values, starting from f/7.1 up to f/16. This ensures most elements are in focus, but it all depends on distances.
• Distance from your subjects. The closer you are, the more it might affect the depth of field, and you will need to make that value higher. Sometimes even f/16 is not enough, and it's worth taking a step back to make sure you have everything in focus. And if that causes you to have some extra space on the sides of the frame, you can crop it afterwards.
• Distance between the subjects. As we said, we want them to be relatively close to each other. Not letting them run 30m/100ft into the scene.
• Separation. And of course, the subjects should be properly separated, so we can perceive them individually.
• A clear ending. And in the end, it all should finish with a clear ending. A background, or a natural ending of the story.

BONUS TIPS

Use light to enhance layers. Lighting plays a crucial role in emphasizing different layers. Utilize natural light, shadows, and reflections to highlight various elements within your scene, adding depth and dimension.

Combine with other techniques. Experiment with leading lines, framing, and other compositional tools to further enhance the layered effect. You remember this photograph where I used other geometrical elements to enhance the layer and build the viewer's journey.

Don't do layering for layers' sake. Simply combining multiple elements into a frame without unique interest, content, or idea is a common pitfall. The goal is not just to have layers, but for those layers to contribute to the story and meaning of the photograph.

PRACTICE AND WORK THE SCENE

But to really master your layers, it's essential to practice and experiment with different compositions.

Spend time observing your surroundings and identifying potential layers that can enhance your images. Engage with your environment and be patient; sometimes, the perfect layered composition requires time and persistence to unfold.

Work the scene. Don't take just one or two photos and move on. Take many photos (15-20 or more) from different angles and perspectives to increase your chances of capturing the best moment. The best shots rarely happen in a single snap.

If you want to go deeper into layering along with the rest of composition - subject placement, balance, complexity — that's exactly what I cover in my online photography composition course.

I hope it was useful, and from now on your layers will get a significant boost. If something was unclear, ask me in the comments.

Hope to see you again.
Happy shooting!

Organizing objects in composition is easy when we photograph a single object.
It has no competition; its presence in the image is unchallenged.
But what happens if there are more objects?
How do you prioritize?
How do you show the viewer who is the most important one?

Photographers usually call this the focal point, or talk about visual hierarchy. I call it the Hero, because it's less about a technical focal point in the frame and more about who, or what is the character in the story.

Prefer to watch ?

If our photography has a storytelling component in it, we can take advantage of the Hero Concept.
The Hero Concept helps you direct the viewer's attention to a particular person or object that is driving the narrative of your photograph.

By using lighting, composition, and color strategically, you can make your subject the hero of the story unfolding in the photograph.

The hero concept applies to everything.
A dog, a chair, a mountain - any visual object in your photograph can be promoted to be the hero.

So how do you apply the hero concept in your photography?

USE CENTRAL PLACEMENT

Central placement in composition emphasizes importance and helps the character appear like the hero in the scene. When the main subject is positioned centrally, it becomes a focal point for our eye.

USE LIGHT TO POINT AT OUR HERO

When it comes to composition, light is another powerful ally, and we can use it with great success to assign priorities to our characters.
The most efficient way is to use light as a torch: we place our main character in the scene in such a way that the light is pointing at him.



COLOR: A POWERFUL TOOL TO POINT AT THE HERO

Color is probably one of the most powerful tools in photography, maybe even second only to light itself. It's amazing how often you hear something like, "This would be a fantastic shot, if only there was a woman in a red dress in the frame!"

Using a contrasting color can instantly isolate your subject, and it doesn't have to be a red dress - any color will do the trick, it just needs to be different from the rest of the scene!

Of course, there's a bit more to it than just throwing color in.
For it to work effectively, the color needs to be used in clear contrast with its surroundings.
You also want to avoid competition from other colors in the scene.
Even two objects of the same color can confuse the viewer's eye and detract from your main subject.

DISTANCE FROM THE CAMERA

DOF AND FOCUS

We tend to read better the areas in focus. By using a lower aperture and focus, we can isolate a particular hero from the rest. Using shallow DOF is by far the easiest way to assign priorities in photography.

By using shallow depth of field, we can blur the competition in the front and the back and make a single subject stand out from the crowd, naturally directing the viewer's focus to their face.

By combining an understanding of subject distance with shallow depth of field, we can easily strengthen the identity of our hero.

You can really play with DOF and hero roles creatively.

This photograph challenges the common composition approach.
Normally you would focus on the person in the front, the one closer to the camera, as we spoke about a moment ago.
But by using a low aperture and focusing on the person in the back, I've made an unexpected hero in that frame. That brings extra interest to the photograph.

USING SUB-FRAMING TO ASSIGN PRIORITIES

Sub-framing is the classic composition technique to use if you want to assign importance to a certain part of the image. In this case, it has been used to frame only one person and show him as our hero.

GESTURE

Now we are getting to the non-technical ways to assign importance to a particular person in a photograph.

Gestures are a form of nonverbal communication that helps us understand the intentions and emotions of others. Our brains are wired to pay attention to these.
That makes gestures so important in photography: we will always notice them when we see them.

EYE CONTACT

When a character establishes eye contact with the photographer, it directly engages the viewer. The character who looks at the camera instantly becomes the hero of the frame.
This is a trick used by many event photographers.
They would say to a group of people, "Now everyone look at me," and everyone becomes a hero.
Or "Now only one person look at me," and that person becomes the hero.

It works the same way with animals. The moment eye contact is initiated, the subject engages with the viewer and becomes the hero.

It is enough even to face towards the camera and have the eyes visible. If there is no other competition, the one facing the camera will win the dominance challenge.

EYES / HANDS DIRECTION

In a similar way, a hand pointing towards someone will elevate that character to a more important one.

BEING THE HUMAN IN THE FRAME

We are wired in such a way that we perceive the human as the dominant ruler of this world. Therefore, if there is a human among other species, the human will always be perceived as the hero.

AND IF EVERYONE IS A HERO?

Yes, sometimes we don't want to prioritize. We just want to present the scene as it is and let the viewer explore it at their own will.

THE HERO WILL ALWAYS DIFFER

It doesn't matter which way we choose to present our hero; the bottom line is that he will be different and stand out one way or another.

Now, when you are aware of the Hero Concept, hero prioritization will always take a significant part in your photography composition.

The Hero Concept gets a full module in my online photography composition course, where I go deeper into subject hierarchy in multi-subject scenes.

Happy shooting!

Storytelling is as old as humanity, we all like a good story, be it a book, a movie, or a photograph. The best ones have something extra, something that makes us feel something, moves us emotionally and leaves a lasting impression. And if the story is really good we will share it with whoever we can, that's how stories go viral.

That's the secret behind iconic photographs: they tell a powerful story. Think about those famous pictures you've seen from the past. They might not be perfectly composed or lit, even a little blurred, but most of them have one thing in common - a strong story. What makes a story more powerful than just a pretty picture? It's the emotional connection.

Let's explore a few tips that will help you improve your storytelling skills:

CAPTURE MOMENTS

In order to understand what is storytelling, let's first understand what is a photograph. A photograph is a moment, you are looking at the world with your eyes and at a certain moment something catches you, something makes you press that shutter button and make that particular moment an eternity.

Unless you specialize in still life, landscape, or product photography, your work will mostly revolve around capturing moments. Even in those genres, when working with natural light, the ever-changing light creates different looks and atmospheres, emphasizing the importance of the moment.

If you take on portraiture, it is based on moments as well. A person's posture, gestures, facial expression, and eyes each tell a story, and between one blink of the eye to another, you are getting a completely different person and feeling.

THE POWER OF MOMENT IN PORTRAITURE

These 3 photographs are all taken during 5 seconds. See how a few seconds' difference between the shots resulted in a completely different photograph? They all tell a different story.

Do you think that facial expression would stay forever? In a few seconds it will be different, and with it the story will also change.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE RIGHT MOMENT

It is not in vain that there is an obsession with the decisive moment, because there is really a special moment hidden between ordinary ones. Between a few regular moments, you have the chance to capture the one that tells your story in the most powerful way, with better visual appeal and emotional impact.

It's tempting to switch your camera to high-speed burst mode and capture everything in sight, but that's not the key. The magic lies in observing the everyday and recognizing the potential for a special moment within it. And trust me, you don't want to go through 200 images of the same scene, it simply feels like a waste of time when you are behind the computer.

Everyone is lucky from time to time, but being a good photographer is learning to see and anticipate the moment that is about to happen. It is about consistency, not quantity. You can shoot 2-3 frames a second to not miss a moment in a fast-moving scene. But seriously, don't overuse the series shooting function; if you work in such a way, you will never learn to observe and anticipate.

This shot wasn't planned. I was simply in the moment, camera at the ready, when a scene unfolded before my eyes. Suddenly, everything clicked. Three monks, their robes a vibrant contrast, stood in perfect symmetry. It was a magical moment, a gift from the universe captured in a single frame.

PRACTICE OBSERVATION

You don't actually need a camera to develop your observation skills. During your day outside, instead of sitting on your phone, or being in your thoughts, just observe the world around you. People are interesting creatures and they generate stories all the time; whenever there are people, there is a story.

Stories are happening all the time, you just don't pay attention to them. And here is an interesting thing: your personality will reflect on the stories you notice. I'm working with other photographers often, and what I see is that everyone is paying attention to different things. Usually the things he notices are wired to his character and what is important to him.

One will look at the colors and find interesting color combinations, another one will be obsessed with the play of light, the third one will focus on human interaction, the fourth will notice a parent expressing his love for a child, the fifth one will look at funny happenings, and this list is endless.

What I'm trying to say is that you will see stories that reflect your personality, but that can be changed as well. You just choose a certain subject that you want to observe and focus on that, and suddenly you will see a lot of stories on that particular subject you have chosen to observe.

INCLUDE CONTEXT IN YOUR STORIES

I often ask my students a very simple question: "What is the photograph about?" And very often I hear answers like "Well, you know, these are two people outside, I thought it was a nice story." Sorry guys, but two people on the street is not really storytelling. A story without context is very weak. You must have something more than just two people; try to see what connects these two and tell that story.

So what adds context to a photograph?

• Environmental details: Including the surrounding environment in your photograph gives a sense of place. This could be architectural features, landmarks, street shops, or other elements that describe the location. Environmental details can provide a visual context and set the stage for the story you want to tell.
• Interactions and relationships: Capture interactions between people or subjects to provide context about their relationships or the dynamics of the scene. This could include gestures, expressions, or physical connections that reveal the nature of their interaction.
• Cultural or societal clues: Consider incorporating elements that represent the culture, traditions, or social context of the subject or scene. This can provide a deeper understanding of the story and its significance within a particular cultural or societal context.
• Action: Action can evoke strong emotions and create a sense of intensity within a photograph. Whether it's a passionate embrace, a triumphant jump, or a dynamic movement, action can communicate feelings and engage viewers on a deeper level.
• Weather: When considering the weather in your storytelling photography, think about how it contributes to the overall mood, atmosphere, and context of the scene. Embrace the opportunities presented by different weather conditions to enhance your narrative. For example, monsoon, snowfall, or a sunny day will add different context to your story.

These are just a few of the things that came into my mind, I'm sure there are more.

GET THE CAMERA OUT OF YOUR HEAD

One of the reasons why photographers suck at storytelling is because they are too deep in their technicality; they think that they can engineer their way into a story. Well, while it's good to know your camera and be aware of the latest technology, it has very little to do with storytelling.

In order to get better with storytelling, you will need to get better at seeing moments. Forget about the technical details, get the camera out of your head, and focus on what is in front of your eyes.

Get the camera out of your head, use your eyes, your heart, and your empathy. Just tell the story of what is in front of you in the unique way that only you are able to see it.

THINGS LOOK DIFFERENT FROM A DIFFERENT ANGLE

The world transforms with each shift in perspective. Just like a story unfolds differently depending on who's telling it, your photographs can take on new life with a change of lens or shooting angle.

In this photo, a story told from eye level or with a telephoto lens would be completely different. By crouching low and using a wider aperture, I was able to capture all the elements that make this story unique and impactful for the viewer.

As a photographer, you have the power to shape the story through perspective. Move around your subject, try different angles - crouching low, standing high. Each new vantage point unlocks a fresh look. The direction of light, the background elements, and how your subject is positioned and illuminated will all transform with each shift. Experimentation is key to finding the angle that best captures the emotions and message you want to convey.

KNOW WHEN TO GO WIDE AND WHEN TO GO TIGHT

Knowing which focal length to use while storytelling is critical for a photographer. Telephoto and wide lenses give completely different feelings, and you need to make a decision which one to use, and which one will help you to tell the story better.

The main difference between the two is that with a telephoto lens, you are more of an observer, while a wide one brings you closer to the action and makes you a participant.

This is felt in the photographs: that zoom distance matters, it has a feeling. The more you zoom in, the further you are emotionally from the scene, and that is felt in the photograph. The benefit is that you can show scale, you can isolate parts of an event and tell parts of the story, you can even focus on details that will be difficult to reach with a short lens.

The long lens allowed me to focus on that little detail and tell a story. I have an article about the impact of lens choice and wide or tight framing on the scene.

For me personally, there is nothing like taking a wide lens and having multiple elements together and simply having much more of the story. But wide lenses are trickier and harder to use, especially if you are accustomed to using a telephoto. A wide lens has less depth of field, it is harder to hide the mess behind your subject, and that forces you to think about how to organize the elements in the frame in such a way that they all point to the story.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not telling you that to tell a story you need to work with a wide lens only. You can do storytelling with a telephoto just fine, just that sense of being a participant in the scene resonates with people much stronger. That is perhaps the reason that most documentary photographers are working with 50mm lenses and below.

This image has been shot with a 135mm telephoto lens; sometimes you simply can't get close enough to the subject. By using a telephoto lens I was able to get myself closer to the story and capture such images.

Here, for instance, the image was shot at 35mm, wide enough to include my Hero and his environment. If I had chosen to photograph it with a telephoto lens, it would most likely result in losing a lot of the environmental part, which gives so much extra context.

LIGHT AND COLOR ROLE IN STORYTELLING

Light and color both set the mood, creating a specific atmosphere that complements your story. Soft, diffused light evokes a sense of gentleness, while harsh light can inject drama and tension. Similarly, you can work with different variations of colors to affect the mood of your work.

But light can be more than just a mood setter. For many photographers, it's the very source of the story. Look at the works of Gueorgui Pinkhassov; his work was strongly influenced by both light and color. The way light interacts with a scene, how it highlights details or creates shadows, can be incredibly captivating.

Mastering the language of light. By understanding how your camera captures light, you can unlock a whole new level of storytelling potential. Mastering exposure, working with natural light, and experimenting with artificial light sources empowers you to create emotional photographs that will affect your viewer emotionally.

WORK ON YOUR COMPOSITION SKILLS

I know that at the beginning of the article I said that the moment is more important, but consistently working on and improving your composition skills will certainly benefit your storytelling. It will make you capture these stories with more visual and aesthetic appeal.

Many times when I see a story, I will take a few shots and then look at how I can improve it, and what else I could add to my framing that will make it stronger. So learn about sub-framing, lines, and geometry. Understand who is the hero in your photograph and how to make him look important.

These are all crucial parts that you need to practice up to a level that you read the scene and subconsciously find the right angle. That comes with a lot of practical experience. Merely reading about it is not enough, you need to go out there and practice.

PUTTING THEORY INTO PRACTICE: YOUR DAILY DOSE OF STORYTELLING

Understanding the elements of storytelling is a fantastic first step. But to truly master this art form, you need to put your knowledge into practice. Here's a simple tip: dedicate some time each day, even if it's just a few minutes, to actively seek out and capture stories with your camera, or even your eyes only.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Moment hunter: Look outside and look for fleeting moments that tell a story. It could be a child's laughter, a couple holding hands, or even a lone jogger at dusk.
• Light experimentation: Choose an object or scene and play with different lighting conditions. How does harsh light change the story compared to soft light? I love taking public transport, my favorite are buses. I'd sit and watch how, with every turn of the bus, the light inside changes and illuminates it and the people inside from different angles.
• Perspective play: Get down low, climb a step stool, or simply shift your angle. See how a different perspective changes the narrative.
• The everyday narrative: Don't underestimate the power of the ordinary. Look for stories within your daily routine - a cup of coffee steaming on a table, laundry in the wind, a worn pair of shoes by the door, or a child's drawing left on the fridge.

By consistently practicing these techniques, you'll train your eye to see the world like a storyteller. You'll develop a deeper understanding of how light, composition, and moment all contribute to a powerful narrative. Most importantly, you'll have more fun photographing in a way that not only captures a scene but also evokes emotions and leaves a lasting impression.

Remember, the best way to learn is by doing. Grab your camera, head out into the world, and start telling your stories.

Happy to hear what you have to say.
Welcome to write in the comments!

Did you know that you can use a single color to grab the viewer's attention?

When it comes to visual perception, if light is the king, color is the queen, or the king's twin brother. When you know how to play with both, you can present your work in endless ways and make your viewers feel, not just look.

COLOR THEORY IN PHOTOGRAPHY: WHERE TO START?

While working with colors, we are looking to achieve three main things:

• Create color harmony and feeling.
• Create color contrast.
• Attract the viewer's attention.

CREATING COLOR HARMONY

Creating color harmony in photography means combining colors in a way that feels visually pleasing and balanced. It's about ensuring the colors within a photograph work together cohesively, creating a sense of unity and aesthetic appeal, a palette that is calm to the eye and gives the image a harmonious feel.

The easiest way to create harmony is by using colors from the same side of the color wheel.

Harmony with a single color. You can create color harmony by using a majority of a single color across the image.

Harmony with warm colors only. By using mostly warm colors across the entire image, the photo feels warm and harmonious.

CREATING COLOR CONTRAST

There are many ways to achieve contrast. The most popular:

• Hue contrast: Using colors that are distinctly different on the color wheel, For example, placing red next to green or blue next to orange creates a strong hue contrast.
• Value contrast: It basically means how bright or how dark a certain color is. High color contrast occurs when light and dark colors are placed next to each other. It is very similar to the way you would simply work with light contrast
• Saturation contrast: Saturation is the intensity of a color. Combining highly saturated colors with desaturated, muted ones creates contrast.
• Warm-cool contrast: Warm colors (such as red, orange, and yellow) contrast with cool colors (such as blue, green, and purple).
• Quantity contrast: This involves using different amounts of the same color to create variation. For instance, a small pop of a bright color against a predominantly neutral background can draw attention.

HUE + WARM-COOL CONTRAST EXAMPLE - COMPLEMENTARY COLORS

The use of colors from opposite sides of the color wheel, like blue and yellow.
The mix between warm and cold.

QUANTITY CONTRAST EXAMPLE

HERE ARE 3 TIPS ON HOW TO USE COLOR TO GRAB THE VIEWER'S ATTENTION

Use a bright or saturated color in the scene. Bright or saturated colors will naturally stand out more than dull or muted colors.

This is classic... How many times have you been hanging out with other photographers and it will come up in a way: "Wow! Great frame, only if there was a woman in a red dress passing through."

The reason why photographers like women in red dresses in their photographs is because they simply pop. It's an immediate attention hijack. That is how effective a bold color like red can be.

Use color as a focal point. Position the subject or the area you want to emphasize in the frame so that it's surrounded by the chosen color. The color should frame, highlight, or surround the subject, making it stand out from the rest of the scene.

Minimize other colors. Keep the rest of the scene relatively muted or neutral in terms of color. By minimizing competing colors, you ensure that the chosen color remains the primary focus.

Use bright or saturated colors in the scene. Bright or saturated colors will naturally stand out more than dull or muted colors.

A WAY TO IMPLEMENT COLORS IN YOUR TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY

During my last trip to Vietnam, I found myself a game to play. I noticed that the women there tend to wear very colorful outfits, and the color combinations inspired me to create a small series that I would like to share with you. I would search for different color combinations and photograph them.

If you want to train yourself to notice color on the street, I've included a set of color exercises in my guide on developing the photographic eye.

Have your own tips about color? Add them in the comments section below.

Following other street photographers on Instagram has significant advantages for someone who is learning and wants to improve.

You can benefit greatly for the following reasons:

• You can learn new techniques: By following other street photographers, you can discover new techniques, or just see the different approach a photographer takes in certain situations.
• It can be a source of inspiration: Seeing other street photographers' work can inspire you to try different things and develop your own style. You can also gain creative ideas for subjects, settings, and shooting styles.
• You can discover new locations: Street photographers often explore different neighborhoods and cities to find interesting subjects and scenes. By following them, you can discover new locations and gain ideas for how to approach shooting in these places.
• Networking with other photographers: Following and engaging with other street photographers on Instagram can help you build relationships within the photography community. This can lead to collaboration opportunities, feedback on your work, and exposure to wider audiences.

HERE IS MY LIST OF STREET PHOTOGRAPHERS ON INSTAGRAM I LIKE AND FOLLOW

The list is in random order:

Ilan Ben Yehuda 🇮🇱 - Israeli street & documentary photographer focused on life in Israel.

Gabi Ben Avraham 🇮🇱 - Israeli street photographer, writer of The Street is not a Studio book.

Vineet Vohra 🇮🇳 - Indian street photographer, Leica ambassador.

Claude Renault 🇫🇷 - French street storyteller who travels in interesting locations.

Yash Sheth 🇮🇳 - Young and talented Indian street photographer based in Mumbai.

Maude Bardet 🇫🇷 - French photographer living in Holland but most of the time somewhere else.

Tavepong Pratoomwong 🇹🇭 - Thai street photographer, member of UP Photographers | SPT.

Anna Biret 🇫🇷 - French photographer, LensCulture Street 2021 winner.

Jonathan Jasberg 🇺🇸 - American photographer with over 20 photography awards under his belt.

Julia Coddington 🇦🇺 - Australian photographer, Women in Street FB group founder.

Gustavo Minas 🇧🇷 - Brazilian street photographer, writer of Maximum Shadow Minimal Light book.

