What photograph have you taken that, to you, represents the essence of what you try to accomplish in street photography?
For me, it's this one:
Dead Link Removed
EDIT: Here's another link to the highest resolution I can get, so you can really zoom in:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwrvaawQX603SG9JUF9NaDJRZ1k
I was just looking through my old images today and this one in particular struck a chord with me.
I remember exactly where and when I took this. I was walking down Pearl Street in Boulder, Colorado with a friend. I happened to have my camera with me. At some point we notice this huge dog, making friends with a smaller dog. I quickly took out my camera, set the exposure, and nailed the shot. I didn't think twice or take time to compose the shot or give it a second thought - this was 100% on instinct, even the exposure, and I don't even remember why I chose a small aperture at the time, except to make sure I had enough depth of field in case I didn't focus properly. I just knew I had to capture the moment fast because it wouldn't last long enough to do my usual thing of taking my time.
On first glance this seems like a pretty normal, boring picture. Yeah, the dogs are cool. Yeah, the big dog vs. small dog thing is neat. Then we move on, right? But look a little closer. Take a look at what the other people in the picture are doing. The woman sitting behind the small dog is not even looking at the dogs, like everyone else - she's looking somewhere else, to the photographer's right, with this coy expression on her face that makes you wonder whether she has noticed a friend or love interest walking up, or whether she is simply daydreaming. The man in the background appears to be looking at the dogs, or, more interestingly, the photographer (or the photographer's beautiful friend, just saying). We see a man sitting on a bench talking to a woman who may be his wife, we don't know. We see people walking in conversation, looking at shops, smiling, having fun - doing what people do every day on this street. We see the shops Boulder residents know and love - Liberty Puzzles, Kilwin's Chocolate, we even see a little Illegal Pete's flair in what the woman on the bricks is eating (Illegal Pete's is just to the right, out of the picture). It's undeniably Boulder - we see banner text on a door that reads "Most renewable resource on the planet"! The depth of field is just large enough to encompass all these things and still leave the very background out of focus.
This photograph also holds a lot of memories for me. I remember every second of that afternoon I spent with my friend, and that single picture brings it all back, and also triggers memories of all the time I have ever spent on Pearl Street. There, in one image, is something powerful and amazing, at least to me, and probably to a lot of other people as well. It's the sort of image you can show to any Boulder college student 60 years from now and they will pore over it with a magnifying glass with tears in their eyes.
This photo tells a story, and the story is far deeper than just the ostensible foreground subject.
That's what street photography in particular, and much of photography in general, is all about for me.
What is it all about for you, if you could pick one single image that resonates with what you try to accomplish?
For me, it's this one:
Dead Link Removed
EDIT: Here's another link to the highest resolution I can get, so you can really zoom in:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwrvaawQX603SG9JUF9NaDJRZ1k
I was just looking through my old images today and this one in particular struck a chord with me.
I remember exactly where and when I took this. I was walking down Pearl Street in Boulder, Colorado with a friend. I happened to have my camera with me. At some point we notice this huge dog, making friends with a smaller dog. I quickly took out my camera, set the exposure, and nailed the shot. I didn't think twice or take time to compose the shot or give it a second thought - this was 100% on instinct, even the exposure, and I don't even remember why I chose a small aperture at the time, except to make sure I had enough depth of field in case I didn't focus properly. I just knew I had to capture the moment fast because it wouldn't last long enough to do my usual thing of taking my time.
On first glance this seems like a pretty normal, boring picture. Yeah, the dogs are cool. Yeah, the big dog vs. small dog thing is neat. Then we move on, right? But look a little closer. Take a look at what the other people in the picture are doing. The woman sitting behind the small dog is not even looking at the dogs, like everyone else - she's looking somewhere else, to the photographer's right, with this coy expression on her face that makes you wonder whether she has noticed a friend or love interest walking up, or whether she is simply daydreaming. The man in the background appears to be looking at the dogs, or, more interestingly, the photographer (or the photographer's beautiful friend, just saying). We see a man sitting on a bench talking to a woman who may be his wife, we don't know. We see people walking in conversation, looking at shops, smiling, having fun - doing what people do every day on this street. We see the shops Boulder residents know and love - Liberty Puzzles, Kilwin's Chocolate, we even see a little Illegal Pete's flair in what the woman on the bricks is eating (Illegal Pete's is just to the right, out of the picture). It's undeniably Boulder - we see banner text on a door that reads "Most renewable resource on the planet"! The depth of field is just large enough to encompass all these things and still leave the very background out of focus.
This photograph also holds a lot of memories for me. I remember every second of that afternoon I spent with my friend, and that single picture brings it all back, and also triggers memories of all the time I have ever spent on Pearl Street. There, in one image, is something powerful and amazing, at least to me, and probably to a lot of other people as well. It's the sort of image you can show to any Boulder college student 60 years from now and they will pore over it with a magnifying glass with tears in their eyes.
This photo tells a story, and the story is far deeper than just the ostensible foreground subject.
That's what street photography in particular, and much of photography in general, is all about for me.
What is it all about for you, if you could pick one single image that resonates with what you try to accomplish?
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