One Square Mile: Street Photography

During this lesson we looked at street photographers and the techniques they use to capture their images. 

One photographer we looked at was Martin Parr.  Martin Parr is one of the most famous photographer that comes from Britain. When taking photographs Martin Parr gets up close to his subjects and when something interesting comes along he snaps up the moment photographing as quickly as he can with a flash gun attached to the top of his camera. The flash has a diffuser over it to not over expose his photographs. 
Here are some of his photographs:

Another photographer we looked at was Philip Lorca Dicorcia. Philip took a set of photographs around New York in Times Square called 'Heads'. He set up flashes underneath scaffolding which are all synchronised to his camera and when people walk past he chooses whether or not he wants to photograph them. 

Here are some of his photographs:

Here are some photographs that I took in the style of both Martin Parr and Philip Lorca Dicorcia.

These are my Martin Parr styled images where I walked around and photographed people.

Here are some of my Philip Lorca Dicorcia images where I stayed around one area and photographed people that walked past:

I found this style of photography quite difficult as being quick enough to adjust my settings and then taking the photograph while making sure the subject hasn't disappeared was too fast paced for me even though I managed to do it. 

I had my f number on 10 and my shutter speed ranged from a 30th of a second to 250th of a second. I chose not to use flash because I was trying to be unnoticeable and the flash on my camera is very bright and people might have noticed I was photographing them. I was quite uncomfortable, in case people were angry that I was photographing without their permission, and quickly snapping while people passed me. I preferred stopping people and asking them because it was more friendly. Although being able to capture people acting natural is better than them posing because then they aren't being themselves.