The Street Photographer must capture images that are much more than just ‘pictures taken in the street’. Anyone can do that. While the results of all street photography may claim to capture a moment in time, the best street photographer can go a great deal further.
Ask yourself, for instance, when you are tempted to just snap away in the street – how relevant is my image. You will only ever scratch at the surface as a street photographer unless your pictures convey purpose and feeling. Whether that feeling is humour, tragedy, suspense or elation depends on your subjects and the way you portray them.
Ill-considered pictures will always fail to hit the spot – unless, of course, they capture a special moment purely by fluke.
The great newspaper editor Harold Evans once wrote that he put each picture through three tests before selecting it for publication in The Sunday Times. He asked did that photograph possess…
- Animation
- Relevant context
- Depth of meaning
Every picture would have to possess at least one of these before it could be printed in The Sunday Times.
The main picture above was taken by Philip Dunn for The Sunday Times