Street Photography Skills

The beauty in Street Photography

As an aspiring photographer, I am aesthetically drawn to the style, colors, and shadows of low light photography. There is just something about the way colors pop at night that has a magnetic pull to my eyes while also creating a sense of mystery and beauty at the same time.

The lights, the neon, and the darkness that embodies the surrounding environment. It's captivating and inspiring. Being able to see the aesthetics of the buildings, streets and signage in this form can liven even the most worn out areas. It make your eyes focus on details that you may not have noticed if it was daylight out.

Street Photography is defined by Sean O'Hagan

"An attitude as well as a style"

When shooting street photography, I have noticed that its all about telling a story with very little. The photo should make people create and expand the scene in their head to instill wonder and appreciation. There is a stillness to this type of photography that makes you zone in on specific areas one at a time. These photos turn the old, worn and mundane environments, to something captivating. Also, think symmetry is important when shooting any type of lines which are mostly included in building and street shots.



The purple haze in this one has such a mysterious and haunting effect but at the same time still beautiful.

The delicate side to shooting photography like this always falls on the lighting and camera settings. I have learned through trial and error that not only is the quality of camera important but more specific the LENS, APERTURE, the ISO and SHUTTER SPEED are all key to getting the perfect shot. Especially in LOW LIGHT situations.

The LENS helps you establish your focal point and zoom length capabilities. Your APERTURE allows you to control how much light can come into the lens. The lower the aperture, the more light. The higher the aperture, the less light. Your ISO is the level of brightness that is controlled internally by the specific camera. Typically you want to have the lowest ISO as possible considering the lighting around you. Usually an ISO of 800-1600 is optimal but some cameras allow you to boost your ISO to around 6400 without introducing grain at all. Lastly, SHUTTER SPEED controls the amount of time the camera lens will allow for lighting to be taken into the sensor. For moving pictures you typically want a shutter speed of 1/60-1/120. If you want low light shots and have a tripod you can lower your shutter speed to 1/30-1/8 or even lower depending on the shot.

I have grown fond of using my current camera which is the SONY a6300 which allows me to bump up the ISO without getting a lot of noise in the shot. I hope to be able to publish my own street photos on here one day but in the mean time I hope you gained a new appreciation for street photography.

I'm thinking my next camera project will focus on FILMING low light videos to capture the same effect and beauty that these low light photos show here. Bringing in the slow motion effect with the high frame rate will allow for smooth transitions and clean cuts while also bringing in the viewer into the scene to take in everything in the shot. I will try to post my work as soon as I can get it out of post for everyone to wander.

These images are purely used for inspiration and I hope to achieve this style with my own shots.

Here's to capturing and living in the moments,

-Ruben Dorame