Maciej Dakowicz 🇵🇱 - Polish Fujifilm X-Photographer, UP Photographers member.

Chu Việt Hà 🇻🇳 - Fujifilm street photographer based in Hanoi, Vietnam.

Dima Zverev - Famous Russian photographer based in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Marie-Sophie D 🇧🇪 - Minimalist and contemplative b&w street life photography.

Salvatore Matarazzo 🇮🇹 - Based in Italy, full frontal flash photography.

Tatsuo Suzuki 🇯🇵 - Japanese photographer shooting the streets of Tokyo.

Massimiliano Faralli 🇮🇹 - Flash street photographer, winner of the 2022 Miami Street Photo Festival.

Ivan Margot 🇨🇭 - Swiss street and travel photographer with a graphic design background.

Gulnara Samoilova 🇺🇸 - American photographer, founder of Women Street Photographers.

I have personally followed each and every one of them, and they have been a tremendous source of inspiration for me over the years. You can get a glimpse of their work from the brief introductions, but if you follow their work for some time, you will discover a vast universe of creative possibilities.

In this article, we'll explore 10 street photography styles, or call them techniques, to help you get started and improve your skills.

Street photographers are often drawn to the unexpected, the mundane, and the poetic, finding beauty and meaning in the ordinary and the everyday. But there are pacertain patterns, certain things you can look for on the streets. Some small things will help you at the beginning.

1. PLAY WITH LIGHT AND SHADOW: CHIAROSCURO

The chiaroscuro technique is a lighting technique that originated in painting and is now widely used in street photography. It involves strong contrasts between light and shadow to create a sense of depth, drama, and mood in an image.

How to do it: Find a spot where strong light cuts through darkness, a sunbeam between buildings, a shaft of light in a market.
Expose for the brightest part of the scene (spot metering helps), let the shadows fall to black, and wait for a subject to walk into the light.
Your image will look underexposed on the screen; and that's exactly what we are looking for. I explain the full process in my chiaroscuro article

2. USE REFLECTIONS IN YOUR STREET PHOTOS

Reflections in windows, mirrors, and water can add an interesting element to your street photographs. Look for reflective surfaces and use them; sometimes a reflection can be so complex that it stops the viewer, makes them pause to figure out what is happening in the frame.

How to do it: After rain, work the puddles: get your camera low, almost touching the ground, and compose the reflection first, then wait for someone to pass through it.
With shop windows, position yourself at an angle so the reflection and what's behind the glass layer over each other.

3. FOCUS ON DETAILS

Details can tell a story in street photography. Focus on the small details you see on the street, something that makes a scene interesting, and use them to create a strong visual narrative.

How to do it: Spend one session photographing nothing wider than a hand.
Hands at work, worn shoes, objects on a vendor's table, a note taped to a door.
Get close, fill the frame.

4. USE MOTION BLUR

Experiment with slow shutter speeds and panning techniques to create motion blur in your images. This can add a sense of energy and movement to your street photographs. The sweet spot is 1/8 to 1/30 of a second.

How to do it: There are two options.
Brace yourself against a wall or lamppost, set your camera to 1/10 to 1/⅓s, focus on a static element and let the the moving elements smear past it.
Or panning: follow a moving subject (a cyclist works well) at 1/8 to ⅓0s, rotating from the waist, and keep moving after you press the shutter.
Expect misses; Mastering these techniques is as part of it.
I have a Full breakdown in my panning article.

5. USE NEGATIVE SPACE

Negative space can add drama and emphasize your hero. Use the empty space in your composition to draw attention to your subject. The eye will run through the empty space of the frame and land on your subject.

How to do it: Look for empty backgrounds first, a bare wall, an open sky, a rever, or a deep shadow, and treat them as the stage.
Then wait for a single subject to enter, and keep them relatively small in the frame, occupying maybe a tenth of it. The rule of thumb: if it feels like too much empty space, it's probably almost enough.

6. FOCUS ON GESTURES

Gestures and body language can tell a story in street photography. Look for interesting gestures and use them to create something that can touch the viewer on an emotional level.

How to do it: this is a patience technique.
Just watch people for ten minutes: how they talk with their hands, greet, argue, wait. Gestures repeat, which means that you can anticipate the next one.
So once you spot one forming (a pointing hand, a hug beginning, a laugh coming), be ready for it and catch it.

7. GO OUT IN STRANGE WEATHER

Street photography can be unpredictable, and weather can play a big role in the outcome of your images. Be prepared for changes and use them to your advantage to capture unique and dramatic street photographs.

How to do it: You just need to go out when the weather is not exactly comfortable.
At the moments other photographers stay home are exactly when to go out.
Rain gives you umbrellas, reflections, and people running away from it; fog gives you layers and mysterystrong winds gives you people trying to hold things to not fly away.
Just make sure to keep your camera gear safe.

8. LOOK FOR PATTERNS

Patterns can add visual interest to your street photography. Look for repeating shapes, lines, and textures in your surroundings and use them to create dynamic and compelling images.

How to do it: That's an observation task.
Find the pattern first, a row of windows, striped shadows from a fence, stacked market crates, and compose it clean.
Then decide: shoot the pattern pure, or wait for something to break it. The broken pattern is usually the stronger photo: one person walking through the repeating shadows, one red umbrella in a grid of black ones.

9. PLAY WITH SHADOWS

Light and shadow can be your brushes for storytelling. With these two alone, you can create some very interesting images. Look for interesting light sources and shadows, and let your imagination fly.

How to do it: Shoot the shadow instead of the person. Low morning or late afternoon sun stretches shadows long; Position yourself in such a a way, so the shadow becomes the main subject and the person casting it is secondary or even out of frame.
Also look for shadow shapes cast by fences, signs, and leaves that act as costumes and textures on whatever passes through them.

10. INCLUDE ANIMALS

In a busy city, there are street animals of all kinds: dogs, cats, birds, and even a few monkeys. They can add a unique extra layer of interest, emotion, and meaning to a photograph.

How to do it: don't photograph the animal alone; photograph the relationship.
A dog mirroring its owner's posture, a cat watching a fish vendor, pigeons erupting around a walking figure.
Or goats sitting on benches with people
Get to the animal's eye level (yes, it means crouching), and be quick: animals give you one or two chances at most.

DON'T STOP AT THE TECHNIQUE

These are just a few street photography techniques. They will help you; you will know what to look for on the streets.

But please, do yourself a favor and don't just focus on the technique. The technique should have substance. A picture of a goat without a narrative is just a photo of a goat; a long exposure without a narrative is just a long exposure. I often see photographers who focus on the technique and have very little story in their frames. Don't be that photographer!

Look for interesting compositions: a strong composition is essential. Look for shapes, patterns, lines, and frames in your surroundings and use them to create something more interesting than mundane photographs.

Get close to your subject: getting close creates that energy of presence, an intimate and engaging image that tells a story.

But most importantly, practice and enjoy. Street photography should bring you joy and happiness.

The official statement would be that street photography is a genre of photography that captures candid, unposed, and often spontaneous moments of everyday life in public spaces, such as streets, parks, and urban environments. It typically focuses on the people, architecture, and culture of urban areas, and seeks to capture the essence of a moment rather than staging or manipulating it.

But ask 10 different photographers, and each will have their own idea of what street photography is. And it's highly likely that all of them will be correct.

In fact, the definition is slippery enough that I made a whole video about it, and about why some of what we call street photography might not be street photography at all.

In my work, I emphasize candid street photography: people photographed in public places, in unposed, candid situations.

As part of documenting the scene, I'm always looking to add some small twist to it, a moment that elevates it from a simple happening.
Like the expression on the face of the man holding the cross, and the two hands in the foreground. Without these two elements, the photo would lose much of its impact.

THE MOST COMMON STREET PHOTOGRAPHY STYLES

Street photography is an art form that captures the essence of everyday life, and style is how you convey your personal interpretation of that life through your images. There are several styles, or photographic focus areas, in street photography. Here are some of the most common:

Candid street photography. The essence of the moment: capturing people in natural, unposed situations, often emphasizing their expressions, gestures, and body language.

Urban landscape. This style highlights the architecture and environment of the cityscape, often emphasizing patterns, lines, and shapes.

Documentary street photography. This style seeks to document a specific event, situation, or social issue, often with a focus on the people and their experiences.

Street portraiture. Capturing portraits of strangers on the street, with an emphasis on the subject's character or personality.

Layers. One of the common approaches in street photography is to use layers. With higher aperture values, you can tell the story in depth through the frame. You can learn more about layers here.

Graphics and geometry. The style that focuses on striking graphics and geometry in urban environments is often called abstract or geometric street photography. It emphasizes visually strong compositions: lines, shapes, patterns, and the interplay of light and shadow in everyday scenes.

Abstract street photography. Purely visual: unusual angles, reflections, shadows, and other techniques that create abstract, sometimes surreal images.

Humor. Capturing funny or ironic moments in everyday life, with a touch of satire: all the head replacements and comic coincidences the street offers.

Color. In color street photography, pay attention to the color relationships within the frame, and how the colors interact with each other.

Still life. While still life isn't typically associated with street photography, you can incorporate its elements by photographing objects and scenes found in the urban environment.

Details. One way to use details is to capture images that suggest a larger narrative: a close-up of a fortune teller's hands, for example. Hands are a very powerful storytelling tool.

These are just a few styles to give you an idea. Street photography is broad, and almost any photographer can find a way to express themselves using the people and elements of the street.

IS STREET PHOTOGRAPHY LEGAL?

The legality of street photography depends on the laws of the specific country or region, so it's highly recommended to check before traveling whether you can photograph there.

In most places, street photography is legal as long as it's conducted in a public space where there's no reasonable expectation of privacy. You can photograph people, buildings, and other elements in public areas such as streets, parks, and sidewalks.

However, restrictions vary by location. Military zones are off-limits, and some places don't allow photographing law enforcement. In India, for example, photography is not allowed in train stations (even though you see plenty of photographs from there, it's forbidden). In some places security concerns make photography difficult; in others you may need a permit.

Street photographers need to know the local laws, and respect the privacy and personal space of the people they photograph. Yes, I know it sounds contradictory, but with time you develop a gut feeling that tells you which situations are okay and which are not.

To simplify: it's usually allowed to take photos on the street. But once you point your camera at someone's house or window, it can be considered an invasion of privacy.

CAN YOU PHOTOGRAPH CHILDREN ON THE STREET?

Legally: check the rules of the place you plan to photograph. Some European laws don't favor street photography much.

Ethically: some people have real issues with a stranger photographing their child, while others are fine with it. As best practice, when parents are around, it's always wise to ask permission. And it matters how you feel: if you feel you're doing something wrong or unethical, just don't do it.

So can you or can't you? It really depends on the location and your attitude. Photographing with a long lens in a park, you're likely to be perceived as a creep. Doing it at a basketball match could be completely fine. You're less likely to meet resistance photographing children in most of Asia, while parents in Europe and the United States have been known to call the police on photographers. There's also the factor of gender: society is more tolerant of female photographers photographing children.

SO, WHAT IS STREET PHOTOGRAPHY?

The best way to describe it: street photography is a captivating art form that lets us document the world around us and tell visual stories through our images. It provides an opportunity to connect with people and places in a more meaningful way, and offers photographers a chance to express their unique perspective and creativity.

If you want to get better at it, start with my guide to developing the photographic eye.

BOOKS ABOUT STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

These are some of the books I'd recommend looking into:

For disclosure: these are Amazon affiliate links, and I might receive a small commission if you decide to purchase one of the books on the list.

• The Americans by Robert Frank - a classic and influential book of black and white photographs taken during Frank's road trip across America in the 1950s.
• Magnum Street Wise by Stephen Maclaren - The definitive collection of street photography from the Magnum agency: iconic images alongside previously unseen work by masters like Cartier-Bresson, Elliott Erwitt, Alex Webb and Martin Parr, organized by the cities and themes that shaped the genre.
• Street Photography Now by Sophie Howarth and Stephen McLaren - a contemporary survey of the best street photographers working today, with interviews and examples of their work.
• Magnum Contact Sheets by Kristen Lubben - a fascinating look at the contact sheets of famous Magnum photographers, including Henri Cartier-Bresson and Elliott Erwitt.
• Humans of New York by Brandon Stanton - a collection of portraits and stories of New Yorkers, which became a hugely popular blog and social media phenomenon.
• The Suffering of Light by Alex Webb - a retrospective of Webb's colorful and complex street photographs taken around the world.
• Bystander: A History of Street Photography by Colin Westerbeck and Joel Meyerowitz - a comprehensive history of the genre, featuring the work of many different photographers.
• Vivian Maier: Street Photographer by John Maloof - the work of the previously unknown street photographer Vivian Maier, discovered after her death.
• Masters of Street Photography by Rob Yarham - a collection of striking images by Melissa Breyer, Giacomo Brunelli, Sally Davies, George Georgiou, Jay Maisel, Jesse Marlow, Rui Palha, Alan Schaller, Alexey Titarenko, Martin U Waltz and others.
• Street Photography: Creative Vision Behind the Lens by Valérie Jardin - a guide to the technical and creative sides of street photography, featuring Jardin's own work.

Photographing strangers on the street can be a difficult task for many photographers. It requires some level of courage and getting out of your comfort zone. Many photographers have a traumatic experience with it and just give up, or they try to shoot unnoticed, and that results in un-engaging photographs, photos where you can smell the fear of the photographer.

Getting close is mostly a matter of courage, and courage can be trained. I made a whole video about exactly this

In this article I will do my best to help you deal with these fears, in both technical and psychological ways.

When it comes to photographing people on the street, there are two ways of doing it. One is intrusive, and the other non-intrusive.

THE NON-INTRUSIVE APPROACH

Non-intrusive photography involves capturing images of people in public spaces without drawing attention to yourself or disrupting their activities.
Photographers using non-intrusive techniques may opt for longer lenses to capture candid shots without getting close, or use a wide lens to include people as part of the scene, with the subjects unaware they are being photographed.

In most cases, non-intrusive people photography results in the subject being unaware of the photographer, giving the photograph a calm sense of observation from a distance.

Overall, non-intrusive photography is often considered the more respectful and ethical approach. I hold a different opinion on this matter.
The use of a telephoto lens makes the person completely unaware of your actions.
It's almost like you are spying on them, similar to a safari, but instead of zebras, you are photographing people.
While it may help you avoid uncomfortable situations and potential confrontations, I don't necessarily see it as more ethical.

CAMERA AND GEAR TIPS FOR PHOTOGRAPHING PEOPLE WITHOUT BEING NOTICED

• Use silent mode: disable all the sounds your camera makes.
• Shoot from the hip: bringing the camera to your eye immediately attracts attention. Most modern cameras have articulated screens; use them to shoot from lower angles that are less noticeable. Compose your image and look the other way while taking photos of your subject.
• Use a telephoto lens and shoot from a distance: the safari approach.
• Use a wide lens (35mm or 28mm): capture a broader view without getting too close and arousing suspicion
• Use a smaller camera: small cameras are popular among street photographers because they don't draw attention.
• Use zone focusing: pre-focus your camera to a specific distance so you don't need to adjust focus when taking the shot. You react faster and capture the moment in a split second.

5 examples of non-intrusive people photography

THE ART OF BECOMING INVISIBLE: MY 7 RULES

In my travels to Africa, I found that many people don't like to be photographed, so I had to improvise. I had to find a way to become invisible. It took me years to polish my street attitude, and through trial and error I came up with a set of rules that have helped me many times. Here are my top 7 tips for becoming invisible while photographing people (and no, we're not counting shooting from the hip).

1. Observe first: take some time to observe your surroundings and the people in them before taking out your camera. This helps you find a good spot to shoot from and assess the scene before taking any pictures.
2. Find the rhythm: every place has its rhythm; a bustling morning market is significantly faster than a shopping mall. You cannot run around when everyone else is slower. Move at the speed of the street.
3. No sudden movements: an addition to the rhythm rule. Don't stand out in the way you move. Think harmony; you need to be harmonious with the environment around you.
4. Be patient: wait for the right moment rather than rushing. Keep your camera down and observe; when you see something about to happen, only then raise your camera.
5. Outfit: avoid clothing that is bright, flashy, or attention-grabbing. Neutral colors and comfortable clothes that blend with the environment make you less noticeable. I was shooting with a friend recently, and he told me later he kept losing sight of me even when I was three meters away. That's the level to aim for.
6. Avoid eye contact: eye contact draws attention and makes people aware of your presence.
7. Shoot when your subject is occupied: when their attention is focused on something else, they are less likely to notice you.

And if all of that didn't work for you, just use a telephoto and shoot from a distance.

THE INTRUSIVE APPROACH

Intrusive photography involves getting close to people and actively engaging with them to capture the shot. It usually means a shorter focal length, and the subject is aware of your presence. This approach creates a more assertive feeling, a sense of participation rather than observation. Personally, I find intrusive photography significantly more impactful, and it is my preferred method.

When you approach with a short lens, you are typically 1-2 meters from your subject, with nowhere to hide. If you are noticed and the person doesn't want to be photographed, they will let you know, so your conscience remains clear. Of course, if you intrude by pushing the camera in someone's face, you might encounter confrontation, but in my experience this happens very rarely.

HOW TO PHOTOGRAPH PEOPLE UP CLOSE AND GET AWAY WITH IT

• Have the right attitude: your most important skill is your own attitude and body language. Be soft-spoken and genuinely nice.
• Fear is your biggest enemy: you should not appear scared; people can sense fear.
• Behave as if you belong: your behavior should convey that you're doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing. Camera on full display, approach with confidence, like a news reporter. Confidence prevents objections.
• Blend in: no shiny jewelry, no branded outfits. When people look at you, they should see "one of us."
• Stand out (yes, the opposite): when traveling abroad, the reverse works. Put on a distinctive hat and look like a typical tourist; people tend to be friendly to tourists. As an Israeli shooting in Jerusalem, I wear hiking pants, hiking shoes, a hat, and a daypack. It makes me read as a tourist, and it often gets me access I wouldn't otherwise have.
• Learn the rhythm: a busy market moves differently than a lazy beachfront. Move the way the locals move.
• Stand in a quiet spot: in a busy area, take a step back and let the flow pass around you. Shoot from there and nobody approaches you.
• Know your crowd: observe how people in this particular place respond to photography.
• Choose less-visited places: people in locations frequented by photographers respond less positively to yet another camera. In less popular places, the welcome is warmer.
• Learn to say "I'm sorry": when you encounter objections, say it as many times as needed.
• Learn to smile: a smile takes you a long way in street photography. Don't underestimate it.
• Don't argue: your ego and who's right don't matter. What matters is staying in a good mood to photograph, and people forgetting you as soon as possible. If someone says you can't photograph here, arguing only escalates, even if you're legally right. Say sorry, smile, and delete the photo if asked.
• Ask for permission: sometimes you can simply ask, and it will be granted.

Here are 5 examples of intrusive people photography.

CLOSING

Photographing strangers is always a challenge, especially for a beginner. Both approaches are legitimate; my heart is with the close, participatory one, but the skills of invisibility serve you either way. What's your approach? How do you prefer to photograph people on the street? Tell me in the comments.

In order to understand how photography exposure works and the effect it has on your photographs, you need to get your head around a few more things. The first one is learning to look at the world and see it the way your camera sees it.

Prefer to see it in action? I explain exposure and dynamic range with live examples in this video. Everything below is the written version.

TO UNDERSTAND EXPOSURE, WE FIRST NEED TO UNDERSTAND DYNAMIC RANGE

Cameras and people see light differently. The design of a camera is very similar to the human eye, but they don't see the same. For instance, we aren't as good as cameras at noticing the color of light, but our eyes have a better dynamic range than any camera.

The human eye, at this moment in time, is about twice as advanced as the modern camera. People are able to see things in the deep shadows and in the highlights at the same time; cameras can't.

The human eye doesn't see the scene the way it is photographed below; therefore, we need to learn to look at a scene and visualize how it will look on camera. With time, it becomes easy to accomplish.

The human eye can perceive approximately 20-24 stops of light, whereas modern cameras are limited to 12-15 stops. Therefore, using a camera is always a matter of compromise: we have to decide toward which light values we are going to expose our image.

A "stop" is simply a division of light tonality, with each stop representing a doubling of the level of brightness. For convenience, this range has been divided from 0 to 24.

With a camera, we are limited in our light-capturing options: we can focus on the brighter, middle, or darker range of the image.

We can extend that range in editing, or by using methods like HDR, but the latter is challenging when photographing handheld and is mostly used in photography where the camera is stabilized on a tripod.

SPLITTING THE SCENE INTO LIGHT VALUES

To gain better control of the light in our scene, it's advisable to observe it and categorize it into different light values. To simplify, let's use three categories. We don't really need 24 stops to understand how exposure works; Brights, Mid-tones and Darks will do.

• Brights: the brightest parts of the image, such as the sky or bare bulbs.
• Mid-tones: the name is self-explanatory; neither the darkest nor the brightest parts of the scene.
• Darks: the darker parts of the image.

WIDE DYNAMIC RANGE

A wide dynamic range occurs when you have all three lighting categories, very bright, mid-tones and very dark parts, in a single image. In such cases, we need to prioritize our exposure: are we going to expose for the brighter parts of the image or the darker ones?

Prioritization makes it harder to work with a wide dynamic range. Images with a wide dynamic range tend to have more contrast.

NARROW DYNAMIC RANGE

A narrow dynamic range occurs when you have only two light categories: mid-tones and shadows, or highlights and mid-tones. You don't have the same broad spread of tonality across the image as in a wide range; all the light values sit more or less in the same area.

While working with a narrow dynamic range, most of the details can be seen in both the dark and bright parts of the image. A narrow dynamic range contributes to lower contrast.

IMPLEMENTING DYNAMIC RANGE IN OUR PHOTOGRAPHY

In most cases (not always), we aim to narrow the dynamic range of the scene. That leaves us with only two light values to deal with, and that makes exposure choices easier.

