Over the years, I found a few different things that helped me improve my work. In terms of street photography, it’s all about practice, repetition, and putting in that time.
One camera, one lens
First and foremost, it’s important to consider the gear itself. I believe in the notion that you should shoot with one camera, and one lens for many years. This will allow you to improve incrementally and become in tune with the tool you choose to use. The more you fumble around with different lenses and cameras, the less you will improve over time. My suggestion is a Ricoh GR camera as they have a fixed lens, is compact, and easy to carry around with you.
Practice daily
It’s very easy to fall into a rut, or lose motivation to go out there and practice photography. One simple idea I have is to make a picture every every single day. Even if you only make a single frame, I think it’s a worthwhile practice. I believe that the more you go out there and make pictures, the more that you will improve. When it comes to daily practice, don’t get caught up with coming home with a keeper every time. Just treat each day as a new opportunity for you to flex your creative muscle.
Go slow
When you’re walking the street, walk slowly. To enter the zen zone, you must go slowly and actually recognize all of the patterns within life itself. The slower you walk, I believe the more you will see. The more you see, the more you will make photographs. Find yourself in a state of wandering, and moving your body at a slow pace. This will help you and improve your photography over time. The more you’re rushing around and frantically looking for moments, the less they will actually come to you. Just go slow and enter the zen zone.
Find a route and stick to it
In your hometown, find a certain path that you want to take each day. Allow yourself to follow the same path over and over again on repeat. This will allow you to study the street, and become in tune with the things that occur daily in your city. When you photograph a similar place constantly, you will increase your chance of making a successful frame. Try to embrace the mundane around you as much as possible and find beauty within every day moments on this commute that you make each day with your camera. Repeating the same route each day, you may find yourself with more opportunity than wandering aimlessly to new places.
Study the light
As you observe your town, study the light. Find the locations where the sun is striking, and where people are bustling on certain corners. This will help you because the more you get to know the light, the more you will understand where to position yourself and your camera and at which times of the day.
Collect a few books
There’s something about studying the work of others, and finding inspiration within the realm of photography. When you look at the work of others, study the way that they compose, see the world, and at which time of the day they seem to photograph. Perhaps there’s a photographer that only photograph during the golden hour. Maybe somebody photographs mostly at night, looking through reflections, or focused more on a documentary driven approach. Try to find bits and pieces of each photographer that inspires you and incorporate them into your own work. This is critical, because without a framework and foundational knowledge about what is possible, you will perhaps become lost. I suggest finding a few books that resonate with you, and studying those books for inspiration.
The goal is to learn from your masters, then kill them.
Separate yourself from the work
It’s easy to become emotional about a particular photograph that you’ve made. In order to combat this, you must separate yourself from the work. What this means is, you allow yourself time to go through and find the exact photographs that stand out to you after a year of making pictures. This doesn’t mean you get lazy with keeping up with the archive. I suggest going through your photographs each day after your walks. This way you don’t give yourself a headache at the end of the year. Make your daily selections quickly, as it shouldn’t take you that much time using an iPad and the photos app. But at the end of the year, you want a disconnected mindset when it comes to evaluating the work. You want to make sure that you look at each frame objectively and detached from your emotional experience while making the work. At this point, you can give yourself as much time in the world to find those shots that resonate with you.
Make a sketchbook
After you’re done photographing for a year and find your selections, make a sketchbook of your best work. Use a Canon SELPHY CP 1500 printer at home and print out a selection of your photographs. If you’d like, make notes about each photograph and study them daily. Carry the sketchbook with you wherever you go and always have the work in your back pocket both physically and metaphorically.
Travel and test your skills
Once you spend your first year photographing in your hometown and flexing your muscles daily, it’s time for the real test. Find a location that you’ve always dreamt of visiting and spend one month in that location photographing and exploring. Don’t overpack, over-prepare, and think about opportunities that could potentially occur at certain locations. Simply go there with with an open mind, without any preconceived notions of what you will find. Through traveling to a new place, you will open up new opportunities for your photography to grow and learn along the way.
A location that I highly suggest is Mumbai, India. Mumbai is a bustling and diverse location filled with potential for you to explore with your camera. It seems like one of those cities that you could spend your entire lifetime photographing and always find new something new. You can watch some behind the scenes videos of my time photographing in Mumbai on my YouTube channel.
It’s always exciting to visit a new place and practice your photography. Don’t take it too seriously and get caught up in making good pictures. Enjoy yourself, take your time, and make sure to cherish each moment. This is why photography is so powerful. It brings us to these new places and allows us to explore with an open mind without any preconceived notions of what we will find. The combination of traveling and practicing photography will allow you to improve as you learn about new cultures and challenge yourself.