Street Photography “Advice” You Should Avoid

In this blog I’m gonna cover some questionable advice specifically on opinions being pushed as advice. You see, the moment you jump on YouTube or speak to another photographer who has been doing this long enough, there is a good chance that you will get a bunch of advice which I’m sure is coming from a good place. However there is a very fine line between legit advice and merely someones opinion and preferences being pushed as advice. 

Editing is cheating 

Ok this can be a bit of a messy topic to address so for the sake of simplicity let’s clear a coupe things up. Everyone has their own metric for what is enough and what is too much. Some people will only go as far as making a few tonal adjustments and that’s it. Others will colour grade. Some will clone out rubbish and clean up the photo. Others will replace skies. There is no right or wrong when it comes to editing because ultimately this is art. The only thing that determines how far you should take an edit is the end goal of the photo. For example if you want a very nice photo to hang on the wall as a piece of art, then do whatever you want to it… there are no limits. If you are asked to take some photos of a small town for their tourist board, then sure, they have to be very clean, warm, aesthetically pleasing and inviting however also realistic. If you go and photoshop Everest in the background of a little Italian village… not sure that will go down too well. Joking aside for this kind of photo, I will colour grade and I will clone out rubbish on the floor or the odd twig sticking out and do my best to make the most pleasing image possible. If however you are asked to document an event from a purely documentary perspective. Let’s say someone asks you to document a protest and the images will end up in the local paper, then I would probably avoid cloning things out or altering the image too much. For sure I will colour grade, but if some protester chucked some rubbish on the ground, I’m not sure I would remove it. My point here is when it comes to how far you should take your edit, base that decision on the end goal of your photo and the target audience who will look at that photo. Not some pretentious “expert” sitting in his arm chair, holding his prised range finder telling everyone how editing is evil. 

Cropping is cheating 

When i came across this bit of crap crop advice I honestly thought the geezer was joking. Turns out he wasn’t and there is a whole army of these anti crop preachers spamming the internet. I wish i could rationalise this one but I can’t. Yes, you should try your best to get the framing right in camera. But in reality most if not all photos will need a slight crop to get the composition and balance spot on. The only thing I would say that if you’re cropping all your images excessively then maybe get a little closer to the subject or get a longer lens. But yeah, anyone who tells you cropping is cheating is not your friend. 

You MUST use X focal length for X photography 

This can be a confusing topic so let’s try to break it down. First of all you can use any focal length for any kind of photography. You can use an 8mm lens or a 400mm for street if you so wish and you can get pretty cool results. However chances are that after the novelty of such an extreme focal length wears off, you might start to struggle a little. After some trial and error, chances are you will end up in that mid ground of anywhere between 28mm and 85mm. From then on, it is all down to your shooting style, your taste and most importantly what you enjoy using. When another photographer tells you that for street you must use a 35mm lens, all they are doing is telling you what works for them and what they like using. This includes me. However you might not enjoy 35mm because you might find it too wide and you prefer to shoot from a distance. So an 85mm will be more suitable for what you enjoy. By all means listen to people’s preferences and opinions, and maybe even try their focal length yourself. However just keep in mind, that using X focal length for X type of photography is an opinion and not a fact.

This is what “street photography” is and isn’t 

I reckon this will be an unpopular opinion especially with street photography snobs who think everything should be done a certain way. Everyone I know from myself to even Sean Tucker have had someone come up and say “you’re not a street photographer because your photos don’t conform to XYZ”. I heard it all…. 

“You’re not a street photographer because you don’t shoot film”

“You’re not a street photographer because you clone rubbish out”

“You’re not a street photographer because you take photos of busses, buildings & boats”

The list goes on. I’m using street photography as an example but this can apply to any genre. The world of street photography is very large and can include many sub genres such as documentary, fine art or even photos which have some kind of humour within them. If you love the more fine art approach to street photography with sharp shadows and highlights, it does not make you any less of a street photographer than someone who shoots black and white documentary type of work. So just shoot what you enjoy and remember that anytime someone starts trying to force their opinion on you with regards to why you are not doing street photography, just don’t pay any attention to them. This is usually a sign of insecurity anyway.

You’re not a photographer unless you’re using X camera

The final crappy bit of advice which is just an opinion is that you must only use a certain type of camera to be classed as a photographer. Specifically there is still some kind snobbery towards photographers who shoot on their phone. If you shoot on your phone, you are a photographer, you are part of the photography community and the photos you take hold just as much value as they would if you used a medium format camera. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just pissed that you can take better photos on your phone than they can on the Fuji GFX that they just maxed out their credit card on. Obviously some common sense is required…. If you’re hired by a client for a shoot, then maybe using just your phone is not the best way to go about it. But this blog is not about making money from photography so it doesn’t matter.