This can be achieved by recomposing the image so that the brightest or darkest parts are simply out of the frame. You can also do this by cropping at home, but I strongly recommend trying to do it in-camera and on location. This way, you learn to notice these things while shooting.

Let's compare the two images.

DYNAMIC RANGE PROBLEM-SOLVING TIPS

• Narrow down the dynamic range of the scene.
• If you have all three levels of light, try to narrow them to two.
• You can do that by excluding the brightest or the darkest part from your frame.
• Then use your exposure to control how your frame will look.

WHAT IS "THE RIGHT" EXPOSURE?

While the Wikipedia article on exposure tends to complicate things, and a beginner can get confused, I will do my best to explain photography exposure in the simplest way possible.

• Exposure, in simple terms, refers to how bright or dark your image appears. If your image is too dark, in photography language it's called underexposed; if it's too bright, it's called overexposed.
• Correctly exposed images are neither too dark nor too bright; they fall somewhere in between.
• But "the right" exposure is the one you choose to use, not necessarily the "correct" one. Sometimes we prefer things brighter, other times darker.

So the next time you come across a comment about a photograph being overexposed or underexposed, try to look past the technical aspect.
Instead, consider whether the photograph is exposed correctly according to its intended idea.
Does it convey the message effectively?
Would adjusting the exposure change the photograph's impact?

The photographs above may be technically underexposed or overexposed, but that is the creative idea behind them.
If they were technically correct, the visual message would be completely different.

SUBJECT TO BACKGROUND RELATIONSHIPS

When exposing your photographs, keep in mind that your subject and your background might have different exposure values.

This is the most common exposure mistake photographers make!
Photographer gets excited about the subject and doesn't notice that the background has become too bright or overexposed.

Remember that your background and your subject are parts of the same frame; when planning the exposure for one, check how it affects the other.
The general recommendation is to expose for the subject, but sometimes we break that rule.

COMMON PHOTOGRAPHY EXPOSURE MISTAKES AND HOW TO AVOID THEM

PHOTOGRAPHY EXPOSURE TIPS

• Camera light metering systems can get confused when direct light hits the lens, resulting in incorrect readings. To fix this, you may need to brighten your exposure.
• Metering can also get confused when a large dark object dominates the frame, again giving inaccurate readings. In such cases, adjust your exposure to darken it.
• Typically, aim to have your subject appear brighter than, or at least equally illuminated as, the background. This progression from bright to dark creates higher contrast and helps your subject stand out.
• When subject and background share the same tonality, you often end up with lower-contrast, flatter photos. If that's not your intent, consider changing your position so the light on one of them differs.
• When capturing a dark subject against a brighter background, your options are limited: use a flash to even out the light values, or expose for the subject and accept a brighter background.
• Remember that light and exposure are only one part of composition. For more photography tips, check my education page.

I hope you found this exposure guide useful. Welcome to add your own exposure tips in the comments!

Morocco is one of these countries that is very prejudicial towards photography. From one side it is amazingly photogenic, from another, because of the cultural aspect you might face some difficulties photographing there. With all that, it is one of my favorite photography destinations in the world, and I do yearly photography workshops to Morocco.

Everyone warned me about photographing there! They said people get aggressive towards tourists with cameras, you might have to pay them off, or even get into trouble.

Well, guess what? I spent three months in that very country anyway, and here I am to tell the story! While the warnings had some truth to them, I found a few ways to work around it and still come back with some amazing photos.

Now, let's dive into my Morocco photography tips and ideas!

TIPS FOR PHOTOGRAPHING PEOPLE IN MOROCCO

One of the easiest tips is to photograph un-intrusively. I've written a full article about photographing people un-intrusively, but let me guide you through it anyway.

Don't get too close: make the person part of the scene. No one can come to you and say, "Hey, why are you photographing me?" You are there, photographing the scene. The fact that the person walked into your scene is not your fault. It works best with a wider lens, the person most likely won't even be aware they're in the frame.



Shoot from a low angle: when people see you shooting from a very low angle, they won't think you want to include them in the frame.

Use a telephoto lens: personally, I prefer shooting with short focal lengths, but in Morocco it might be a good idea to distance yourself a bit with a telephoto lens.

Photograph people who are engaged in some activity: working, busy people have their minds occupied and couldn't care less about photographers.

Genuinely connect: that's a photography rule that works in other places of the world as well. Just have the human connection first, and only then engage in photography.

PHOTOGRAPHY GEAR TIPS FOR MOROCCO

In general, I'd recommend a zoom lens like 24-70mm for capturing shots in alleys and a range of wide to medium compositions. Additionally, a longer telephoto lens such as 70-200mm, coupled with a wide-aperture lens like f/1.4 or similar for low light scenes, can be beneficial.

If you plan to go to the desert and do some landscape photography, a tripod is recommended.

For many years, my personal full-frame camera kit included:

• 24-70mm f/2.8 lens
• 50mm f/1.2 lens
• 135mm f/2 lens

More recently, as I've leaned toward street photography, I use a crop body with the following lenses:

• 18mm f/1.4
• 33mm f/1.4
• 18-50mm f/2.8
• 90mm f/2

Personal tip: I often choose a single lens and stick with it for the entire session. This approach helps me stay more focused and engaged in the present moment. I intentionally disregard other focal lengths and concentrate on what I can create, rather than what I could potentially achieve.

IDEAS FOR PHOTOGRAPHY IN MOROCCO

Unrelated to which city you're in, I have found that the best places to photograph are the older areas of the cities, the so-called medinas. There are several reasons for that:

Tip 1, the photogenic textures: there is nothing else like the old walls and their texture to take me back to medieval times. The place is so authentic, I can't think of another place like it. You don't even need to chase people, you can build all your photography in Morocco around that.

Tip 2, plenty of early morning activity: there is always a lot more activity in the old cities in the morning than in the normal residential areas. Right before sunrise you can start capturing people and movement, and early in the morning, people care less about photographers, they have their own agenda and don't really care about you.

Tip 3, photogenic narrow alleys in the medina: the narrow alleys in the old Moroccan cities provide great opportunities for a photographer. Because the walls are quite high, I would get into these at about 9am when the sun finds its way inside, and start looking for visuals. Once I find one, I would stay there for a few minutes and wait for a person to enter my frame. In popular street photography terms, it's called fishing.

Tip 4, look for light in the old cities: the old cities are a treasure box of interesting light spots. I could spend hours looking for these.

Tip 5, the leather tanneries in Fes and Marrakech: these are the most touristic spots in both cities. While culturally interesting, you might find yourself almost pressured to go there by random local guys on the streets. My best photography tip for the tanneries would be to go as early as you can, that will help you avoid the crowds and the sticky, so-called tour guides on the streets.

Tip 6, the food markets: they're always busy and culturally interesting, I'd recommend them for any photography trip to any country. Just go there and see how the locals live and shop.

Tip 7, the old shops: especially the light and rug shops. They are so vibrant and interesting that you just can't pass by them. Another good thing is that owners usually have no problem if you photograph the shops, you're a potential buyer after all.

Tip 8, the doors in the old cities: this is a 100% Morocco photography tip. This place is full of beautiful carved doors, and if you're a doors lover, you have the potential to come back home with hundreds of photographs of doors.

Tip 9, the walls in the old cities: I'm a big fan of photographing the city walls in Morocco, their colors, textures, and shapes are truly magnificent, and if you're lucky to find a cool shadow on them, you can create truly special images.

Tip 10, views from the roofs: if you can get yourself up on a roof or high point in an old city, just do it. Moroccan cities are no less interesting to photograph from above than from below.

Tip 11, photographing cemeteries: might sound creepy, but hey, we're here to get tips on where to photograph, and this is another one of mine.

MOST PHOTOGENIC CITIES TO PHOTOGRAPH IN MOROCCO

I spent three months in Morocco, and I can't say I even covered half of what I initially planned. The reason for that was that Morocco is so interesting and photogenic, every place I went, I just spent longer than I initially planned.

MARRAKECH, THE PINK CITY

You can't skip that one! If I had to choose one city to photograph in Morocco, it would be Marrakech. You can easily spend a week there, getting lost in the small alleys or chasing light on the city wall. This city is amazing! It is real and extremely photogenic.

This is also one of the cities where I run a full seven-day photography workshop, simply because it has the most to offer for a photographer.

Spend at least 2-3 days there, but if you can, spend 5 or more.

FES, THE CULTURAL CAPITAL OF MOROCCO

Fes is one of Morocco's oldest and most culturally rich cities. It offers photographers a wealth of fascinating subjects to capture, from the leather tanneries to the roofs with stunning views over the city. I would allocate at least 3 days to explore the city.

RABAT, THE CAPITAL CITY OF MOROCCO

For me, Rabat was a surprise, I didn't expect much from it from a photography point of view, but was met with beautiful city walls and an interesting white and blue colored old city.

I visited during COVID so attractions like Hassan Tower and the Mausoleum of Mohammed V were closed, but I know that they are very photogenic, so you should add these to your list of things to photograph.

If I were to go back, I would allocate at least 2 days there.

ESSAOUIRA

Essaouira is much smaller than I anticipated and yet packed with charm and photographic opportunities.

Spend at least one early morning and late afternoon at the port, and the rest of the time, explore the small streets of the old city.

This is the place where I captured more than 100 different doors, it is door heaven in Morocco.

Spend at least 2 days there.

EL JADIDA

Another small city that deserves at least a one-day stop, my photographic focus would be the old city and beachside area.

TIZNIT

A small town with a beautiful old city, definitely worth a one-day stop.

THE DESERT: MERZOUGA

Morocco has magnificent dunes in the Merzouga area, if it's on your way, don't hesitate to spend a night there. Go out early in the morning and you will find a majestic play of light and shape on the sand, they photograph so well! Just be very careful with the sand, don't change lenses out in the open, because you can easily find your sensor covered with sand. I had to scrupulously clean all my photography gear after visiting there, sand managed to get its way through to the most unimaginable places.

THE BLUE CITY: CHEFCHAOUEN

Although mostly overrun by group tourism, it is still a beautiful and special destination to photograph in Morocco.

Good for 2-3 days of photography.

TETOUAN, THE WHITE CITY

If you have some extra time, make your way up to the north and visit this magnificent place. All the old part of the city is snow white, which is absolutely beautiful. And since there is almost no tourism there, you will find yourself having this photogenic city just for yourself.

I'd recommend taking at least 2 days to explore.

AÏT BENHADDOU, THE GLADIATOR SHOOTING LOCATION

Aït Benhaddou is mostly famous for its appearance in the movie Gladiator, where Maximus gets sold into slavery. It's more of an "on the way" destination. You can swing by while traveling elsewhere, or stay for a night to photograph the golden light washing over the palace early in the morning.

This list isn't exhaustive! There are many other amazing places I haven't included yet. I just haven't spent enough time in those spots to form a solid photographic opinion and offer the best tips.

Which ones are your favorite places for photography in Morocco?

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO VARANASI PHOTOGRAPHY

Varanasi, often called a photographer's paradise, is like the beating heart of India's spirituality. It's that kind of place that's a total photographer's dream, no matter where you're from.

Having been lucky enough to explore Varanasi on multiple occasions, I can vouch that it's a real gem. It's my own photography haven as well, a place where I've captured some of my most cherished shots. Not only that, it's also become a top pick for my photography workshops. The city's blend of spirituality, vibrant colors, and candid life scenes is an absolute delight for anyone with a camera in hand.

*Just to give a bit of the feeling.*

WHY VARANASI IS ONE OF THE BEST DESTINATIONS FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS IN THE WORLD

Spiritual and cultural legacy: the city's ancient lineage as one of the world's oldest inhabited places lends an air of mystique to every frame. Its deep cultural resonance is palpable through the rituals, ceremonies, and interactions along the sacred Ganges River. Its historic and religious significance attracts thousands of visitors and pilgrims to the city every day, and these become wonderful subjects to photograph.

Ganges Ghats, a photographer's playground: the ghats are the heart of Varanasi's essence. You can photograph everything from religious ceremonies to intimate moments of daily life, a devotee's bath, clothes washing, or prayers, the ghats are a never-ending source of visual stories.

Beautiful morning light: the soft touch of light during the golden hours transforms Varanasi into a mesmerizing dreamworld. As sunlight dances on the river's surface, and ancient buildings bathe in its warmth, the ethereal quality of the light amplifies the magic of your photography.

Religious rituals: every day, you can witness various groups from different Indian communities performing religious rituals. To be frank with you, I would often come randomly to Varanasi and there will be some holiday, some puja for some community. The number of religious ceremonies performed there has no ending.

Unique faces, sadhus: in the colorful chaos of Varanasi, you'll come across the intriguing figures known as sadhus, or babas. Swathed in saffron robes, often smoking ganja, these ascetics radiate a kind of spiritual mojo that's just plain captivating. Their faces, often covered with ashes, tell tales of a life soaked in meditation and devotion, making them fascinating characters for portrait photography.

Unique visuals: truly, there is no other city that looks and feels the same. Being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, it's just built in layers, there are hundreds of very ancient temples and sacred places spread across the city. I often joke that every stone or wall in that city can be holy.

Photographing the streets: the narrow alleys of Varanasi's old city are full of life, giving you a glimpse into the city's soul. There is a story waiting to be told behind every corner, you just need to look for it.

WHEN IS THE BEST SEASON TO PHOTOGRAPH IN VARANASI?

Typically, the prime tourism season and the most opportune period for photography span from autumn through spring. Commencing roughly a week ahead of the Dev Diwali festival and extending up to Holi, this window offers splendid photographic opportunities.

The winter months are more advisable for photography. During this season, the city often experiences foggy days that infuse an extra layer of mystique into your photos.
Another benefit is that during these days your golden hour time extends.

Summers are characterized by intense warmth and harsh sunlight, limiting the available photography hours.

The monsoon season is another good time for photography here. It offers a different perspective on Varanasi.
Many places that you are used to walking during the winter months become flooded. The riverbank becomes inaccessible, and life shifts to the small alleys behind.

There are certain types of photographs that you can only capture during these times.

WHEN IS THE BEST TIME OF DAY TO PHOTOGRAPH IN VARANASI?

Varanasi is bathed in beautiful golden light in the mornings. However, during the afternoon, the light shifts to the opposite shore, which is less busy.
Therefore, I would recommend focusing most of your photographic efforts during the morning hours. You can start photographing at sunrise and continue until 9-10 AM along the Ganga shore.
Later on, hunt for the light and explore the small alleys.

BEST SHOOTING LOCATIONS IN VARANASI

THE GANGA AARTI PUJA CEREMONY

The evening aarti ceremony held on the main ghat, Dashashwamedh Ghat, is tremendously popular and deserves an evening of your time. If you're blessed with extra days, consider visiting Asi Ghat for both the evening and morning ceremonies. The morning session holds a unique charm as it tends to be less crowded, accompanied by an array of activities that make for splendid photographic subjects.

Evening sessions start prior to sunset, while the morning ones typically precede sunrise. Given the varying timings, it's advisable to inquire on-site or at your accommodation for precise details.

PHOTOGRAPHING THE RITUAL BATHINGS

As dawn breaks, locals and pilgrims alike gather at the ghats to partake in ritual baths in the holy Ganges River. This early-morning cleansing is believed to purify the body and soul, washing away sins and bestowing blessings.
Devotees immerse themselves in the sacred waters, often accompanied by the chanting of prayers and hymns, as the rising sun washes the riverbank in warm morning light. It creates a beautiful connection between the physical act of cleansing and the spiritual act of devotion.
All of that, combined with the morning light, creates an unbelievable atmosphere for photography.

Mornings around the Ganga River are rich with activities. People are bathing, sending flowers, doing yoga, or just going about their daily life.

THE KUSHTI AKHARAS

These are traditional gyms, often with wrestling areas. They're a really interesting subject for photography. If you're lucky, you might witness some of the wrestling activities.
Otherwise, it will just be the training part, which is equally fascinating. There's a highly popular one near Asi Ghat, and a few others are scattered throughout the city, including one near the bridge at the last ghat

THE HOLY MEN: SADHUS AND BABAS

Usually, they expect some monetary reward for modeling, and the amount can vary depending on your preference. Some may be willing to join you for an extended photoshoot session, and might even accompany you for a sunrise boat ride, providing you with the chance to capture classic images of a holy man on a boat.

THE NARROW ALLEYWAYS

Once the sun climbs high and capturing shots at the ghats becomes challenging, you can take a deep dive and lose yourself in Varanasi's labyrinthine back alleys. Simply wander through the streets, play with the interplay of light and shadow, and uncover your personal favorite corners.

Three areas stand out as particularly interesting:

First, the stretch from Main Ghat towards Manikarnika Ghat, you can ascend near Alta Hotel and meander through the quaint lanes. Second, explore the paths tucked behind Asi Ghat, which lead all the way to Main Ghat.
Third, venture from Manikarnika Ghat towards the bridge.

Exploring each of these can easily consume several hours, requiring at least three mornings to adequately photograph them all.

THE TEXTILE FACTORIES

Another fascinating subject to photograph. Varanasi has been a hub for textiles and weaving for centuries, and its textile factories are an integral part of the city's rich cultural and economic heritage. Textile production in Varanasi dates back to ancient times and continues to be done manually, in the same way as it was centuries ago. Make sure to grab your wide-aperture lens, as these spaces are usually poorly lit.

KEDAR GHAT, MY FAVORITE SPOT

Kedar Ghat is one of the five sacred ghats in Varanasi. It's easily recognizable due to its striped stairs, and it's also one of the busiest ones. Some of my favorite photos come from this place, and I recommend spending a morning here.

HOW TO PLAN YOUR SHOOTING DAYS

Start early, essentially by following the natural light. Ensure an early start, venture out before sunrise and continue photographing until the sun reaches its zenith. You can remain along the riverbank until 9-10 AM. Remember to explore the opposite side of the river as well, you can access it from the main ghat, with boats continuously ferrying passengers.

• Sunrises at the ghats: begin with capturing the mesmerizing sunrise scenes at the ghats.
• When the sun soars: as the sun ascends to its peak, explore the back alleys, gyms, textile factories, and bustling markets.
• Evening moments: during the evening, position yourself at the Ganga Aarti ceremony area or saunter along the riverbank.
• Personal preference: personally, I rarely engage in photography during the evenings. Instead, I relish leisurely strolls, engaging in conversations with locals, and simply being present in the moment.

PHOTOGRAPHING FESTIVALS IN VARANASI

Shooting at Indian festivals can be very rewarding, but also a very stressful experience. On one side, they are very beautiful, on the other, very crowded and attracting many photographers. You might find 500 photographers trying to capture the same subject. It involves a lot of pushing and might not be the experience you have imagined.

Dev Diwali is the most visually attractive festival: this is when all the ghats are decorated with candles, and if you manage to capture it properly, you'll come back home with beautiful images. My tip for this festival is to come a week earlier, you'll have the opportunity to shoot it on a smaller scale and get to know the place. Dates change every year.

Masan Holi happens 3-4 days before the actual Holi celebration. Its uniqueness is that it's celebrated in the cremation ground, and the main participants are dressed up as Aghori babas. But it's a very cloudy one, and getting a shot can be challenging.

Shivaratri is another one. I personally never had the chance to photograph it, but as far as I know, apart from the bathing in the Ganga, most of the activities are in the various Shiva temples around town.

And how about Holi? There are better places to photograph it. You do have some celebrations here, but they mostly involve young people who drink a lot and go absolutely wild. Many locals lock their children at home and let them out only after the craziness on the streets dies down.

Other than these, look for popular bathing days, on these days you will have more people than usual coming to the Ganga. Almost every month has a few of them, so it's better to do some research on the subject.

HOW MANY DAYS DO I NEED?

To photograph without stress and truly enjoy what Varanasi has to offer for a photographer, I would recommend allocating at least a week there.

If you're on a tight schedule, a minimum of 2 nights is suggested. This will enable you to experience one evening and one morning at the aarti ceremony, take a boat ride, and engage in photography within the alleys.

CULTURAL ETIQUETTE: DO'S AND DON'TS

The Ganga shore is full of small temples like the one in the photo, and it's customary to remove your shoes before stepping onto one.

• Photographing women bathing: exercise caution when photographing women bathing, especially during changing moments. This can potentially lead to trouble. You'll observe that at most ghats, women bathe on one side while men on the other. In such instances, I typically avoid positioning myself on the women's side. However, if it's a mixed area, I carefully capture photos while respecting their privacy.
• Cremation grounds: in general, photography within cremation areas is prohibited. However, you can obtain a "special" permission at a cost. The expense varies depending on your perceived affluence, the size of your camera, and your bargaining skills. Shooting from a boat or maintaining a distance generally avoids any issues.
• Various akharas: when visiting the different akharas, remember to remove your shoes. The training grounds hold a sense of sanctity, necessitating your respect.

WHICH PHOTOGRAPHY GEAR SHOULD I TAKE TO VARANASI?

The choice of gear largely depends on your shooting style.

Street photographers usually opt for a 28mm or 35mm prime lens. In general, I'd recommend a zoom lens like 24-70mm for capturing shots in alleys and a range of wide to medium compositions. Additionally, a longer telephoto lens such as 70-200mm, coupled with a wide-aperture lens like f/1.4 or similar, can be beneficial.

For many years, my personal full-frame camera kit included:

• 24-70mm f/2.8 lens
• 50mm f/1.2 lens
• 135mm f/2 lens

More recently, as I've leaned toward street photography, I use a crop body with the following lenses:

• 18mm f/1.4 = 28mm on Full Frame
• 33mm f/1.4 = 50mm on Full Frame
• 18-50mm f/2.8 = 28-70mm on Full Frame
• 90mm f/2 = 135mm on Full Frame

Personal tip: I often choose a single lens and stick with it for the entire session. This approach helps me stay more focused and engaged in the present moment. I intentionally disregard other focal lengths and concentrate on what I can create, rather than what I could potentially achieve.

