Conquering The Fear Of Street Photography

Child Musicians

Curious Couple

Side Walk Vendor

Fro Knows Photos.com  (Jared Polin)

This week I conquered my fear of shooting street photography. For years I have always enjoyed other photographers bravery in shooting street photography, but I never could get the nerve to hold the camera at someone and not think they are going to yell or even confront me about shooting them. The fact is, people are crazy, and from the stories I have read on the subject from various photographers, I just thought that this field is definitely not my calling. But come to find out I had to find a way to shoot and not bring attention to myself. Not to others to "myself". I was the reason I couldn't shoot street photography. So what I did was simple, I had a camera that had a broken LCD screen on it. Hey dude whats that got to do with street photography? Well when studying up the nerve to go shoot I learned one thing and that is, "NEVER CHIMP YOUR SHOTS!" What's that you ask? (some may ask) That's when you take a shot and you look at the screen to see what you shot. When you do that you'll always give people the impression that you've just taken their picture which draws attention to you. I did this in Barbados when I tried to capture a native and he noticed that I have taken his picture. I was standing there holding the camera waiting on him to look at me when all I needed to do was shoot before he noticed me. The results was an angry looking man and no more chances to shoot him again. So by shooting and walking away (CLICK&SKOOT) there's no harm no foul. I was shooting with my Sony A200 with my 18-70 Sony lens in Manhattan N.Y. As I was standing on the corner of 34th St. and 8th ave, my friend Mark Anthony, another photographer, recognized Fro Knows Photo AKA Jared Polin standing behind me. I was star struck for a moment and couldn't stop complimenting him, when I finally realized I had a camera in my hand, I got a few shots of the "Fro". {"Tip": Never take one shot, shoot on continuous, one shot is not enough"} Shooting in the city is my favorite place to shoot you never know who you'll run into. From the famous to the infamous they're in New York. Now that I have the knowledge on how to shot with flow, I have to work on other aspects of the art like focus, shutter speeds, and aperture settings. Light changes, and you don't want to get caught fummbling with your camera and miss a prime shot. All in all the experience was exhilarating and fun. In the future I plan on doing it more cause I love candid street photos. But I will be using my camera with a working LCD screen. To learn more on street photography go to YouTube and type street photography and get you some knowledge on the subject. Big shout out to Fro Knows Photo.com this guy has a lot of subject on photography. Until next time. As Bryan Peterson would say: "Keep Shooting!"