Street photography

Street photography generally refers to photographs made in public places — not only streets, but parks, beaches, malls, political conventions and myriad other settings — often but not always featuring people going about their everyday lives. In one sense it can be thought of as a branch of documentary photography but unlike traditional documentary its chief aim — or at least its chief effect — is seldom to document a particular subject, but rather to create photographs which strongly demonstrate the photographer's vision of the world. Good street photography often ends up being good documentary photography without really trying, especially after the passage of a few years, but unlike documentary it seldom has an explicit social agenda or rhetorical intent. It tends to be more ironic and distanced from its subject matter.

Equipment for Street Photography

Street photography has been made with equipment as varied as cellphones to 4x5 view cameras. The "classic" street photo camera has been the 35mm Leica rangefinder. The attributes praised by Leica users define a canonical set of features desired in Street Photo equipment.

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A good street camera should be light, quick to operate, quiet and of good quality. 35mm cameras have dominated this ideal until recent years when digital cameras appeared. Currently there is something of a gap -- compact digitals are inconspicuous, quiet, and light, but slow in operation. Digital SLRs are quick to operate but generally large, heavy, and relatively loud. This gap, however, closes a bit with each passing year of technological improvement. Epson R-D1 digital camera is the prime example of the closing gap.

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The #1 criterion in choosing a street photo camera, unless some external consideration (such as large negative or stealth) is of interest, is that the camera be comfortable to operate in the hand of the specific photographer.

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