PHOTOGRAPHY COSTS: PRICES FOR PHOTOS AND BOATS

• Boat ride (1 hour, 300-1200 rupees): the cost depends on your bargaining skills and the time you plan to embark. During puja and sunrise times, boats tend to be pricier.
• Baba photography (holy man): many of them supplement their income by receiving a few rupees from photographers. A single click usually costs 10-20 rupees. If you'd like to arrange a somewhat staged shoot and have them pose for about 5-10 minutes, it's around 100 rupees. For a 1-hour boat ride during sunrise, the charge can range from 300 to 1000 rupees, depending on the baba and your bargaining prowess. It's a good idea to agree on a meeting point and take their phone number the day before, as they are known to indulge in late-night activities, sometimes making them difficult to find in the morning. (Avoid paying in advance, as you might never encounter the baba or see your money again.)

I'm sure I have missed thousands of other things, but I believe I have managed to create the most comprehensive guide to Varanasi photography. Varanasi is indeed an inexhaustible wellspring of photographic opportunities and serves as my personal source of inspiration.

If you're not comfortable with the idea of going to a place like this and photographing on your own, consider joining my Varanasi Photography Workshop. Here, we not only capture photographs but also learn the art behind it.

If you have additional tips, feel welcome to add them in the comments. See you next time!

KOLKATA STREET PHOTOGRAPHY GUIDE

Kolkata is a secret street photographer's paradise, well, not so secret anymore, with more and more photographers discovering it each year as one of the best destinations for street photography. The city is like an uncut gem, full of stories waiting to be discovered and told. You just walk the streets and stories unfold in front of you faster than you can click the shutter button.

Many people say that if you want to truly see and experience real India, go to Varanasi. While Varanasi is very high on my list of places to experience local culture, Kolkata is at the top of that list, and yes, it surpasses Varanasi in terms of variety of subjects and location richness.

Whenever I go back and look at my photos from there, I can't help but want to book a flight again.

I try to shoot there every year, and it's included in one of my India Street Photography Workshops.

So let's see what makes Kolkata so special for photographers.

WHAT MAKES KOLKATA SO SPECIAL FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS?

THE YELLOW TAXIS

The yellow taxis in Kolkata are simply iconic, they give the city a 70s, almost Cuban vibe. Calcutta's yellow taxis have become a magnet for photographers. These vintage vehicles tell a story of the city's enduring spirit and everyday life. Their bright, sunflower-like color contrasts beautifully with the chaotic urban backdrop.

THE STREETS

What is beautiful about Kolkata is that you often don't need to go to any specific place, the streets are so full of life that it's very likely you'll find interesting things to shoot just by stepping out of your hotel.

FOLLOWING THE RAILWAYS

A thing that surprised me in Kolkata is that access to the railway lines isn't limited. There are plenty of families living there, and the railways serve them as their backyard, they go on with their regular activities, and when a train comes, they just move to the next track.

MAIDAN PARK

It's especially beautiful in the winter and gets busier on weekends. This is a favorite place for jogging and cricket games.

*Best time for photography: around sunrise.*

MULLICK GHAT AND THE FLOWER MARKET

The most popular place for photography in Kolkata. The flower market and the surrounding area are a never-ending stream of moments, you just need to be aware and make sure not to miss them.

If I need to split the place into different areas of interest, I would do it like this.

THE FLOWER MARKET ITSELF

*Best time for photography: before and after sunrise.*

UNDER THE HOWRAH BRIDGE

The famous Howrah Bridge has an under-bridge passage where, during certain hours in the morning, you can witness a very special quality of light.

*Best time for photography: about 2 hours after sunrise.* You need a few hours to let the sun rise higher and reach under the bridge.

THE RIVER BANK OF MULLICK GHAT

Overlooking the bridge. The river bank is especially beautiful during the winter months, the gentle touch of morning fog makes this place look magical.

*Best time for photography: before and after sunrise.*

### THE KUSHTI AKHARA

The Indian wrestlers' training ground. Once a place where people came to learn the secrets of Indian wrestling, today this place is mostly about photography for money. The "wrestlers" spend most of the day lying down lazily, waiting for photographers. There is no fixed price for a photo shoot, I've heard prices ranging from 1,500 to 7,000 INR.

*Best time for photography: after sunrise.*

THE ROAD UP TO KUMARTULI GHAT

One of my favorite photo walks in Kolkata is the road from Howrah Bridge up to Kumartuli. If you pass under the bridge and keep following the road up, you can witness life as it is. You'll be passing small ghats on the left side and different markets on the right. Just take your time to explore, don't rush, and all the photographic opportunities will unfold in front of you.

*Best time for photography: all day long.*

KUMARTULI

The clay idol artists' area. Kumartuli is another must-visit place in Kolkata, where artists create idols of different gods, out of clay. Some of these creations are very impressive and photograph well.

*Best time for photography: morning or before sunset.* The place gets busy with visitors around sunset.

THE AREA AROUND KUMARTULI

The whole area around Kumartuli is absolutely beautiful. This is old Kolkata at its best, with small alleys where people live their lives. It's a fantastic place for street photography, capturing the essence of daily life in the city.

*Best time for photography: all day long.*

BABU GHAT

Babu Ghat is best in the late afternoon hours when the light is coming from across the river, illuminating whatever is happening under the bridge. This provides a unique and captivating atmosphere for photography.

*Best time for photography: the place always has something happening, but in terms of light, it's best to come early morning around sunrise, or in the afternoon before sunset.*

KALIGHAT

Kalighat is another interesting area for photography, especially during holidays for worshipers of the goddess Kali. On these days, the area is packed, and there are plenty of opportunities to photograph. The surrounding area is really old, and you'll find a lot of beautiful textures to photograph your subjects against.

*Best time for photography: all day long.* Again, I'd recommend the golden hours.

KOLKATA MARKETS

Apart from the flower market I mentioned earlier, Kolkata is full of many other markets that are interesting for photography. These markets capture the vibrant and diverse culture of the city, and they provide ample opportunities to document daily life and the unique character of Kolkata. Exploring these markets can lead to striking photographs that tell the story of the city and its people.

NEW MARKET

If you enjoy photographing crowds, make sure to visit on a weekend evening. It gets so packed that you can barely walk through the streets. I personally like using flash in that area.

*Best time for photography: afternoon or evening.*

CHICKEN BAZAAR

Near New Market. This is the place where butchers come to stock their shops, and it gets very busy around sunrise.

*Best time for photography: from 1 hour before sunrise. Go early!*

KOLEY AND SEALDAH WHOLESALE MARKETS

Another unique place to shoot. They are located right next to each other, so you can explore both in one photography walk. Because it's a covered market, they use colorful lights to illuminate the vegetables, and occasionally the roofing is missing, allowing extra rays of light to stream in. This combination of artificial colorful lighting and natural light can produce interesting results. Since it can be relatively dark inside, it's a good idea to use a low aperture (low f-number) lens to let more light into your camera and capture the scenes effectively.

*Best time for photography: all day.* I've been here at different hours of the day, and it seems every time there's something happening.

MECHHUA FRUIT MARKET

This is probably my favorite open-air market in Kolkata. The way the merchants organize their fruits in pyramids is just beautiful.

*Best time for photography: morning through midday.* You can come here early in the morning, but around 11 is good as well. During that time, the light and shadows play in strong contrast, and you can really lose yourself playing with the colors, shapes, and light the market has to offer.

PLACES TO ADD IN THE FUTURE

There are a few more places that I have no photos of at the moment, but you should try and visit them. Just type the names into Google Maps and you'll find the locations.

- Nakhoda Masjid, the largest mosque in Kolkata

- Burtolla Street, old market area

- Cotton Street, old market area

- Nilmadhab Sen Lane, laundry alley, also known as Jeans Street

- Sunday Pet Market, gets really busy on Sundays

If you have more spots to suggest, please write them in the comments below.

Street Photography in Israel: A Complete Guide

Street photography is becoming increasingly popular in Israel, with a growing wave of new photographers roaming the streets to capture daily life scenes. The unique light conditions and vibrant culture have sparked interest among photographers worldwide, drawing many to experience Israel's dynamic street photography scene.

This guide explores the top locations in cities like Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa, and offers tips for approaching street photography in Israel.

CAN YOU PHOTOGRAPH PEOPLE IN ISRAEL?

The general attitude toward street photography here is somewhat mixed. It's much better in Tel Aviv and the Old City of Jerusalem, but it worsens in popular tourist spots and Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods. In tourist areas, you might get shouted at, while in Orthodox neighborhoods, you might just get uncomfortable looks.

With that in mind, it is absolutely possible to photograph here, but it might be a bit more challenging If approaching strangers is what holds you back, I've written a full guide on photographing people on the street. In most cases, you can always play the tourist, apologize, and, in the worst case, delete the photograph. Just don't get yourself into tense situations, people in Israel can be a bit hot-headed, so try to avoid conflict.

WHAT THE LAW SAYS

In Israel, as in many other countries, photographing people in public places is generally allowed. However, there are legal and ethical considerations to keep in mind.

The Protection of Privacy Law in Israel prohibits photographing a person in a way that infringes on their privacy. This includes photographing people in situations where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as in their homes or private gatherings.

Harassment: continuously photographing someone against their will can be considered harassment, even in public spaces.

So, generally speaking, you can photograph people in public spaces, but don't harass them if they don't want to be photographed, and don't publish photos that could cost them their dignity.

For detailed and specific legal advice, it's always best to consult a legal professional or review the full text of the Protection of Privacy Law, 5741-1981.

WHAT MAKES ISRAEL WORTH PHOTOGRAPHING

Since Israel is the birthplace of three major religions, it naturally offers a wealth of photographic subjects. The diverse religious traditions and holidays mean there are months filled with event after event. In places like Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Haifa, these religious elements often intermingle, providing unique photographic opportunities.

Tel Aviv, in contrast, is Israel's modern hub, and if Jerusalem is all about religion, Tel Aviv feels like any other city in the West, with a sense of unlimited freedom, coffee shops, and a huge party scene, including the famous annual Pride Parade, which attracts more than 100,000 participants.

All these aspects make Israel a fascinating place for photographers, offering a diverse range of subjects to capture.

## BEST LOCATIONS FOR STREET PHOTOGRAPHY IN JERUSALEM

Jerusalem is one of the most interesting cities, culturally and from a photographic point of view. The places worth visiting are:

The Old City of Jerusalem , with its Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Quarters, each different, each with its own vibe and feel. Don't forget to get into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, visit the Western Wall, and if the Dome of the Rock is open, visit there as well.

The Mount of Olives: there isn't much street photography there unless you hang out near the churches, but it does give you an interesting look at the Old City.

Around the Old City wall, especially the area near Damascus Gate: it's busy throughout the day, especially on Fridays and Saturdays, and can be interesting for photography.

**Mea Shearim**, a Jewish Orthodox enclave in Jerusalem, offers a glimpse into a unique and culturally isolated community. Stepping into Mea Shearim can feel like entering another world, where traditions and customs are deeply entrenched in daily life. Here, most residents adhere to traditional dress codes, often donning attire that harks back to bygone eras. Please remember to dress modestly (especially women), and don't go there to photograph on Shabbat (Saturday).

Machane Yehuda Market: the most famous and iconic market in Jerusalem. It's interesting during the day, but at night many of the market's eateries and bars open their doors to visitors, offering a diverse array of culinary delights and refreshing drinks, and it becomes one big party, especially on Thursdays.

Nahlaot: situated opposite the bustling Machane Yehuda Market, it offers a picturesque setting, especially during sunset. A particularly photogenic time to visit is during Hanukkah. Each evening, residents come together to light candles, and it's a beautiful experience, both culturally and photographically.

Jaffa Street : is the center of Jerusalem, boasting numerous shops, boutiques, and restaurants lining its sidewalks. Visitors can explore a wide variety of stores offering everything from souvenirs and handicrafts to designer clothing and jewelry. It often hosts street performers and various entertainment programs, adding to its charm. If you find yourself weary of religious heritage and want to photograph something different, Jaffa Street is the place to go.

## BEST LOCATIONS FOR STREET PHOTOGRAPHY IN TEL AVIV

Carmel Market; is the most famous market in Tel Aviv and probably the most popular place for street photography. Several renowned photographers visit the market almost daily. You never know what you'll encounter there.

Nachalat Binyamin Street; just near Carmel Market: every Friday and Tuesday, there's an art fair that attracts different types of people, many of whom photograph really well.

Tel Aviv Beach is another never-ending stream of subjects for photography. All year round, you'll find people exercising, and during the summer, swimming season is open, with all the beach bars open and people engaging in various activities.

Old Jaffa; is at the end of Tel Aviv's beachfront. It's quieter than the beach and has a small harbor with boats and a small fishing market. It's another place worth visiting for those who enjoy a slower pace of photography.

Tel Aviv Flea Market; gets busy in the early morning when people bring various belongings and sometimes weird merchandise for sale. You can find beautiful light there in the morning hours, but be aware that this is one of the places where people don't like to be photographed.

Tel Aviv Museum of Art; is another place worth visiting, especially during the hot summer days. You can enjoy a few hours in a cool environment, capturing minimalistic street photos with clear compositions and lines.

Rothschild Boulevard, Dizengoff, and Shenkin Streets are the most active areas.
You might also want to visit the Florentine neighborhood, known for its graffiti-covered walls and busy nightlife. All these locations offer great photography opportunities.

## BEST HOLIDAYS AND EVENTS FOR STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

Pride Parade: once a year, usually in June, Tel Aviv turns into a celebration of color, drawing a crowd of 100,000 people who want to do one thing only, party. Regardless of your skill level, this is a day when you'll most likely capture dozens of beautiful photographs.

Lag BaOmer is a joyous occasion marked by bonfires. I won't get into the celebration in depth here [ADD LINK: Lag BaOmer explainer], but from a photography point of view, it means fire, and it means a lot of people wearing traditional Chasidic outfits, and all that photographs really well.

Passover Chametz Burn; the ritual, known as "Bi'ur Chametz" in Hebrew, is a traditional Jewish practice performed on the morning of the day before Passover begins. Families go through their houses to gather every wheat-based product (chametz), which is then burned in a controlled manner.

Kaparot; is a traditional Jewish ritual performed before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It involves swinging a live chicken (or sometimes a bundle of coins) over one's head while reciting prayers, symbolically transferring one's sins onto the chicken. For some, it's a difficult subject to photograph, since it basically means the chicken will be sacrificed at the end.

Purim : one of the happiest times in Israel, it's similar in a way to Halloween, where people dress up in costumes. During this time, there are specific days for celebration in religious communities, and for the rest, there are multiple events like street parties and parades.

The Orthodox Christian Holy Week: the week before Easter, featuring Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and the Holy Light ceremony on the final day. During these days, Jerusalem is filled with pilgrims, and, honestly, it can be challenging for photographers to move around due to the crowds and numerous police blocks. However, if you approach it with an open mind, you have the chance to capture some of your most rewarding photography of the year.

## STREET PHOTOGRAPHY STYLES SUITED TO ISRAEL'S LIGHT

The light and shadow game: because of the extremely strong sunlight, Israeli photographers tend to adopt the chiaroscuro style of photography. You'll usually want to protect your highlights, otherwise they'll burn out. I've written a full article about it here [chiaroscuro article].

Flash photography: for the same reason, several Israeli photographers have integrated flash into their work. It started as an attempt to reduce the dynamic range but later became a creative tool in itself.

NOTABLE ISRAELI STREET PHOTOGRAPHERS

Ilan Ben Yehuda: one of the rising stars of street photography, he's probably the best when it comes to finding interesting stories in mundane, everyday life.

Barry Talis: famous mostly for his work with flash and longer shutter speeds, his work is powerful and abstract at the same time.

Gabby Ben Avraham: one of the top street photographers in Israel, working mostly with natural light and a master of chiaroscuro. His favorite place is the Carmel Market, where he visits several times a week.

---

If you'd rather learn on the street with me, take a look at my upcoming street photography workshops

I hope to add Haifa and Nazareth to this list in the future.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask in the comments.

YOU CAN READ OR WATCH

Aperture is often perceived as a light control instrument and a background blur generation tool. But one quality is rarely discussed.

Your lens aperture is in fact an attention instrument. More than anything, it controls attention. It decides, on behalf of your viewer, how much attention they spend on one part of the frame and how much they spend on another.

When you look at a photograph shot at f/1.2 and feel that small jolt of excitement, what you're actually responding to is not the blur. It's the clarity: how cleanly you can perceive one thing, with nothing around it competing for your attention.

We are not used to seeing anything that way, and that is why it excites us so much. Having a headshot of someone with his eyes fully in focus and the rest falling into a nice background blur is truly magical. It makes people beautiful.

APERTURE AND DEPTH OF FIELD ,IN PLANE TERMS FOR BEGINNERS

If you are new to this, here is the short version.

The aperture is the opening inside your lens. A low f-stop number like f/1.8 means a wide opening. A high number like f/11 means a narrow one.

A wide aperture lets in more light and gives you a shallow depth of field, so only a thin slice of the scene is sharp. A narrow aperture lets in less light and gives you a deeper depth of field, so more of the scene stays sharp, front to back.

THE ATTENTION BUDGET, AND WHERE APERTURE FITS INTO IT

You see, what we've learned over the recent decade working with visual art is that attention is the most valuable currency. If you look at most of the algorithms out there, they are all fighting for your attention and try to keep you in their system for as long as possible.

When we consume visual content, we are mostly using our eyes and our ears. They decide if this is engaging and interesting enough to explore further.

If you look at a photo from an attention point of view, you will find that the stronger photographs engage the viewer. They keep his attention. While the weak ones struggle to initially engage him, and he simply passes by. That is how photography has been judged today by the algorithms. If it's good at holding the viewer's attention, the algorithm flags it as interesting and shows it to more people.

So how does the viral, attention-holding quality of a photograph connect to aperture?

If we go even deeper into the attention rabbit hole, we will find that when the viewer stumbles on a photograph, he has only 100% of attention to spend while looking inside it. Every element that is in the frame eats a small piece of that attention: your subject, the background, the other objects, the lines, the textures, the bright spots, they are all deciding factors if the viewer will stay or not.

And aperture is one of the instruments you use to control how that attention gets spent. It even decides how many elements are going to compete for it.

If you use a low aperture and blur the background, the details behind your area of focus will get stripped away, and that part will not require any attention, leaving most of it for your subject. If you use a higher aperture value and keep everything sharp, every layer in the frame will be visible, which makes every element now bidding for the viewer's attention at once.

And that makes aperture so much more than just "sharp vs. blurry." It's a decision about what part of the image is going to get heard, and how strongly.

Look at this photograph. These are two boys standing on their boats. The scene showcases them, it gives enough foreground elements showing that there are more boats there, and we can also see the city behind, which gives more of a sense of place.

What do you think is the aperture here? Is it f/16? Is it f/8? Or maybe f/1.4?

Before I answer this question, let's speak a bit about intention. What is my main objective here? Who do I want to show? Well, it's the boys, of course.

So if I want to focus the majority of the attention on the boys, I should probably use the lowest aperture possible, that will blur, or at least weaken, the background a lot and will soften all these lines in the foreground. You could probably guess by now that the photo hasn't been shot at f/1.4. Since we can see a lot of the environment, it must be a different aperture value.

Let's get back to my objective, what do I want to show? I wanted to show the whole scene, show the boats at the front, and also show the city behind. So since the image is showing different layers of depth, it must be some high aperture value, maybe f/11 or f/16.

f/16 would make all planes of depth visible as clearly as possible, but that would affect some of the image's sharpness.

Now, I photographed the image at f/8. And I'll tell you what my decision process was. I wanted the boats in the front, I wanted the boys, and I wanted a sense of place. I did want to have the city visible, but didn't want to include more of it than needed. So for me, f/8 was enough. It allowed enough depth, without bringing too much attention to the city. I carefully controlled the amount of attention spent on each layer of depth.

THE THREE WAYS MOST PHOTOGRAPHERS USE APERTURE

Most photographers, without really naming it, default to one of three approaches.

The first is complete isolation. Shoot at f/1.2, maybe f/1.8, with only your subject receiving the majority of attention. At low apertures, everything else than your subject steps aside, blurred into shapes and color with no competing details left to read.

The second is the opposite: total inclusion of everything.
Shoot from f/9-11 and upward, bringing the attention to everything in the frame: foreground, subject, background. They are all visible, all sharp, all demanding to be read as part of the same story.

The third one is optimal sharpness. Every lens has a range, usually somewhere around f/5.6 to f/7.1, where it's simply at its technical best. At these values it's sharpest, with the least aberration, and barely any diffraction.

A lot of photographers default there because it's the safest technical choice, and keeps things simple for them. They read somewhere that this is where the lens performs the best, so they just shoot there. There is not a slight thought about attention there.
The main objective is sharpness.

Now, none of these three is right or wrong on its own. But don't treat any one of them as your default, without understanding what it costs you.

Isolation works when your subject can carry the frame alone, a strong gesture, an interesting face, a moment that doesn't need context to land.

Total inclusion works when the story is bigger than any one person in it, when the relationship between your subject and everything around them is the actual point.

And the sweet-spot default works when that sharpness is important to you in that particular scene.

But here I have to share something. Sharpness is kind of overrated, the most budget lenses of today outshine the lenses of the last century, and yet there is plenty of good photography done with them. So let's forget about sharpness for now, it's the least important out of the three.

THE F/11 LESSON, AND WHAT PEOPLE GOT WRONG ABOUT IT

About a year ago, I put out a video that became a real eye-opener for a lot of people who were used to shooting wide open by default.
The idea was that composition really starts at f/11: that shooting that way forces you to become far more attentive to what's actually happening in a scene, and far more deliberate about solving compositional problems with framing instead of letting blur solve them for you.
If you want to watch the full thing, I'll link it below; it goes deep into that concept with a lot of unpacking.

What turned out to be more interesting for me than the video itself was what happened after it went out.

I started getting messages from people.
Some were genuinely excited, telling me they had switched to shooting everything at f/11 from now on, and that it really opened their eyes about composition and scene development. But there was also another group telling me that f/11 is exactly where a lens starts hitting its technical limits, that diffraction sets in and starts softening the image.
They were basically worried that the images are not going to be sharp.

