Hey, you! Yes, you, the one with the fancy camera and the Instagram account. Do you think you're a street photographer? Do you think you're capturing the essence of urban life with your candid snaps? Well, I have some news for you: you're not. And here's why.
Street photography is not about posing your friends on the sidewalk and asking them to look natural. It's not about staging a scene with props and costumes and pretending it's spontaneous. It's not about editing your photos to make them look gritty and edgy and cool. No, street photography is about capturing the real moments that happen in the public space, the ones that are unpredictable and unrepeatable, the ones that show the human condition in all its beauty and ugliness.
Street photography is about being invisible, blending in with the crowd, observing without interfering. It's about being ready to react to whatever happens in front of your lens, without planning or directing. It's about being honest, respectful, and curious about the people and places you encounter. It's about telling a story with a single image, without words or captions.
So, next time you go out with your camera, don't call yourself a street photographer if all you do is pose shots on the street. That's not street photography by definition. That's just posing on the street. And that's boring.
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