Street Photography Research

Street Photography

Street photography is taking photographs of everyday life. Documenting the street, the beach, a park ect. It’s ‘like holding up a mirror to society’.

The aim of a street photographer is to capture an everyday image that could be labeled as bland and boring and make it pretty and interesting by capturing moments most photographers would overlook. They achieve this by using the 'decisive moment' and 'juxtaposition'.

The decisive moment is a window in time, which is the perfect timing to capture a moment that will last for a split second.

Juxtaposition is two contradicting objects stood in a shot, or side by side which leads the viewers to interpret the image themselves. This works well in Street Photography as that is what is seen everyday. The places that work well for Street Photography are: the beach, the street and a park amongst others. Neither of these places are specifically for one type of person so Juxtaposition will regularly occur there.
There are many things you should and should not so when taking Street Photography. 
For example you should:

• Ask a persons permission before you take their photograph. (you should be extra careful when asking homeless people.)
• Be respectful towards them.
• Be friendly and smile.

You shouldn't:

• Take a photograph of somebody after they have said they do not want to be photographed.
• Take photographs of children without asking for their parents permission.
• Take photographs of security.
• Be rude to people.

This photograph has subtle hints of juxtaposition hidden within it. You can see that the image is juxtaposed if you look closely, for example in the background there is a man holding the hand of a children. This shows juxtaposition as the adult is obviously younger than the small child. There is another example of juxtaposition for instance there is a man wearing a mask of a gorilla walking next to another man with his hood up. The is juxtaposed as one man looks quite normal whereas the other looks strange as he is walking naturally with a mask.
I like this photograph as it looks bland when I first glanced at it but once I had looked closer I noticed small details that I enjoyed for example the way everything is dark and depressing for instance the brown clothing that is frequently seen and the rain, however, the child is wearing a bright red hat which is vibrant and exciting which reflects the average child's personality. I also like the way the models faced mimic the weather.
The photographer of this image is Fabio Costa.