So I have to admit something here.
f/11 was never meant to be a literal setting. It was a way to illustrate a concept.
And while I do shoot at f/11 a lot, there's a wide, and very useful, range between f/1.2 to f/11 and further.
Locking yourself into one of the extremes misses the whole concept of using aperture to control attention.

What the video was really about was context and about discipline, not a default setting. When you can't rely on blur to erase your mistakes, you're forced to actually look at everything in the frame before you shoot: you look at where your subject is, where the background sits, whether there is anything crossing your subject's silhouette. Does the context work? It was about learning to see beyond the subject, and understanding that there is more to photography than a single subject with a blurred background.

Those who took it as a permanent setting missed that the point was never the number. It was what shooting at that number forces you to do with your composition.

PHOTOGRAPHY COMPOSITION IS A GAME OF COMPROMISE

If you shoot at f/11 or higher, you'll almost always need to make up for the lost light somewhere else, usually by pushing your ISO. I've had people send me images shot at f/11 and ISO 25,600, genuinely proud of nailing the depth of field, without noticing what that ISO number was doing to the image. Every setting related to exposure you touch pulls on every other exposure setting. Aperture never moves alone.

And aperture is not a fixed setting. When you adjust it, you compromise: it buys you attention in one point and costs attention in another spot.

If you move from f/1.2 to f/5.6, you compromise how completely your subject dominates the attention. But you win context: more of the scene stays visible, more of the story around your subject gets to exist in the frame with them.

If you move from f/11 to f/4, you compromise the context and the sharpness of the whole scene. But you win focus: more of the viewer's attention gets directed onto your subject, and less gets spent on everything around them.

Sometimes all you need is to weaken the environment, not completely exclude it.

These are all different trades. The only question worth asking before you turn that dial is what you're trying to say with the frame, what is your intention.

This is also why the old saying "f/8 and be there" is such a trap. f/8 sits comfortably in most lenses' sharp range, which makes it feel like a safe, neutral choice. But there's no such thing as a neutral aperture. f/8 is still a decision about how much of the scene's context is getting in with your subject.

I want to show you a few photographs that might have some strange aperture decisions. But I'll explain the reasoning.

I have this railroad photo shot at f/1.4.
This is something many photographers would shoot at a much higher aperture.

The reasons I chose a lower aperture were the following: first, my focus point was very far, I was focusing on the person in the middle, that made the depth of field large enough to get everything into the scene in relative sharpness.

And the second one was the strong geometry, it was just too strong, so I wanted a little bit of softness with all these shapes. The f/1.4 gave me a bit of a softer look for an otherwise very edgy composition.

Next one. This gentleman with his cart was also shot at f/1.4.

I wanted to have a feeling of the surrounding area, I didn't want to have the bushes' leaves around sharp, or having every little stone visible, all these little areas of sharpness are reducing the harmonious feeling of the image. I wanted sharpness at my subject, but I wanted him wrapped in softness. So here I used the same trick to soften the environment. The goal wasn't to blur the environment completely, just soften it.

Here I'm photographing at f/4.

I wanted to capture the sleeping boy, the woman working around him, and having the visible shape of the other sleeping people on the roof. But I still wanted to keep the majority of attention on the boy. If I had photographed that image with f/8, for example, it would have sharpened a lot of the small background details and spilled the attention unnecessarily backward. If I had used f/1.4, it would have just focused on the boy. I wanted the environment to be present, but not so strong. Therefore, f/4 worked just fine here.

WHY THIS CONNECTS TO THE HERO

In my online composition course, I talk a lot about the hero: the one subject in your frame that should carry the weight of the story, with everyone and everything else supporting rather than competing.

Depth of field is, by a wide margin, the single most common way photographers assign hero status. Isolate your subject with a wide aperture, and you've made the decision for the viewer before they've even had a chance to look around the frame. There's no competition, because you've removed everyone else from the attention entirely.

But hero status doesn't always have to be won this way. Sometimes a closed aperture doesn't undermine the hero at all. It adds the supporting cast around them, just like the woman and the environment around the sleeping boy. The other participants who help the story make more sense.

That's the real reason aperture matters so much more than a technical setting. It's a decision about who gets to be the hero of your frame, and how much of the rest of the world you let stay in the picture with them.

It's worth noticing that these two tools, hero and environment, are really the same idea looked at from different angles. The hero concept asks who should own the frame. The environment is establishing the context. And aperture is simply the fastest tool that helps you to move that attention in the field. It is faster than repositioning, faster than waiting for a better background, faster than almost anything else available to you in a fleeting street moment.

PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE: APERTURE IN THE FIELD

You'll probably ask, but how do I decide the aperture in the field?
So here are a few little things that will help you do so.

LIGHT COMES FIRST

One of the first decision factors is light. If the light is not right, we might not be able to see the rest properly.

So if there's too much light, if we shoot on a bright day, an open aperture might not be an option. There is a chance that the shutter speed reaches its higher limits and you couldn't technically use a wide aperture. If you do, you would simply overexpose.

That leaves you with two options: first one is to use an ND filter, and the second is to close the aperture down. Often, adjusting the aperture is just the quicker choice.

*This was shot at f/8, 1/1000s. I kept the highlights under control, underexposing slightly on purpose to match the mood I was after.*

Similarly, when there is not enough light, a closed aperture simply won't work in low light. You can of course raise your ISO or slow your shutter, but often, opening the aperture is the better trade.

*This one was shot at f/1.4. It was around 4am, and the only light source was a single bare bulb, shooting with a wide aperture was the better decision.*

WHEN YOU WANT THE BACKGROUND TO BE PART OF THE STORY

A closed aperture keeps both your foreground subject and your background in relative focus. Which is useful for scenes where the entire street, and everyone in it, is part of what you're saying. You want the viewer to spend the attention across the whole frame, on purpose.

*This was shot with a 35mm lens at f/11. Shooting this scene with an open aperture would have disconnected my subject from everyone around him, and the story would have felt completely different: like he was dancing alone, instead of as part of the wider scene he was actually part of.*

WHEN YOU WANT MOTION BLUR WITH A SHARP FOREGROUND

Sometimes the effect you're after isn't about depth of field at all, it's about motion blur.

Motion blur photos are tricky, you almost always need to go to extreme slow shutter speeds, that allows more light to enter the sensor, so you technically have to compensate with aperture. So if you're trying to work with motion blur during the day, most likely you will have to close the aperture a lot.

This is an additional reminder that aperture is not only about depth of field. Sometimes you're reaching for it purely because the exposure settings demand it.

WHEN YOU WANT A SHALLOW DEPTH OF FIELD

A shallow depth of field pulls attention naturally toward your subject by blurring everything else and creating a sense of isolation, letting the eye gravitate to the sharpest part of the frame without effort. The attention is spent almost entirely in one place.

FOR MOST PORTRAITS

Shallow depth of field isolates a subject and creates that soft, pleasing background blur known as bokeh. It's a popular choice for portraits. But if you are shooting several people and they are at different distances from the camera, you might want to go up with the aperture value.

WHEN THE BACKGROUND IS BUSY AND NEEDS ISOLATING

Background, for me, is one of the most important reasons to change my aperture. You should always think about how much power you want to give to the background. Will you let all of it be visible, will you give a sense of it, or will you eliminate its presence completely? A wider aperture changes the background from sharp to just being weaker, it helps you keep your attention on your subject. How strong the effect will be is up to you to decide.

WHEN SEVERAL SUBJECTS SHARE THE FRAME, BUT ONLY ONE MATTERS

It's common to have more than one potential subject in a scene. A wide aperture lets you assign importance deliberately: focus on the one that matters more, and let a shallow depth of field weaken the competition from the other.

WHEN APERTURE BARELY MATTERS AT ALL

There are situations where there's little real difference between f/4 and f/11, and we need to recognize these as well.

For example, if you are photographing something like a detail shot, no macro, just someone's hands, let's say, f/4 would usually be enough. There's no point going higher, it will give you nothing.

It is very similar if your photograph has no depth. Let's say someone is standing close to a wall. Low and high aperture would look almost identical.
There is no need to shoot with f/11 for someone standing near a wall. f/4 would be enough.

THE TAKEAWAY

Aperture was never a technical checkbox. It's the tool you use to decide how much of your viewer's attention goes where.

There's no correct answer sitting at f/1.2, f/5.6, or f/11. There's only the question worth asking before you press the shutter: where does the attention go, what's important here.

Of course there are the technical limitations, but this is the key purpose. Allocate attention.

For the practical numbers - which f-stop for which street scenario - see my guide to the best aperture for street photography.

I hope it was helpful. If there are some unanswered questions, ask them in the comments. And have a happy shooting. See you next time.

Let me start with a story. I was once on a trip in the Danakil Desert in Ethiopia, one of the hottest places in the world, but also home to these amazing salt fields. Simply beautiful.

As I walked around with my camera, I noticed a person in the distance and a gorgeous reflection of the setting sun. I photographed the person, but I wasn't happy with the result. I felt I had to frame the scene somehow. But you're in the desert, and there is nothing there. Nothing. Just plain flat emptiness. How would you frame it?

Then my eye caught a little branch on the ground. Well, that's interesting.
I used the branch to do the framing. It wasn't the most beautiful photograph out there, but the point of this story is simple: you can always find an element to sub-frame with, even in the desert.

I show all ten frame-within-a-frame techniques with examples in this video, and everything is below in writing too.

WHAT IS FRAMING IN PHOTOGRAPHY?

Framing in photography, or sub-framing as I call it, is one of the most powerful techniques for bringing your viewer's attention straight into the story. It means using a frame within a frame: by enclosing the subject in a secondary frame, like a doorway, window, or archway, you create depth, context, and a far more dynamic and engaging composition than a flat, unframed photo.

Framing is a versatile technique that can be used across photographic genres, from landscape and architecture photography to portrait and street photography. It can create a sense of scale, isolate the subject from distracting elements in the background, and add visual interest and depth to the photograph.

When framing your subject this way, it's important to consider the size, shape, and placement of the frame within the frame. The frame should be large enough to create a sense of enclosure around the subject, but not so large that it overwhelms the image. Placement matters too: where the frame sits affects the viewer's perception of the subject and the overall composition.

The choice of lens and focal length also plays a role. Wide-angle lenses can capture expansive views that incorporate the frame within the frame, while longer focal lengths isolate the subject within the frame and create a more intimate composition.

Framing can also be combined with other composition techniques, such as leading lines or layers, which multiplies its effect.

Most people know only the basic version: someone standing in a doorway or a window. That's what's usually taught, and that's where most photographers stop. But there is more. So much more. Let me show you at least ten ways.

THE POPULAR FRAMING TECHNIQUES

1. Classic frame within a frame. Windows, doorways, or anything with that frame-like shape. Position your subject inside it, and the attention goes directly to them. The door or window also provides structure, balance, and symmetry. Commonly used in portrait photography, but it works in many genres.

2. Natural framing. Elements from the environment do the framing: trees, leaves, rocks. Landscape photographers use leaves to frame a building all the time. In my example, I used rock formations and the light falling between them. Mostly a landscape technique, but it applies beautifully to travel photography as well.

3. Architectural framing. Similar to the classic frame within a frame, but using architecture: arches, columns, monuments, like my photograph at the Taj Mahal. Common in architectural and street photography, and it adds an extra sense of place to the image.

4. Negative space framing. I bet you didn't think about this one. You can frame with emptiness: the empty space around your subject becomes the frame, pulling attention straight to them. This is the tool of minimalist and very clean street photography, but it's a valid technique anywhere.

5. Framing with light (chiaroscuro). This is probably my favorite. On a sunny day, or wherever light hits strongly, I expose for the highlights and place my subject in the bright area. Everything around disappears into darkness. In post-processing you can push the contrast further, turning the dark parts almost black for a dramatic frame. In a way it's negative space made of shadow. The key is to have something interesting happening in the bright area. I've written more about this approach in my chiaroscuro article.

LESS COMMON FRAMING TECHNIQUES

Really, framing is limited only by imagination. You can use almost anything to frame. Look around:

6. Patterns. In one photograph, I noticed a pattern of hands surrounding a woman. Framing her with the hands brought the attention to her and added context at the same time.

7. Mirrors. Very popular for framing subjects, in street photography and beyond. You've probably seen photos of makeup artists reflected in their mirror: photograph the mirror, and your subject arrives pre-framed.

8. Other people. No mirror around, no pattern of hands? Use people. Shoot between someone's arms, between two legs, past a passerby, or frame one person between two others. It's still framing: you're directing attention to your subject.

9. Everyday objects. And if you run out of all of the above, you can always throw some towels in and frame your subject with laundry on a line. On a rainy day, a set of umbrellas brings attention to your subject perfectly.

10. And if you have none of these... you can always use a camel.

FINAL THOUGHT

A frame within a frame combines beautifully with other composition techniques, like leading lines or layers, and once you start looking for frames, you'll find them everywhere: in branches, shadows, elbows, and camels. Let me know in the comments how you do your sub-framing.

Framing is one of the techniques I break down alongside hero placement, layers, and complexity in my online photography composition course.

Balance in photography composition isn't something mandatory in your photograph, but understanding it properly has real benefits for a photographer. Here are some:

• With the help of balance , you can produce more visually comfortable images. Balance creates a sense of harmony in the image, making it more pleasing to the eye.
• Direct the viewer's attention. A cleverly balanced composition can direct the viewer's attention to the subject, making it easier to communicate the intended message or emotion. Understanding balance lets you use lines, shapes, and colors to guide the viewer's eye through the image. (Yes, geometry has an impact on balance as well.)
• Convey stability or instability. A balanced composition can create a feeling of calmness or serenity, while an unbalanced one creates tension or unease. Knowing how to play this way helps you convey the mood you want.
• Create comfort or discomfort. Balance has a strong connection to our visual perception. We can use balanced compositions to achieve harmony, while unbalanced ones create discomfort.
• Stand out from the crowd. By manipulating balance, you can create unique and memorable images that capture the viewer's attention and imagination.

Out in the field, balance doesn't come with a set of guidelines. It's something you feel when looking at an image rather than a clear rule. It might take a photographer several years to see clearly which elements in a photo are balanced, which are not, and how they affect the viewer.

TYPES OF BALANCE: SYMMETRICAL VS. ASYMMETRICAL

Symmetry is a powerful tool. It's the visual effect created by mirroring elements on either side of an imaginary line in the image. Used effectively, symmetry creates proportion, harmony, and stability. It comes in several forms:

• Horizontal symmetry. The most common type in photography: the image divides horizontally in half, with elements mirrored on either side. This creates equality, making the image more visually appealing and easier to read.
• Vertical symmetry. The image divides vertically, mirroring elements above and below. This can create calm and harmony, particularly with reflections.
• Diagonal symmetry. Instead of a straight horizontal or vertical divide, a diagonal line splits the composition.
• Radial symmetry. Elements mirror around a central point, creating a circular or spiral pattern. Great for balance in images with circular shapes.

BALANCE IN PRACTICE: EXAMPLES

Horizontal symmetry. With equal-sized forms at equal distances from the center on both sides, the frame feels natural and balanced. If you have something on the left, make sure you have it on the right as well.

A slight shift creates misbalance. One way to play with the feeling of a photograph is to bring one of the objects a bit closer to the edge of the frame.
The object on the left now appears larger than the one on the right, creating a sense of misbalance: more visual weight on the left side, which draws more attention (remember, the heaviest part attracts the viewer's eye). Even small shifts in size or distance from the center affect the image.

Vertical symmetry. The calm water of the lake mirrors the fisherman on the boat: whatever we have on top is reflected below.
But the image is still not perfectly balanced, because the boatman sits on the right side of the frame. That side is heavier, and our eye is drawn to it.

Balancing differently sized elements. Different sizes can be balanced through placement. In this photograph of a boy and his grandfather from Ethiopia, the grandfather is larger, but also slightly closer to the center.
Placing him there creates equal visual weight on both sides of the frame. The boy still pulls more attention, because we can read something on his shirt.

Balancing multiple elements: grouping. With more than one object in the picture, balance can be achieved by weighing one visually heavy object against several lighter ones. In this photograph of Buddhist monks crossing the U-Bein bridge, the one larger monk on the left has similar visual weight to the group of three smaller ones on the right. If you perceive the monks as shapes (which our brain usually does), the shapes are similar in size and equal in distance from the imaginary vertical line splitting the frame. The result is a balanced image.

TONAL BALANCE IN PHOTOGRAPHY

Tonal balance refers to the distribution of light and dark tones in an image. The original idea is to have an equal amount of dark and light on both sides of the frame, but it's not always the case.

There are a few ways to work with it:

• Contrast. Contrast is the difference between the lightest and darkest parts of an image. By having a relatively equal amount of bright and dark tones, we can achieve harmonious compositions. How much of what to put? You can't really calculate it; it comes naturally with experience.
• Exposure. By setting exposure, you decide how dark and bright your photograph will be, and how strong the tones are. You play with the scene's luminosity to achieve the result you want. Watch out for overexposed areas: a hotspot distracts and pulls attention away from your subject.
• Color balance. When it comes to color, there are whole books on the subject. To simplify: we play with color to create either contrast or harmony. Similar colors combined create harmony and balance; contrasting colors do the opposite. One dominant color can be balanced by another.

Here we have yellow as the dominant color and blue balancing it. This is a color contrast photo, not a harmony one, but it looks comfortable because of the distribution of the colors.

And in this example, we have the same tone throughout the image, which creates a consistent visual feeling across the whole frame.

DON'T GET OBSESSED

I've probably only touched the surface, but even understanding these ideas will help you tremendously in creating more balanced images.

It's important to remember that visual balance is not an exact formula. Creating fully symmetrical, ideally balanced images might be possible in a controlled environment like a studio, or in a geometrically perfect location. But in most styles of photography, we're always playing on the edge; there's always an element of the unknown, and the composition is never perfectly balanced.

Balance is something we should all strive to understand better, but we shouldn't get obsessed with it. Misbalanced images are often even more interesting. But that's a story for another time.

Weight, space and balance get a full module of their own in my online photography composition course, if you want to go further than this article does.

In photography, a line is any element the eye reads as a continuous path: a road, a shadow, a railing, the edge of a building, even a row of people.
In visual arts, including photography, the line is one of the most fundamental elements of composition. Lines direct the viewer's eye, create interest, and convey mood.

But not all lines behave the same: some stop the eye, some calm the frame, some inject energy, and some quietly point at your subject. After years of teaching composition, I can tell you that once you start seeing lines, your photography changes.

Prefer to watch? I explain every type of line in photography below in this video, with all the example photographs on screen.

VERTICAL LINES IN PHOTOGRAPHY

Let's start with the vertical line. They say that the vertical line implies stability and growth, and when there are many of them, they give rhythm to the image. But I'm starting with it because it is the most dominant one.

When we have a vertical line in our frame, it is hard to ignore. It is like a visual brake. As our eyes travel through a photograph with a vertical line, that line will always stop the flow. So be very careful with it. A vertical line in the wrong spot can reduce the impact of the story.

If we place it too early on the left part of the frame, we might waste space, because such a line usually implies a beginning. If we put it too close to the right side, we might end the visual flow too quietly. The vertical line needs to be in just the right spot.

Apart from setting beginnings and endings, the vertical line is also used to split the frame: one part of the story on one side, the other part on the other. And it doesn't have to be dead in the middle. We can use the thirds with great success as well.

HORIZONTAL LINES IN PHOTOGRAPHY

The horizontal line is calm. It has no motion in it, and that has an impact on our photographs.

One thing to be careful with is where horizontal lines pass through. Apart from being calm, they run the visual flow from side to side and cut through the frame. You don't want your subject to be cut by the line, so always consider its placement with this cutting effect in mind.

DIAGONAL LINES IN PHOTOGRAPHY

The diagonal line is also a straight line, but it has some secret powers. It makes the image more dynamic, and often introduces energy and motion to a scene. This is the real difference between static and dynamic lines in composition.

Let me give you an example. I photographed two images in the same area, perhaps 10-15 minutes apart.

The first one is with horizontal lines. You can almost feel the stagnation: people standing, nothing moving.

For the second one, I used an angle that made these lines diagonal, and you can see how differently the image feels. Now there is a feeling of movement.

But the reality is the same. The same very slowly moving line, just presented in a different way. That's how much power a single compositional choice with a line has.

Actually, I often suggest my students remove the horizontal level indicator on their camera. That line fixates you on creating very static compositions, and without it, you're more likely to explore dynamic ones. There is no reason to always have everything straight, horizontal, or vertical. Often, breaking out of structure creates more interesting images.

CURVED LINES IN PHOTOGRAPHY

Until now we were speaking about straight lines. Now let's touch on curved ones.

Curved lines are all about visual comfort and harmony. They are pleasant to look at and simply make you feel comfortable.

As far as direction goes, curves work just like straight lines: a vertical one will split, a horizontal one will feel calm, a diagonal one will be dynamic. Landscape photographers love curved diagonals that lead you into the frame.

LEADING LINES IN PHOTOGRAPHY

Lines are also pointers. A line can point to a subject, and the eyes will follow. Photographers love to use leading lines to point at what is important in the frame.

Remember: if there is a line, the eye will follow.

We can't even recognize exactly what is happening in this photograph, but the eyes follow the lines and explore what's going on.

IMPLIED LINES IN PHOTOGRAPHY

Sometimes lines are not solid. It doesn't have to be a tree or an electricity line. Sometimes a sequence of figures together creates a line: a row of trees, a lit part of the scene, a color occupying part of the frame in the shape of a line, a pattern of hands, anything that, if you take a step back, reads as a line.

Like these buffaloes, creating a curved line in the water.

WHY ARE LINES IMPORTANT IN PHOTOGRAPHY?

First, we use lines to establish a beginning and an end in the frame.

You can see how I framed the girl between the vertical lines, which are the legs of her father. There is more space on the left and right, but the eye ignores it and goes straight to the area between the two verticals.

