“The street is our stage”

Most of us start our photographic journey with bringing our new DLSR to the streets and taking pictures, of the buildings, of the people, or some tiny decorations of the stores. As we develop our skills, some go to landscape photography, or to macro/flowers, or portrait/wedding photography. Some stay still, on the streets.

To me, it is one of the types of photography that appears to be trivial, or even banal to the most audience. It appears to require less effort from the photographer (i.e., no assistants!). And everything just happens on the street, no special props like smoke machine, etc… It is also a type of photography that lacks of a clear (or universally accepted) definition. Should every photo taken in public places is street photograph? Or it has to be a photo of PEOPLE in public. If it’s taken in a garden – No? How one is labelled as a street photographer? By carrying his camera every time he goes out. How’s about those taken portrait of people on the street? It’s hardly one correct definition. But there is one term to be agreed in common in street photography: Impulse- Reaction.

Every year I wrote something related to my thoughts on street photography (2009, 2010, 2011). Probably due to my confused and frustrated mind towards researching for the purpose of doing it. Like it. But what is it for? And the taste keeps changing too. Stuffs that I like two years ago might become boring now. BORING, that’s a dangerous word. Getting bored, and less stimulated by the way you used to observe. A photo with blurry background and single interesting subject might not be enough. More complex layers of subjects or colors could be better. It’s much more difficult to observe those. Then should we seek for a decisive moment of a formal and “surreal” picture with strong composition and geometry? Or a less “formal”, more “real” to reflect our indecisive and instantaneous response. I start to appreciate more work in the HCSP (Hardcore Street Photography) group, some photos I really like, some of those I still don’t know “why they are selected ?!”. My interest in street photography keeps changing. But one thing I have to remind myself – “be honest with your reaction”.

Anyway, I start to create my portfolio for what I think as street photography, in color and in grayscale. Here they are:

and In Color