We use lines to split attention, dividing the composition and directing it to different parts. Subframing is usually a collection of lines that frames our subject; sometimes it makes it easier for the viewer to explore the scene part by part.

We use lines to define a feeling. Horizontal lines are calm, vertical lines are strict, diagonals are dynamic, curves are harmony.

Look at the fisherman photographs. In the first, all the lines are straight, giving a structured feeling. In the second, the net creates a curved line and softens that strictness.

A sequence of lines creates rhythm and repetition. And lastly, we use lines as pointers, directing attention through leading lines or sequences of lines.

WHAT ELSE CAN BE CONSIDERED A LINE?

Almost anything. A tree is made of lines. A house is made of lines. A car is made of lines. Even a human being is a collection of lines.

A standing human is a vertical line. Moving hands and legs create diagonals and horizontals. Hands can be used as pointers. That's why models in fashion photography break straight shoulder, hand, and leg lines into smaller diagonals.

Even the human face is a collection of lines: eyes as curved horizontals, the nose as a vertical, the mouth as a horizontal. Portrait photographers work with these all the time. You've probably heard someone comment on a jawline.

COMMON MISTAKES WITH LINES

Avoid unnecessary lines that cut the frame or your subject in an ugly way.

Be extremely careful where horizontal lines intersect with people. A horizon passing through the neck or joints can look like it's cutting the person.

Avoid starting or ending lines in the wrong place. Leading lines should lead toward your subject, not out of the frame. Watch for competing exit lines that pull attention away.

Be careful with a line's visual weight. If the line is more contrasty than the subject, it will swallow it.

Slightly tilted verticals can make the viewer uncomfortable. Sometimes that's exactly the effect you want. Just make it a decision, not an accident.

EXAMPLES OF LINES IN MY OWN WORK

Here I use the lines on the left as leading lines, pushing attention into the depth of the frame, where the colorful area is. The vertical colorful lines add structure and rhythm.

Here I'm using lines to frame my subject. The beaded curtain creates curved lines that soften the otherwise harsh straight lines. Pay attention to that combination of straight and curved together. It's very special.

Here the line separates the subjects. It brings order to the image by putting each object in its place.

Here the lines separate the frame horizontally: sky on top, the shadows of the palm trees on the bottom. Clear visual separation.

And here I simply loved the geometry. I actually took this photo with my phone. The urban landscape often has plenty of geometry to play with. If you love architecture photography, you'll work with lines more than most photographers, because architecture is all about shape, line, and how it's all wrapped in light.

START SEEING LINES

The most important thing about lines is to learn to see them.

When you go outside and look around, try to notice the lines.
Then look through your viewfinder, start noticing these same lines while you are framing. With time and experience, you will start noticing them automatically and that will make your compositions cleaner and more intentional.

Lines are just one piece of the picture. I go much deeper into how they work together with weight, balance and layering in my online photography composition course.

I hope this was useful.
If you have questions, welcome to ask in the comments.
Happy shooting!

WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT STREET PHOTOGRAPHY RULES AFTER A DECADE ON THE STREETS

After years of shooting on the streets, I've learned that some of the most cherished "rules" are meant to be broken.
When I first started, I tried to follow EVERY piece of advice to the letter: "shoot wide," "stay invisible," "never interact."
But the more I immersed myself in the rhythm of the streets, the more I realized that the reality is far more nuanced.

The true essence of street photography lies in understanding the spirit of these concepts, rather than blindly following them.
Today, I want to share some of those moments of realization.

THE FOCAL LENGTH "MYTH": ARE CLOSE ENCOUNTERS THE ONLY WAY?

Let's kick things off with a common idea: is street photography only done with wide-angle lenses? The traditional view is that to really be in the street, you need to shoot from within it. The photographer on the street is part of the street.

By using a long lens, you distance yourself; you become an outsider looking in. And generally speaking, doing street photography with a telephoto lens can be tricky, simply because you become so visible. The other thing often mentioned is that telephoto street shots tend to be close frames with a shallow depth of field, which can add very little context to the person you're photographing. It often ends up being just one or two subjects, not really showing that person actively engaging with the street. To get that engagement, you usually need a larger depth of field and a wider perspective, giving enough room for context.

BUT SAYING THAT... it absolutely DOESN'T mean you can't use a telephoto lens for street photography. Sometimes you simply can't physically get close to an interesting story, and a longer lens becomes the ONLY way. The key here is INTENTIONALITY.

If you're using a telephoto, think about why. Are you observing from a distance to avoid altering a moment? Are you using the compression to create interesting layers? Or are you focusing intently on a specific detail?

And it's important to remember, not everyone feels comfortable photographing people from a close distance, like Martin Parr or Bruce Gilden. Every photographer has their own personal comfort zone, which usually shrinks over time, but it's hard to force.

People who feel comfortable getting close often shoot with 28-35mm lenses, with slightly more shy ones using 50mm. Anything longer than 70mm generally distances you from that immediate street feel. Saul Leiter is said to have used a 90mm quite a lot, but his style is less about people interacting with the environment and more about creating abstract, atmospheric images where the human element plays just a small role.

From more recent photographers, Billy Dinh is one that comes to my mind when I think about who uses telephoto lenses with great success.

To sum up this concept: YES, you can shoot with a telephoto on the street, but it needs to be INTENTIONAL. You need to understand that you are creating not only physical but EMOTIONAL distance. And you should have a SPECIFIC REASON for that; otherwise, you will just get very random results.

THE INVISIBLE PHOTOGRAPHER? INTERACTION ON THE STREET

Now, let's talk about the idea that the photographer shouldn't interact with the people they photograph in any way, being a complete fly on the wall.

The reality is, the photographer very often DOES have an impact, even without directly interacting or altering the scene in an obvious way. Your mere presence can affect what unfolds. Someone reacts a certain way when they see you're about to take a photograph, or you make a small noise that makes the person look in your direction.

There's an interesting story about one of Henri Cartier-Bresson's photographs. Legend has it that he saw a man in a raincoat with an umbrella that he really wanted to photograph.

So Bresson started following him, searching for an opportunity. But the man noticed him and began walking faster. Bresson didn't give up and continued. At one point, the man turned around with this "Dude! What's happening here?" expression. And that was the moment Bresson pressed the shutter. He didn't directly change the scene, but his presence definitely created the tension that led to the EMOTIONAL BURST that made the photo.

As we said before, the photographer is part of the street, and your behavior within that environment can influence situations. But actively engaging, stopping, and directing people goes against the unspoken rules. Some photographers do it, I've seen it happen many times. I don't like it, but ultimately, it's their business how they approach their photography.

One pro tip: unless you're specifically looking for eye contact or interaction before you take the shot, avoid direct eye contact with the person you're about to photograph. People can often feel when someone is looking at them. Unless you WANT that, a direct gaze can be read as a challenge or a sign of interest before the moment occurs.

PERMISSION, PLEASE? THE ETHICS OF STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

This leads us to the BIG question: does a street photographer need to ask for permission? One argument says that if a person is in a public place, they can be seen, and if they can be seen, the logic follows that they can also be photographed.

But let's be HONEST... street photography is a bit of a "theft" in a way. We're taking something that doesn't truly belong to us; we're photographing without explicit permission. So we need to be ready for potentially negative outcomes. And every photographer needs to decide for themselves how much they're willing to take something that isn't theirs. This can range from a very intrusive approach to photographing unobtrusively and creating more neutral images.

This brings us to ethics. What would someone like Martin Parr or Bruce Gilden say about asking for permission? I don't know exactly how they handle issues after the photograph is taken, but the fact is, they've been doing it for years, and that style has a lot of followers. Though at one point Martin Parr went out to the street with that sign... so maybe he had some unpleasant interactions.

Legally, things get even more complex. In some places, you can photograph people in public spaces as long as you don't damage their public image. In the US: no reasonable expectation of privacy when you are in public. In other countries, you cannot photograph a person without permission if they are the main subject, but if they're part of a broader public scene, it might be allowed. And there are definitely separate and much stricter rules for photographing children.

The key takeaway: know the local laws. But also understand that the people we photograph most likely don't know privacy law by heart. Their reaction will be based on their personal feelings in that moment.

So, should we or shouldn't we? It's UP TO YOU. If you ask permission first, you can't get a candid shot. I liken it to quantum physics, where the very act of observation changes the outcome; similarly, the act of asking permission changes the outcome of the image. You can ask permission and stick around until they stop paying attention to you, but in general, you're losing the candid moment.

Street portraits, with the subject posed, are also a legitimate style of photography, but they have a totally different vibe from candids.

THE LOWDOWN: SHOOTING FROM THE HIP

Following the permission topic, the most logical approach for discreet street photography might seem to be shooting in a hidden way, like from the hip.

To be HONEST, I haven't seen a lot of consistently good work made that way. Occasionally there's a good shot, simply because that angle of view makes the photograph more interesting. But shooting ALL THE TIME from the hip creates one type of image that isn't very engaging.

More than that: if street photography is about depth and connection, shooting in a completely hidden way can feel a bit like spying or "peeping." It can be unpleasant, and if you get caught, it's EVEN MORE unpleasant, because now you need to explain your behavior. Things can go much worse than if you were shooting openly.

The general consensus among experienced street photographers is to be OPEN; don't hide. Otherwise, it's not much different from using a hidden camera. But now I'll contradict myself. There are still valid reasons to shoot from the hip: when you're in very close proximity and want to avoid a direct gaze into the frame, or when you want a very low angle.

With time and practice, "hip shooters" learn to feel the distance and compose from that hip or belly level. Even the famous Gueorgui Pinkhassov used to photograph in the metro with his screen up, pretending to review photos. But remember, INTENTIONALITY is key. It shouldn't be your default.

My verdict is... It's okay, but DON'T make a habit of it, and DON'T do it out of fear!

FRONT AND CENTER? THE "NO SHOOTING FROM THE BACK" RULE

This is a VERY popular one, and I'm often asked about it: is it valid to photograph people from the back?

The idea that photographs should be shot from the front comes from a basic concept: a person has a face, the face has emotions and eyes. Emotions speak about their mental state, and the eyes are the "window to the soul," adding strength to the photograph and drawing MORE attention. And it's TRUE... a person's face is a massive attention trigger. I completely agree.

As for me personally: The question is what kind of back we are shooting here.
I actually LOVE photographing from the back. But these photographs MUST have context. They need to tell you something about the person or the situation. I sometimes call them “faceless portraits.”

Another reason against the strict "no backs" rule: in street photography we often photograph a scene, and the human form is just one part of the narrative. A face looking directly at you can pull UNNECESSARY attention to the individual, whereas photographing from the back keeps the focus on the broader context. So while faces are powerful, DON'T dismiss the potential of a well-composed shot from behind.

My verdict is... It's OKAY!!

THE CLICHÉ ZONE: POSTERS, BEGGARS, AND BUSKERS

Now, some common "no-nos." First up: "No posters and advertising in the frame, it's a cliché." Well, yes, it can be. But a SIGNIFICANT amount of street photography is actually built around exactly that. The key to making it work is to have the advertising very well integrated into the frame, or to create a VERY STRONG juxtaposition between the advertising and your subject.

Then there's "No beggars and buskers, too easy." Buskers are VERY tempting; they can have beautiful makeup and outfits, and they're extremely photogenic. But the general rule of a good photographer is NOT to shoot what so readily invites itself to be photographed. Think about it: a busker dresses up specifically so people come and take photos. These photos have very little deeper value, unless there's a REALLY STRONG juxtaposition, or you integrate them into a story that goes beyond their appearance.

Similarly with beggars and homeless people. Unless you want to HELP them with your photography, you are just using their misfortune. So my verdict here is... Try to AVOID.

THE CROPPING DEBATE: IN-CAMERA PERFECTION?

Next: "No crop! Cropping your photographs is a sign that you were unable to build a proper frame in the first place."

There's an interesting story about this. Henri Cartier-Bresson was one of the BIG supporters of this rule, but ironically, his famous photograph illustrated in most books about the decisive moment is actually CROPPED! Yep, the shot is cropped on the left side, because one of the fence grids he was shooting through got into the frame, so it was cropped out later.

My take, and many pros will agree: we do our best to compose perfectly on the scene, without needing to crop.
That approach PUSHES you to become a better photographer.
But DON'T beat yourself up if something didn't work.
Hey, the street is NOT a studio!

Don’t feel guilty when a small crop is needed to refine the image; no one's going to penalize you. Just avoid making cropping a HABIT.

THE DECISIVE MOMENT REVISITED

And while we're on Henri's work, let's revisit the concept of the decisive moment. It's a VERY good concept, but people often take it wrongly, thinking you need to take a SINGLE photo that perfectly captures one specific instant. Henri Cartier-Bresson NEVER claimed to take only one photo of a scene. In reality, there can be DOZENS of different "decisive moments" within a single unfolding situation.

If Bresson saw a good scene, he would work the scene, sometimes shooting 20 or more frames, timing it as best he could.

And I'm the same. When I come back home, I don't have 200 different moments; I have 20-30, with several angles and decisive moment variations.

So, rules matter, but your idea matters MORE. One of the key concepts of street photography is to bring a little more than just the object itself. Do that, and be INTENTIONAL with whatever approach you take. After all, most of us do this photography because we ENJOY it.
So do it your way, enjoy the journey, and remember it's not about the results or reaching the top.
ALL THE GOOD STUFF HAPPENS ALONG THE JOURNEY!

Happy shooting

Avoiding gear theft should be as important to you as where you are going to photograph during your travel.
Getting your gear stolen during a trip is probably one of a photographer's worst nightmares. It's not just a bad day; it's a devastating experience that can completely ruin your trip.

So, being afraid of such a scenario is understandable, but it shouldn't paralyze you or stop you from traveling. I've spent over a decade traveling the globe, constantly with my gear by my side, and somehow, I've managed to keep it safe. So far, luck has been on my side.

But luck hasn't been the only factor. It's been about my approach, my decisions, and a set of rules developed through the years.

Today, I'm going to share exactly how I manage myself and my equipment on the road, giving you my strategies and helping you with the right mindset shifts so you avoid that nightmare scenario.

Prefer to watch instead of read? I tell all of this, with stories from the road, in this video. The full written version continues below.

Now, before we start with all the tips and behaviors, I want to say something very important. I truly believe that most people in the world are honest. I don't see the world as a hostile place with a thief around every corner. So, please don't get the idea from my recommendations that the world is a horrible place and develop fears around that. These are just tips on how to maximize your gear safety; you can listen and see what fits you.

Okay. So... you can get your gear stolen at any point during your travels, but there are a few areas where these things happen more often.

HOW TO KEEP YOUR GEAR SAFE IN YOUR ACCOMMODATION

The first area is accommodation, and there are a lot of choices to be made here.

• Avoid popular party/backpacker hubs. This is often where "fishy" things happen. I don't want to label specific places, but locations that attract this kind of crowd often come with all kinds of characters, and some aren't very honest.
• Don't stay in dormitories. There's almost always a private room available at similar prices. It's just harder to remain private in a dormitory. The biggest benefit of having your own room is that none of the other hotel guests will know you're traveling with camera gear. It might sound weird, but thefts very often happen from other travelers rather than staff or local people.
• Don't stay in large hotels. Large hotels have a lot of staff, and even though some have security teams and procedures to prevent theft, unfortunately, it still happens there. The problem is that due to the large number of staff and guests, it's very hard to find the accountable ones.

The best choice in terms of safety is small hotels with up to 20 rooms; the fewer the rooms, the better. And if it's a family homestay, you've hit the jackpot!
You see, most small hotels are family or small businesses. For some of them, it's their livelihood; for others, a dream come true. So, they are very careful about their reputations.
They'll have a small staff, and the experience of staying in these places is often very personal. It's in their highest interest to have you as a happy customer.
They know all their guests and employees by face, and any stranger is immediately noticed. So, the chances of something getting stolen there are very low.

HOTEL GEAR SAFETY RULES: REDUCING THE ODDS EVEN MORE

Let's reduce those chances even more by applying some hotel safety rules.

• Don't be an asshole to the staff. Remember, these are small places. If you misbehave at reception or are rude to someone, it will become known to the whole staff.
  You don't want your cleaning lady to think bad things of you. You can always get things done the nice way, even if someone from the staff makes a mistake. Be understanding, you always want the hotel staff to like you and be on your side.

• Always keep your room tidy. Yes, there's room service every day, but that doesn't mean you should throw stuff on the floor and have everything scattered. Keep everything as neat and tidy as possible. The cleaning staff can tell what kind of person stays in the room just by looking at how they live there.
  Someone who doesn't respect their job won't be respected back. Remember to smile at the staff when you see them, and it's good to give tips here and there, depending on your budget.

• When you are out of the room, keep all your gear locked. The way I do it is by locking my camera backpack or trolley inside a larger bag or suitcase. It's even better if you can lock it with a non-TSA lock. You'll probably ask, "Why don't you put it in the safe? Or leave it at reception?"
  Well, there are two reasons for that. First, room safes are often too small and not really attached to anything, and you can just take them out of the room.
  Alternatively, there might be a master key that can open all the safes in the hotel. I don't like that.
  The second reason is that the moment I go down to reception and hand them a bag with gear, that person knows I have a valuable bag.
  Putting it in a big suitcase is safer simply because its size makes it harder to steal. But also, if no one knows I have a bag with $10,000 worth of equipment, no one will come to steal it.

• Don't flash your gear around. This brings me to the next rule. I see a lot of people leaving their hotels with their big cameras around their necks, sometimes two!
  That shows people in the hotel, other guests, and anyone living, running a business, or just hanging out around your hotel that you have expensive gear.
  So, keep your gear in your bag and only take it out at the place you're going to shoot. You can even take it out a block away. Just don't let people tag you with your gear right next to your hotel.

TIPS TO KEEP YOUR CAMERA SAFE WHILE WALKING OUTSIDE

Okay, so we're outside now. Let's talk about how to keep your gear safe on the street. The second place where your gear is in danger is when you are shooting outdoors. My first tip has nothing to do with gear, but a lot to do with psychology and how you're perceived on the street.

Dress appropriately for the place. You shouldn't stand out from the crowd. If you do, you look like the first choice for an assault.

• My general recommendation is: don't wear any luxury items, gold chains, diamond rings, Rolexes, smartwatches, branded clothes, or expensive sunglasses. Of course, it really depends on your travel destination. If you're going to Milan to photograph Fashion Week, that's one thing. But if you're in a market in India, you'll stand out like a bright Christmas tree. If you're in a poorer place, don't flash your latest iPhone Pro Max. Every child from the age of nine knows how to recognize it, and it has been their dream. So, be humble and think properly about what you're wearing. I usually take my oldest clothes: t-shirts that have lost their color, an old bag... things like that. Sometimes I find myself in a modern city between my travel destinations and suddenly feel like a bum, but hey, that keeps me safe from thieves!
• Don't walk around with a camera bag. You'll be thinking, "Whoa, wait. Isn't a camera bag made for that?" Maybe it is, but camera bags, especially well-known ones like Peak Design or Lowepro, are easy to recognize and tag as potentially containing something expensive. So, while you can use your big camera bag for travel between places, when you're out shooting, I recommend using a regular small backpack with an insert in it. The insert will keep your gear safe, but from the outside, it will just look like a normal bag. There's another aspect to it: after 4-5 hours with a heavy camera bag outside, you'll get really tired, and that can affect your judgment.
• Don't leave your camera bag on the floor when you're engaged in shooting something. I often see this: a photographer changes a lens and then leaves the bag on the floor while shooting. Occasionally, being engrossed in the shooting process, they might even move away from the bag without noticing. That's a very good way to get your stuff stolen. It's enough to look away for 15 seconds, and it's gone.
• When you stop for coffee or food, having your camera on the table is not a great idea. Someone can snatch it. Similarly, with your camera bag, always have it in the least accessible place from the street. You can even wrap the shoulder strap around the chair or your leg for extra safety.
• If you are shooting in third-world countries, replace your brand-name straps with something generic and perhaps tape over the logos, especially if it's a red dot. Leave that tape in place even if it gets dusty and dirty. The worse your camera looks, the less attractive it is to thieves. You can remove the tape and clean it back home.

Now, street safety really depends on the place. In some countries, certain streets or neighborhoods can be very dangerous. So, read about these first and make your own risk assessments. But most importantly, if you are in an isolated alley and you feel that something is off, get out of there to a busy street. Listen to your instincts; they are often right.

CAMERA SAFETY WHEN MOVING BETWEEN PLACES

Another area where you can get targeted is while you are traveling or moving from place to place. For example, last year there was a crew working on all the budget flights in Asia specializing in stealing valuables from overhead compartments. It's less likely to happen on a $500+ flight, but very much possible on cheap flights. And there are a few ways to protect yourself here.

PROTECT YOUR GEAR ON THE AIRPLANE

Put your hand luggage on the opposite side rather than directly above you. If your luggage is right on top of you, you can't really see properly when someone is opening the overhead compartment and what they're doing there. So, always use the opposite side.

• Don't use camera backpacks as your main carry-on. The reasoning is the same as before: thieves know that a camera backpack can contain $10,000 worth of equipment, and they are very tempting to steal. Just use a normal trolley with inserts or an older backpack. Of course, these need to be locked during the flight. You want to make access to your valuables as difficult as possible.
• Don't sleep during flights, especially not using sleeping pills. They knock you out completely, and you can lose all your belongings and not even notice.

Okay, so we're clear with flights. How about other public transport?

PROTECT YOUR CAMERA GEAR ON PUBLIC TRANSPORT

The rules with public transport are simple: never lose sight of the bag with your gear. If it's a train, put your main luggage under the seat, but your camera bag stays with you. Use it as a pillow if you wish; just never take your eyes off it. Similarly with buses: never put your camera bag in the main compartment under the bus; always keep it with you on the bus. And if you are using a car for traveling, it's okay to put it in the luggage compartment. But if you stop at a gas station or for lunch, it's better to take the bag with you. Theft from cars happens mostly in such parking places.

ESSENTIAL GEAR SAFETY ACCESSORIES

There are mainly three accessories that I recommend:

A whistle. There is nothing better to scare a thief than something that makes a lot of noise. So, find yourself a strong whistle and attach it to your camera bag.

A bag secure cord. These are thin cords with metal wiring that backpackers use to secure their bags in public transport. I recommend having two of these: one for the main luggage, the other for your camera bag. Sometimes when I'm very tired and want to sleep, I'll attach the bag to my belt, and if someone tries to take it, I'll wake up.

AirTags. Try to hide them among your gear.

MINDSET AND ATTITUDE

My general approach is to avoid selecting myself as a target, rather than just trying to secure the gear as strongly as possible. To do that, follow these principles:

• Don't flash the fact that you are traveling with a lot of gear.
• Don't talk too much. Avoid sharing details like where you're staying, when you're flying, or your exact itinerary.
• Dress humbly. Your Rolex or Apple Watch can stay at home.
• Your camera bag too. Use simple luggage, a simple backpack, and inserts.
• Don't be naive. Don't be too trusting. Be on guard. Don't trust security cameras, and don't blindly trust that the police will catch thieves. But with that, be a nice person.
• Always try to have backups of your photographs.

If you'd rather travel with someone who already knows the ground, take a look at my workshops.

So, what are your top gear safety tips when traveling? Let me know in the comments below!

Street photography is one of the most exciting and challenging genres, requiring a keen eye, quick reflexes, and a deep understanding of your surroundings.

Whether you're a beginner or an experienced photographer, mastering the fundamentals will help you capture more compelling and dynamic street photos.
In this guide we'll break down six essential tips covering the core of the craft: camera handling, composition, light, and more.

1. MASTER YOUR CAMERA

Your camera is your tool, and you need to operate it seamlessly. Too often photographers invest in the latest gear but never learn to use it effectively.

• Focusing: modern cameras don't always know where you want to focus. Whether you use eye detection, tracking, or zone focusing, make sure you control the focus intentionally.
• Exposure control: your camera always aims for a balanced exposure, but sometimes you want to darken for drama or brighten for impact. Learn to adjust on the spot instead of fixing it in post.
• Simplicity is key: one camera, one lens whenever possible. Carrying multiple lenses splits your attention, exhausts you mentally, and costs you shots. A single setup keeps you in the moment instead of juggling gear.

For the full breakdown, see my article on the best camera settings for street photography.

2. COMPOSITION: LOOK BEYOND THE SUBJECT

A great street photograph isn't just about the main subject; it's about the entire scene.

Everything in the frame matters: whatever is in your viewfinder ends up in the final image, so mind the background, the foreground, and how the elements interact.

When it comest to composition itself.

• Master one focal length: shooting a single focal length for an extended period trains your eye and sharpens your composition.
• Watch your backgrounds: a cluttered background can ruin a great shot. Learn to reposition yourself, search for cleaner, more intentional frames.

3. LIGHT AND COLOR: LEARN TO SEE DIFFERENTLY

Light and color are two powerful storytelling tools. Understanding how they work can take a life time, but mastering them will take your photography into the next level.

• Create contrast: use light and shadow to separate your subject from the background.
• Create harmony: sometimes blending subjects into their environment with soft, even light is the stronger choice.
• Observe light through the day: its direction, intensity and color change constantly, and each change shifts the mood of your photograph.
• When light is limited: You can lean on colors, shapes and patterns to carry the image.

Tip: You can use the Adobe Color Wheel to check how the colors in your photograph work. Whether your street photos are more harmonious or contrasty.

4. SHAPES AND PATTERNS: TRAIN YOUR EYE TO SEE GEOMETRICALLY

Every street photograph can be broken down into shapes, lines, and patterns. The geometry of the image is one of the deciding factors on where the viewer is going to look and how he will feel looking there.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

• Lines: leading lines, intersections and diagonals create movement and guide the viewer's eye.
• Geometric shapes: squares, triangles and circles give the composition structure and infuse orded.
• Repetitive patterns: windows, shadows, people in a row; patterns add rhythm to an image.

5. THE MOMENT: FISHING VS. HUNTING

Capturing the right moment is the essence of street photography, and there are two ways to approach it.

• Fishing: Find a great backdrop and wait for the right subject to enter the frame. These shots tend to be visually balanced and controlled.
• Hunting: Actively seek and follow moments as you see notice them unfold. These images are more unique and harder to replicate.

The balanced approach: You can use both maximize your chances for success. Fish when you find a good stage , hunt when there is a lot of foot traffic and street is alive.

6. ATTITUDE: RESPECT AND CONFIDENCE

How you approach people is very important. It can make or break your street photography.

Here are few tips to make it easier for you.

• Respect and smile: A friendly presence opens doors and puts subjects at ease, remember, you are doing nothing wrong.
• Don't hide: Shooting from the hip or sneaking photos usually produces awkward, disconnected images. But mostly it makes you look suspicious and like you are doing something wrong. That energy is very noticeable and you will get more negative reactions that way.
• Humanity over the shot: There is no photograph is worth making someone uncomfortable. Know when to step back.

FINAL THOUGHTS

These six fundamentals are the backbone of strong street photography. Master your camera, compose intentionally, understand light and color, recognize shapes, capture authentic moments, and work with respect and confidence. Going back to basics is never a step backward; it's how skills get sharp.

What's your favorite street photography principle? Let me know in the comments.

Loved the article? Check my upcoming street photography workshops.

Panning in photography is a technique that uses a slow shutter speed to create images where the main subject stays sharp while the background is artistically blurred, emphasizing motion and speed.

Perfecting panning shots is a rewarding challenge that lets you capture motion in a way static images simply can't convey. Mastering it adds another tool to your photography arsenal, one that can make the mundane more interesting. In this article we'll go through the essentials, from shutter speed to lens choice, so you can perfect your panning shots and take your images to the next level.

WHAT PANNING CAN DO FOR YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY

Convey motion. Panning highlights the speed and direction of moving subjects like vehicles, runners, or cyclists, for a dynamic effect.

• Introduce abstraction. Blurring the background creatively leaves colors and patterns as the main visual clues.
• Isolate your subject. The subject stays sharp while distracting backgrounds soften away.
• Improve storytelling. By shifting the viewer's attention from the environment to the subject, we can suggest energy and movement in a narrative, like introducing a bustling street in slow motion.

Now let's talk about the technical part. How do we pan correctly?

LENS CHOICE

The focal length directly affects both the amount of motion blur and the stability of your shot.
Longer (telephoto) lenses are harder to hold steady through the motion, but they compress the scene and produce dramatic background blur.
Shorter (wide to standard) lenses are easier to stabilize, but usually need slower shutter speeds to introduce enough blur, which is trickier to control without unwanted shake. The right balance is a focal length that suits your subject's speed while letting you control both blur and stability.

THE RIGHT SHUTTER SPEED

The correct shutter speed is a balance of several factors: the subject's speed, whether your camera has IBIS, your focal length, and your technique.

I recommend starting at 1/30s and adjusting from there based on the subject. A Formula 1 car can give a beautiful panning effect even at 1/250s, while a person on an electric bike can be captured as slow as 1/4s.

THE RIGHT AUTOFOCUS MODE

Use continuous autofocus (AF-C or AI-Servo) to keep the subject sharp through the movement. If you're picking one subject out of many, a tracking point usually works better than subject recognition. These recommendations vary by camera brand and model, though: newer cameras excel at subject tracking, and sometimes a tap on the screen is all it takes to lock on.

BE VERY STABLE - STABILIZE YOUR STANCE

Stand steadily, keep your elbows close to your body, and rotate smoothly from the waist. Move only with your waist. If you follow the subject with extended arms, your hands will wobble and the result is a blurry subject.

TRACK THE SUBJECT

Start tracking the subject in the viewfinder before pressing the shutter, and match their speed with your motion. Track too fast or too slow and the subject blurs. Press the shutter and keep panning smoothly until the shot is complete, with no abrupt stop at the end.

USE BURST MODE

Set burst mode and hold the shutter down through the entire pan. Multiple frames dramatically improve your odds of the perfect one.

EXPERIMENT WITH BACKGROUNDS

Choose visually engaging, colorful backgrounds for artistic impact. In my experience, vibrant and dynamic backgrounds work best. Avoid the sky or a bare horizon line: they rarely complement the motion effect.

KEEP THE EXPOSURE IN MIND

With such slow shutter speeds, panning in the middle of the day is challenging. Often even your smallest aperture (typically f/16) won't prevent overexposure. Two ways to manage it: use an ND filter to cut the light, or shoot just before sunset or during the blue hour when the light is softer.

You can also combine slow shutter panning with flash, but that's a street photography technique I'll cover in another story.

CLOSING

Perfecting panning takes time and practice, but with these tips I hope you feel more confident capturing motion-filled images. Go out and give it a try.
Keep experimenting, and with each shot you'll get closer to mastering the technique.

Prefer to watch? I explain the whole process of shooting in hard light in this video.
Below, is the same approach in writing.

Of all the available kinds of light, street photographers love hard light the most. Where other photographers keep their distance from it, street photographers embrace it, to the level that many won't even go out to shoot on an overcast day. The reason is its ability to create dramatic photographs, with elements of mystery hidden from the viewer's eye, telling what can't be told, but only imagined.

Why do we love the light most photographers are afraid of? It is mostly because of the visual appeal of enhanced contrast. Contrasty images are punchier, and when done correctly, easily readable, which makes it a big plus in the social media era, where viewers often judge a photograph from a small thumbnail on their phone.

CONTRAST AND HARMONY IN PHOTOGRAPHY LIGHT

In photography, lighting can be approached in two main ways: through contrast or through harmony. Both are defined by the transitions between bright and dark areas. When the transition is smooth and gradual, we're looking at soft light. When the transitions are sharp and pronounced, hard light is at work.

Let's see 2 examples:

High contrast image, hard light

Low contrast image, soft light

THE GAME OF LIGHT AND SHADOW IN STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

What we can't see is just as important as what we can. Like painters, we use light and shadow to paint our scene: creating depth, leading the eye, setting the mood, or simply expressing ourselves creatively. Here are a few images to give you an idea of how we can play with these relationships.

WORKING WITH LIGHT LIKE CARAVAGGIO

It might surprise you, but the relationship between light and shadow in art is nothing new. Caravaggio was one of the most prominent painters to use harsh light transitions in his work. He manipulated light so that illuminated areas glowed while the rest of the scene fell into deep shadow. The result was dramatic: heightened emotional intensity, depth, and the viewer's attention pulled exactly where he wanted it.

His technique is called chiaroscuro, and in photography it refers to the use of strong contrast between light and dark to achieve a sense of volume and three-dimensionality.
Following in Caravaggio's footsteps, we photographers can manipulate light the same way: drawing attention to what matters and creating that three-dimensional feeling in our frames.

CHIAROSCURO LIGHTING TECHNIQUES

Chiaroscuro is not just hard light. I want to be very clear about that!
Because most photographers use the two words like they mean the same thing, and they don't.

The word Chiaro Scuro comes from the painting world. Chiaro is light and Scuro is dark.
The painters used to paint the light that way. It was their way to make a flat canvas look like several dimensions of depth.

The light had a job. It was used to describe the shape of the thing it landed on. And that is the part that matters for us, it is not about contrast. We are here for that element of describing.

But let's leave words aside and see how you actually do it on the street.

The first is by using the hard light to simply paint. The light is touching a specific spot on the street. One lit face, with everything black around it.
Whatever is touched by light emphasizes the shape, with everything else falling away into darkness, this one is the closest thing to the classical version.

TO DO THAT YOU EXPOSE FOR THE BRIGHT PART AND LET THE REST GO.

Normally, your camera metering system will read the average value of the scene and suggest you an exposure based on that.
But the metering system gets really confused when it encounters a hard contrast scene with both very strong light and darker elements.

So to make it work best is to use spot metering and to meter the exposure from the brightest part of the frame. That will ensure that your highlights are visible and will most likely throw the areas in shadow into darkness.

DECIDE HOW BLACK YOU WANT THE BLACK

Now the image you see above is a bit too dark for chiaroscuro.
Real chiaroscuro is dark, but still keeps a little information in the shadow.

It is more like that photograph. You can still feel the shape of the body in there. It is dark, but it is not empty.

When the shadow goes completely black and the person appears out of nothing, that has a different name. That is tenebrism. That is what Caravaggio was actually doing.

And that is what most of us are doing on the street while calling it chiaroscuro.

Both are good. But they are two different photographs. One describes the person. The other one hides them and shows you a piece of them. Decide which one you are making before you press, because if you land in the middle you get neither one.

WHAT IS NOT CHIAROSCURO

Two things get called chiaroscuro all the time, and they are not.

A silhouette is not chiaroscuro. A silhouette is a flat black shape. Nothing on the body is described, you only see the outline.

Let's do a small exercise? Look at this next photograph.

CAMERA SETTINGS FOR CHIAROSCURO PHOTOGRAPHY

TO ACHIEVE CARAVAGGIO LIKE STYLE DO THE FOLLOWING

Set your exposure for the brightest part of the scene. Just like we spoke earlier in the chapter.
Find a well-lit area that will be the scene for your subject, point your camera so this bright area fills the frame, and adjust ISO, aperture and shutter speed until you clearly see detail there (like the smoke details on the photo below).
This usually means lowering ISO, narrowing the aperture, or speeding up the shutter to avoid overexposure.

Once set, you're ready to go. Unless the light changes, you can keep these settings and focus only on scenes touched by light, ignoring everything else.

The first thing you'll notice is that your images might look massively underexposed. This is intentional.
By underexposing a high-contrast scene, we strengthen the gap between light and shadow and intensify the impact.
Don't worry about dark areas going fully black: that contrast is exactly what creates the chiaroscuro dramatic effect.

IS CHIAROSCURO THE ONLY WAY?

Not necessarily. Chiaroscuro comes from a wide dynamic range and giving exposure priority to the bright parts. But you can work with hard light in other ways too. If your scene's dynamic range isn't very wide, you can shoot in harsh light with no issue: focus on scenes where the bright light covers everything, and avoid deep shadows that would fall outside the camera's range. The key is a predominantly bright scene, where the harsh light enhances the subject without producing black holes of lost detail.

In the image below, the light is harsh and bright, but since most of the scene is well lit, the result is still clean and appealing.

HARD LIGHT AND TEXTURE

One more quality of hard light: it emphasizes texture. The sharp transitions between bright and dark make details punchier and surfaces come alive, from peeling walls to wrinkled faces. If texture is part of your story, hard light is your ally.

POST-PROCESSING HIGH CONTRAST PHOTOS

To gain maximum effect, we usually push the contrast further in Lightroom or any editing software. Adjust shadows and highlights to keep the transitions stark and dramatic, work with curves (the S-curve especially), and consider converting to black and white for even stronger contrast and a timeless quality.

SUBJECT AND BACKGROUND RELATIONSHIP

A critical and underrated part of working with light is the background's lighting. Our 3D vision makes us dismiss the background as distant and unimportant, but photographs are 2D: everything back there, unseen by our eyes, becomes strikingly visible in the frame.

The lighting relationship between subject and background decides how the photo is perceived:

• Background brighter than the subject: you get a silhouette.
• Background and subject equally lit: both share the same presence in the frame.
• Background darker than the subject: your subject pops out of the image.

Let's see some examples

HARD LIGHT: A SUMMARY

There are many ways to use hard light in your photography, and that's exactly why street and travel photographers love it. Soft light is lovely for portraits and harmonious images, but harsh light opens far more space for creative exploration.

Which light do you prefer? Welcome to comment and ask questions.

Light is one of the things I look into when I speak about layering and subject separation, in my online photography composition course.

BEST CAMERA SETTINGS FOR STREET PHOTOGRAPHY
INTRODUCTION

One of the most common questions I get from students is “what settings should I use on the street?” And I understand why. The street gives you no second chances, and fiddling with dials while the moment walks away is every street photographer's nightmare.
The honest answer is that the best camera settings for street photography depend on the light, the movement of your subject, the type of scene, and your personal style. But there are solid starting points for each situation. Let's go through them one by one, so that next time you're out shooting, your hands know what to do and your head is free for photographs.

BEST APERTURE SETTINGS FOR STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

Unless you are photographing a street portrait or a low light scene, the general rule of thumb in street photography is a large depth of field. We want all the elements, near and far, in focus.
So the working aperture on an APS-C camera would be around F11 to F13. On a full-frame camera, to compensate for the shallower depth of field, go slightly higher, F13 to F16.

That's not always the case, of course. For a deeper dive, read my article on choosing the best aperture for street photography.



SHUTTER SPEED FOR STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

Shutter speed depends on what we're trying to accomplish, and on our creative idea.
People walking. If we photograph people simply walking on the street, a shutter speed of 1/250s to 1/320s is enough for sharp images.
Dynamic scenes. When the scene involves traffic, bicycles, scooters or passing cars, aim higher: 1/500s to 1/640s for cyclists, 1/640s up to 1/2000s for scooters and cars. The faster the subject, the faster the shutter.

Static scenes. For a quiet street scene without much movement, 1/60s to 1/125s works well. This part depends a lot on you and your camera. With IBIS (in-body stabilization) you can go as low as 1/25s; with something like the famous Fujifilm X100V, just try to be very stable.



CREATIVE SETTINGS: USING A SLOW SHUTTER SPEED

Sometimes we slow the shutter down on purpose, to introduce motion blur and create a sense of movement and energy. It works beautifully with cars, bicycles, or people walking.

The first technique is panning: You drop below 1/60s and move the camera in the same direction as your subject while shooting. It takes steady hands and some trial and error, but once you nail it, it's a great creative tool in your arsenal.

The second technique is easier than panning, because you don't need to follow your subject with the camera. Keep the camera still and let the moving parts of the scene blur while the rest stays sharp. Reduce the shutter to 1/15s to ⅓0s, focus on your static main subject, and be as steady as you can.

This photo and the previous one were taken in the exact same location, with the exact same settings, and yet they feel completely different.

SETTINGS IN LOW LIGHT

Lighting conditions have a major impact on your decisions. Everything is easy when the sun is out: high aperture, fast shutter, low ISO. But on overcast days or toward evening, the compromising begins. You give up one setting to maintain another.

When light drops, I gradually raise the ISO while keeping ½50s and F11. Grainy images are better than blurry ones. After reaching ISO 3200, I reduce the shutter to 1/125s, and if that's still not enough, I open the aperture.
It's important to accept that with current technology you can't have it all in the dark. You compromise, and you adjust your shooting style to the light you have.

WHAT IS THE BEST FOCAL LENGTH FOR STREET PHOTOGRAPHY?

This is personal, more about your style and character than any rule. Most street photographers will recommend something between 24mm and 50mm in full-frame terms, and my personal preference is 28mm or 35mm, the most popular choices. But telephoto has its place too. I've seen, and taken, beautiful street photographs at 200mm, especially for details or scenes you simply can't reach with a wide lens.

IN THE END

It's a lot about personal style and creative vision. Experiment with different settings until you find what works for you. And never forget: story and composition matter more than any setting in this article.

HOW TO PRACTICE STREET PHOTOGRAPHY: 5 AREAS THAT ACTUALLY MAKE YOU BETTER

We all understand that perfecting a craft requires practice. But how do you practice street photography effectively? Simply tinkering with the camera and clicking the shutter will eventually yield results, but it's the slow road. Photography, like all art forms, is a journey, but there are ways to make the road shorter. Today we'll look at how to practice, and which areas deserve your focus.

1. CONCENTRATION: YOUR MOST POWERFUL TOOL

Being fully immersed in the street enables us to engage deeply with our surroundings. How often have you missed something intriguing because you were talking with a friend or glued to your phone?

The best shots often come after an hour or two of wandering with complete focus on the present moment. Every glance at your phone breaks that concentration, and it takes time to regain the right mindset. You'll notice the most skilled photographers prefer to work alone and keep their phones away while shooting. They know distractions disrupt the creative process.

2. MASTER YOUR CAMERA

The first step for any photographer is to remove the barriers their own equipment creates. In my workshops I often meet people with a real desire to take photos and a real aversion to learning their camera. They've invested in the latest gear but never learned to use it, so it limits them instead of serving them.

If you want real progress in street photography, you need to overcome the fear of the technology. By mastery I don't mean memorizing every setting. I mean understanding three things perfectly:

Your focusing system. Learn it well enough to stop focusing on the wrong subject. Modern cameras excel with single subjects but need your intervention when several are present. Know when to use spot focus, zone focus, wide area, eye detection, and back-button focus, and consider assigning shortcut buttons for fast changes.

Exposure control. Understand how to manage light in manual and semi-automatic modes, and learn to judge the right exposure for a scene. Aim to get it correct in camera, not in post. My guide to exposure is here.

Composition speed. Street moments are fleeting, so composing must become fast. Set a timer and challenge yourself to compose a static scene within five seconds. If it takes longer, that's your practice area.

3. IMPROVE YOUR COMPOSITION

If you mostly shoot with a zoom lens, you may have developed habits that hold your composition back. A prime lens, ideally in the 24-50mm range, forces you to move, explore the scene, and think compositionally.

And this one is really important: aim to capture the frame correctly in camera, with minimal cropping later. Working this way consistently builds a natural feel for composition. Over time you'll find yourself instinctively choosing the right distance and a pleasing angle. More of my articles on composition are here.

4. OBSERVATION SKILLS

Learning to slow down and observe is essential. The difference between looking and observing is depth: observation reveals the details that a glance misses.

Observation is also deeply personal. Each of us notices different things, and by regularly observing the streets you learn not only photography but your own interests and preferences, which is the beginning of a personal style.

There's a practical bonus too: observation teaches you the patterns of a place. Many locations run on recurring sequences of events, and once you see the pattern, you can anticipate the moment and be ready before it happens.

5. BODY LANGUAGE ON THE STREET

When shooting on the street, people are usually part of the scene, so how you carry yourself matters. Learn to blend in: move slowly and calmly, dress to draw no attention, and don't disturb what you came to photograph. And stay confident. Don't hide, don't shoot in stealth mode; nervous behavior attracts far more attention than an open, relaxed photographer. My article on street behavior is here .

CLOSING

Practice these five areas deliberately, one at a time if needed, and you'll improve faster than by shutter-clicking alone. The camera is the easy part; concentration, composition and observation are where photographers are actually made.

It's probably one of the most common questions photographers ask themselves. While there's no single answer, I'l break it down here.

The most common approach, favored by many street photographers, is using a high aperture value (f/9 and upwards). This allows for creating layers, keeping both near and far objects relatively sharp.

But as we know, there is no right or wrong when it comes to the creative process. Yes, using high aperture values allows us to have everything sharp and in focus, but do you always need layers and a closed aperture? Not necessarily.

Even at shutter speeds as high as 1/8000s under bright sun, using very low apertures might still be impossible. This leaves you with two options: using a neutral density (ND) filter, or closing down the aperture.

In the fast-paced world of street photography, adjusting the aperture is a much quicker and easier option than swapping filters.

To keep the highlights under control, and even underexpose slightly to match my idea, I kept the aperture at f/11.

Let’s explore some scenarios to understand different aperture settings for street photography.

Reason to shoot with closed aperture

Using Layers

You want your surroundings or background to contribute to the narrative.

Using a closed aperture in street photography can be beneficial when you want to maximize depth of field, ensuring that both your foreground and background stay sharp. This is useful for scenes where you want to capture the entire street, including people at various distances.

Photographing a scene like this with an open aperture would disconnect our hero from the background, and the story would feel different. It would be as if he were dancing alone. By including these extra layers, we can see the other people who help form the whole story.

Using slow shutter speed for creative effects

Sometimes you want to create an image with a sharp foreground and a blurred background using motion blur. To achieve this, lower the shutter speed to a range like 1/25 and focus on a static object.

When you go so low with shutter speed, you have no choice but push the aperture higher. Often up to f/16

This setting results in a sharp capture of everything stationary in the frame, while moving objects appear blurred. This technique usually requires a higher aperture value to compensate for the lower shutter speed.

Reasons to shoot with an open aperture in street photography

When there isn't enough light

In low light conditions, a closed aperture simply won't cut it. You can raise the ISO or slow down the shutter speed, but eventually, opening the aperture becomes the better option.

It was around 4am, and the only source of light was a bare bulb.

When you want a shallow depth of field

Shallow depth of field is a good way to bring more attention to your subject by blurring the background and creating a sense of isolation, drawing the viewer's eye naturally toward the sharper area of the image.

Open aperture is well suited to portraits

Shallow depth of field isolates the subject and creates a pleasing bokeh effect, drawing attention to them.

While an open aperture works well for most portraits, keep in mind that if you want a group portrait where everyone needs to be sharp, you'll need a narrower aperture for a deeper depth of field.

When you want to bring all the attention to a single point

Sometimes you want to draw the viewer's eye to one specific point in the image, the point you think is most interesting, especially when the background is busy and needs isolating.

This technique is especially useful in street portraits, where you want all the focus on the person in the frame. Aperture plays a key role here. By using a wider aperture (a lower f-number), you create a shallow depth of field. This throws the background out of focus, creating a pleasing blur known as bokeh.

For example, when photographing a portrait on a busy street, a wider aperture keeps the person sharp while softening the background details. This way, you can still convey a sense of the surroundings, the energy of the street scene, without the clutter of background elements stealing attention from your subject.

When you want to isolate your subject from the rest

It often happens that you have several subjects in the frame, but want to give importance to only one. The best way to achieve this is by focusing on it and using a wide aperture to blur the rest, giving them less emphasis.

When the aperture value doesn't really matter

While a wide aperture offers creative advantages in many situations, there are cases where adjusting the aperture won't make a significant visual difference to the final image. Let's look at a few examples where open and closed apertures produce very similar results.

Detail shots

There isn't a big difference if a shot like this is taken at f/4 or f/11. You'll want something like f/4 for the sharpest, most in-focus area, in this case, the fingers, but the difference at a higher aperture will be insignificant.

When your background has no impact

If you have a solid background, there will be very little to no difference between low and high apertures. The scene will look much the same. I could shoot this image at f/4 or f/11 and you wouldn't see the difference.

When the background is too close

If you have enough light, the background is clean, and you're relatively far from your subject, you can get a similar-looking image at both f/2.8 and f/11.

When your subject is too far

As the distance between the camera and the subject increases, the depth of field itself deepens dramatically. This means a large portion of the scene, including your subject, will likely fall within the acceptable sharpness zone regardless of whether you use f/1.4 (shallow depth of field) or f/8 (deeper depth of field).

The further your subject is, the less it's impacted by depth of field. Photographing someone at 100m, f/1.4 or f/8 will have very little visual difference.

Exception to consider:

Subject size relative to background: even at 100 meters, if your subject is very small compared to the background (like a person against a vast landscape), a wider aperture (f/1.4) might create a slightly more blurred background than a narrower one (f/8). The difference, though, will likely be subtle.

Summary

While many street photographers prefer an aperture of f/9 and upwards, it's not a strict rule; it's simply a common practice that others tend to follow. In reality, your aperture settings for street photography should be guided by four factors:

• Available light
• Desired depth of field
• Background Distance
• Creative idea

While the decision to shooting wide or tight ultimately up to you, these two approaches are fundamentally different. This guide explores those differences, helping you to choose the right framing for your shot.

One explanation that I like a lot, is that wide lens is the lens of the participant and the tight one is the lens of the observer. And the reason for that is that distance matters, wide lens forces you to get close to your character and the feeling from the photograph shot wide is as you are a participant in the scene, you can almost smell it.

When you are shooting tight you would usually use a telephoto lens and that would take you further from the scene and your subject.
That distance is felt, it is little bit like you are spying, there are more chances that you will remain unnoticed and you will not disturb the scene you are trying to photograph.

One mark of mastery in street photography is the ability to use a wide lens while remaining unnoticed, ensuring your presence doesn’t disrupt the scene. It is almost like being a fly on the wall.

It requires adjustment to your street behavior patterns. I’ve laid out some ideas on how to achieve that here.

Since a large portion of street photographers shoot wide, there’s a common misconception that using a 28mm or 35mm lens is the go-to for street photography. Well, that’s not always the case. Let’s explore how different lenses affect our photographs.

HATE READING ? YOU CAN ALWAYS WATCH THE VIDEO ON MY CHANNEL

SHOOTING WIDE – WIDE FRAMING 24MM TO 35MM LENS

Wide-angle lenses offer a unique set of advantages for street photography, allowing you to capture the essence of the urban environment and tell compelling stories. Here’s a breakdown of the detailed benefits of shooting wide in street photography:

DEPTH OF FIELD AND BACKGROUND CHALLENGE

Wide-angle lenses, when used at a moderate aperture (around f/8 or higher), can offer a surprisingly large depth of field. This allows you to keep both foreground and background elements relatively sharp, which can be useful for capturing street scenes with multiple points of interest.

Wide-angle shots naturally capture a larger chunk of the scene, including all that background information. Which means that if you are trying to master wide framing, you’ll need to take responsibility about your background. Unlike telephoto lenses, you can’t simply rely on a shallow depth of field with wide angles to blur things out.

To achieve a blurred background with a 28mm f/1.7 lens, you’ll need to get quite close to your subject, often within half a meter. This close proximity can often be impractical in street photography. So it is good to develop a habit of checking your background

In general cleaner backgrounds will be easier to read.

On the other hand, messy backgrounds can make it difficult to focus on the story. A cluttered background will compete for the viewer’s attention, detracting from the subject.

It doesn’t automatically mean that clean background is better, it just means that it is harder to perceive the information clearly.

CAPTURING THE SCENE’S OVERALL ATMOSPHERE

Since we’re capturing a wider portion of the scene, we have more space to work with. This space isn’t just for our subject, but also for the environment.

In the photo below, you can see the woman praying. However, the smoke, the birds and the light – all these elements contribute to a sense of place, giving us a taste of what it’s like to be there.

STRONGER IMPACT ON STORY TELLING

At the beginning of the article I told you that shooting wide gives you the feeling of being participant in the scene, that gives enormous power to the image and allows people to feel stronger emotional connection to the content.
You feel immersed, you feel connected to what is happening there, images shot wide pack such a punch.

COMPOSITION IMPACT OF WIDE FRAMING

When you are shooting wide, you apart of being able to include more of the compositional aspects, in wide frames all the geometry becomes stronger, every line and every shape has a meaning, making wide-angle composition a more demanding skill to master. 
However, the payoff for a well-composed wide shot is truly rewarding

DYNAMIC COMPOSITION

Shooting wide opens the door to creating dynamic compositions it allows you to work easily with diagonals and layer the foreground and background to create depth in the image.
This extra space in the frame grants you the freedom to truly arrange the scene in many ways that are not possible while shooting tight.

EMPHASIZING JUXTAPOSITIONS, RELATIONSHIPS AND INTERACTIONS:

Capturing wider images, you can showcase the relationships and the interactions between people or animals. You can do this with a telephoto lens as well, but it will feel differently and harder to capture.

ADAPTABILITY AND CANDID MOMENTS:

Another thing worth mentioning is that the wider field of view allows you to react quicker and capture fleeting moments more effectively wide lenses. And since capturing moments is one of the core concepts of street photography, shooting wide helps you to be prepared for anything.

SHOOTING IN TIGHT SPACES

Wide lenses are particularly convenient while trying to shoot in a tight space , like crowded streets and alleys , they allow you to capture broader view even from close distance.

Shooting wide in street photography isn’t a rule, it’s just another approach. Some folks might not be interested in the kind of shots we’ve been talking about. They prefer to keep their distance and observe the scene unfold, rather than getting super close or interacting a lot with the subjects

SHOOTING TIGHT – TIGHT FRAMING - 5OMM AND UP TO 200MM LENS

Street photography thrives on capturing fleeting moments and the essence of a place. While wide frames can be effective, there are several advantages of using a tight framing approach. Let’s dive and see the benefits of shooting tight in street photography:

COMPOSITIONAL ADVANTAGES:

If wide framing is like a big party with many guests, it can get busy and complicated to manage. It introduced complexity and allowed us to use more elements in our photographs.
Tide framing on the other hand is the framing of simplicity. Naturally you will work with smaller parts of the scene , it is like a small gathering of just few friends.
It doesn’t mean that using a long lens you can’t shoot wide and compose multiple elements in a frame, you will just have to take enough distance from your subject (see the second photograph bellow). It is also a valid approach. In fact since not many people are doing it, your photographs might acquire a more unique character simply due to your lens selection.

TIGHT SHOT – COMPOSITION AND BACKGROUND IMPLICATIONS.

Tight framing naturally minimizes background distractions. By composing tightly, you can exclude unwanted details or even blur them out. Telephoto lenses come in especially handy here because their shallow depth of field allows you to isolate your subject easily, separating them and making them stand out from the background.
You can see on the photograph bellow that although there are more people on at the background, the smaller depth of field helped isolating the subjects of interest.

TIGHT SHOT ISOLATES THE SUBJECT AND STORY:

I want to extend on the story isolation impact. As storytellers on the street, we have the power to slice through the world around us, extracting a single piece from the 360-degree chaos. Telephoto lenses together with wide framing excel at this task. They allow you to zoom in on those precious, intimate details, isolating your subject and transforming the scene into a focused narrative. This isolation isn’t just about removing distractions – it fosters intimacy, creating a silent dialogue between the viewer and your chosen subject.
Working in such way is useful for street portraits or capturing the essence of a single figure within a crowded scene, just like bellow

NARROW FRAMING TO FOCUS ON DETAILS:

A tight frame allows you to capture things that are often lost in a wider composition, the subtle details or emotions on persons face, a small gesture or just a detail that we wont to tell about.
By looking at the photos bellow someone might ask himself, but moment, some of these are shot with a 33mm lens on cropped sensor body, which is 50mm equivalent on a full frame one. This is hardly a telephoto lens.
Well, I wan’t to emphasize you can compose tight with a wider lenses as well, you will just need to get very, very close. Telephoto lenses just give you the ability to do it from a distance

BOKEH – BACKGROUND BLUR

It’s probably not new for you, but a lot of people just love images with bokeh and i can’t blame them, the aesthetics and general feeling of photographs shot with long lens and blurred backgrounds have something special about them. Although most street photographers prefer to use high aperture, lawyers and no background blur at all, using low aperture with tight framing is still a very valid approach in street photography.

Shooting tight in street photography is not a one-size-fits-all approach. However, by understanding the benefits outlined above, you can leverage this knowledge for more effective work on the street

HERE IS A TABLE SUMMARIZING THE KEY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TIGHT AND WIDE COMPOSITION.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT OF USING NARROW OR TIGHT FRAMING

The lens choice often reveals a photographer’s personality on the street. Some photographers prefer to be observers, wielding telephoto lenses to capture the scene from a distance. This approach creates intimate portraits and focused narratives, all without getting too close to the action.

On the other hand, some photographers crave immersion. They dive into the crowd, armed with wide lenses, seeking interaction and capturing the energy of the moment.

Fear, of course, can play a role. Getting close and personal with a camera takes courage. Some photographers conquer this fear, while others discover a comfort zone in shooting from afar. There’s no right or wrong approach – it’s about finding the style that best suits your personality.

Let me know what is your preferred way of shooting in the comments?

Your eye is like a muscle. Just like you can train your body to get stronger, you can train your eye to see more.

A well-developed, keen eye is your best friend on the streets. It's the tool that will help you capture your best photographs. And it's the tool you should invest the most in.

Not cameras. Not lenses. Not any other piece of gear you can think of will improve your photography.

So today, we will go through 6 proven ways to develop that eye.

THE BEGINNER'S TRAP: WHY GEAR ISN'T THE ANSWER

You see… The biggest problem someone faces when starting out in photography is that they simply don't know. They don't know what makes a good photograph. Their eye hasn't seen enough visual content to form an opinion.

The beginner's perception is often that a good photo needs to be sharp, and perhaps have nice colors. And of course, that you need a good camera to achieve that.

That's why beginners always ask, "Which camera is the best?" They think it will naturally give them the best results. It's not unusual. Many beginners buy pro kits, even Leicas and Hasselblads, because someone told them they're the best.

But, after playing with their new toys for a year or so, after getting exposed to more good images, something starts to shift.

The eye begins to recognize what's good and what's not. And that's when doubt creeps in.

They think, "I have the best gear money can buy. So why don't my photos look like his?" And the mind comes up with a quick answer: "It's because he knows how to edit better. I'm shooting well too. He just knows Photoshop and how to make the colors pop."

Sound familiar?

Why am I telling you all this? Because I've been there.

I didn't buy a Leica, but I had a full set of professional gear, and I was sure I was a great photographer.

THE TURNING POINT: MYANMAR

Until one moment changed everything.

It was a few years into my journey.

I knew quite a bit about gear; I could capture sharp images and blur the background, so I thought I had it all figured out.

I was on a trip to Myanmar, in a Buddhist monastery in the Mandalay area, walking proudly with my white 70–200, photographing monks going about their daily lives.

Until a small group of photographers entered the scene. Naturally, with the corner of my eye, I checked out everyone's gear. And found out, to my great satisfaction, that my camera was the best one there. That filled me with pride. I kept shooting, with my chest high, wearing my most serious, professional facial expression.

Among that group, there was a woman, probably the leader of their team. She had some small camera; I don't even remember the brand. At some point, she walked over and asked, "Hey, can I see what you're getting?"

Full of pride, I showed her my photos.

As we were scrolling through my precious work, she looked at a few. But quite quickly lost interest. Then she turned to me and said: "You know, your photos are technically fine, but you should work on your composition more."

Man, I can't tell you how those words hit me. My ego shattered. I could barely keep on shooting that day. Her words echoed in my head like a mantra: "You should work on your composition. You should work on your composition."

To this day, I don't know who she was. But those words had a massive impact on my future. That was the turning point for me. From that moment on, I dove deep into the world of photography. Today, I'm a better photographer. And it is all thanks to that woman.

But I don't walk around so proud anymore. Because now I know there's a never-ending path ahead of me. This process of training your eye and mastering your photography craft never truly ends.

So, how do you train your eye for aesthetics?

1. TRAINING YOUR EYE THROUGH VISUAL CONSUMPTION

It has to begin somewhere. So you start with training your eye through visual consumption. The first step is to consume a lot of quality imagery. But the curse of our time is that there's just too much content out there. And with the good stuff, you're also consuming a lot of garbage.

I used to recommend having an Instagram account where you remove all your family and friends and follow only photography accounts that inspire you. That still works, to some extent.

But Instagram isn't what it used to be. The algorithm pushes too much video, ads, and accounts you don't care about. So let's go back to basics.

• Explore other forms of art.
• Go to museums and look at paintings.
• Apply the composition rules you know to the art. You'll see that painters use light and shape very similarly to photographers.
• Look at abstract art to understand how color impacts emotion.
• Look at sculptures to see how light interacts with shape.

And of course, focus on photography books. Books are expensive. So choose one or two from photographers you love. And study them. Break down every single photograph you see.

Ask yourself:

• What do I like about this photo?
• Is it the story?
• What's my emotional response?
• Is it the composition?
• The colors? The light? The complexity? The simplicity?

The more questions you ask, the more answers you get. And the more you understand the art of photography.

I have a cheat sheet with a list of these types of questions. You can download it in here.

This is the first step, but it's a very important one. Once you start understanding what makes a good photo, you will start pushing your skills in that direction.

… But you're not a photographer yet. For now, you have learned how to become a photo critic. And just like a food critic isn't a chef…

To become a photographer, you need to expand your practical experience. You need to learn how to create those well-structured, story-rich photos with your own hands. And for that, you need to train. Give yourself challenges. Make a "Challenge Day" or a "Challenge Week." Every time you go out, focus on one thing.

2. DEVELOP THE EYE FOR MOMENTS

Let's say you want to develop your eye for moments. Then spend entire sessions outside observing and anticipating human interaction. Look for:

• Affection between couples
• Parent-child relationships
• General daily street life

These are there. But I bet you don't normally pay attention. Training your eye for storytelling means training it to be aware of these gestures and emotions. And the most important part is: Slow down. Don't rush. Look at a scene for a few minutes. That's how you learn to anticipate and recognize the start of an interaction.

3. DEVELOP THE EYE FOR COMPOSITION

Now let's talk about composition. Developing the eye for composition takes years. Because it means paying attention to all the elements in the frame and organizing them. That's hard. It's easier when you shoot tight with a telephoto lens and minimize elements. But if you want to shoot wider and show context, composition becomes critical. And much more difficult. You need to consider:

• Angles
• Lines
• Shapes
• Distances
• What enters the frame… And what stays out of it.

So, to train your eye for composition, it is very similar.

Challenge yourself with different exercises. One day focus on searching for Leading Lines: Find lines (roads, fences, shadows) that guide the viewer's eye toward your subject. The next day try to find Frame Within a Frame. The next challenge: search for objects surrounded by negative space. The next: work on your Symmetry & Balance. And so on… Until you run out of composition techniques.

THE POWER OF ONE FOCAL LENGTH

One of the best ways to train composition is to commit to one focal length for two years. Yes. Two years. Well, you can go with one, but I really recommend two. Someone commented on one of my videos recently, doubting that anyone would actually do it. So let me tell you, I did. I used a 35mm for two years. Some of my students did too. And we all greatly benefited from that imposed limitation that pushed us to explore our ability to compose. One of my students still mostly shoots with 35mm. And always tells me that it was the best advice he got.

So yes. People do it. And it works.

4. DEVELOP THE EYE FOR LIGHT

Then comes light.

Developing an eye for light means learning its language. Light creates mood. Hard light looks and feels one way, soft light another. You need to learn how to integrate light into the composition. A favorite exercise of mine: Take a bus during golden hour and watch how the light changes as the bus turns. See how it hits people differently. It's a great way to learn effortlessly. You can also walk the streets and look for light and shadow interplays. Find these different shapes created by light. Spend 5–10 minutes a day just watching how light falls. Observe the direction, quality, and color. You don't even need a camera for this. Just use your eyes.

5. DEVELOP THE EYE FOR COLOR

Now let's talk about color.

This one is hard for me. I'm partially colorblind, and I still don't pay enough attention to color. But if you want to train your eye for color, try this: Choose one color. Spend a shooting session searching for it on the streets. Then find that color in two places at once. For example, on your subject and some element on the street.

When you are comfortable with that exercise, look for specific color combinations. Try to find color combinations that create contrast. Similarly, try to find combinations that create harmony. This is the way to work with color. You use color either to create contrast or to create harmony.

6. DEVELOP THE EYE FOR SPACE

And finally: space.

Train your eye for space. Even empty space matters. Space defines distance between objects. It surrounds them and creates invisible framing of sorts. Emptiness pushes the eye toward your subject.

PUTTING IT ALL INTO PRACTICE

So you see, there are many areas to develop. If you break it down into weekly exercises, it can easily take you a year. And if you had trouble remembering everything, don't worry, I made a free download with these exercises. You can find it here.

But most importantly: Shoot. Theory means nothing without practice.

Reading a list of assignments won't train your eye. You have to do the assignments. You need to search for those visual elements again and again. That's how it sticks. Not by watching YouTube. Not by reading books.

So schedule your photography time. Make it a habit. Even 15–30 minutes a day. You can use the time after work. Or just when you are on your way somewhere.

The more you shoot, the more your capacity to see rises.

STAY INVOLVED & LEARN FROM OTHERS

And last tip: Stay involved in photography, even when you're not shooting.

• Analyze your work.
• Organize your photos by theme, light, style, technique.

Join a community. Find friends who are into photography.

Go on training missions together. But don't walk together, you'll just chat. Split up. Shoot for two hours. Then meet up and compare your findings. You'll learn a lot.

If you want a structured path through all of this instead of building it piece by piece, that's what I built with my online photography composition course.

Okay, I think I gave you enough to keep busy for a while.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments, and don't forget to subscribe.