Street Photography Tips, Interaction, Travel, Guides
*A series of guides on shooting Street Photography in cities around the world. Find the best spots to shoot, things to capture, safety concerns, street tips, and more for cities around the world. I have personally researched, explored and shot Street Photography in every city that I create a guide for. So you can be ready to capture the streets as soon as you step outside with your camera!
This Sunday’s Street Shot of the Week was taken by Brigade Road in Bangalore, India. Brigade Road is one of Bangalore’s busiest shopping streets and a popular spot to hang out due to all the restaurants and bars in the area. It attracts a trendier, hip and young crowd, but you’ll find a mixture of everybody walking around here due to its center location.
It was my first day in Bangalore and I got up early to explore the new city, starting from the metro station here. Brigade Road is much quieter in the morning, with many of the shops not opening until later in the day, but it made for a nice walk compared to the more chaotic evenings.
I was at the bottom of Brigade Road heading towards KR Market when I noticed this billboard across the street. The light was interesting and in the advertisement there was woman wearing a red saree, matching a real woman I saw walking across the street. I also liked the splashes of yellow and blue a man in the background could add to the scene, so I crossed the road and timed the shot to include her with the matching advertisement and man in the background, all framed together in a triangular shape.
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This Sunday’s Street Shot of the Week was taken around KR Market in Bangalore, India. KR Market is probably the most active area in Bangalore, with multiple markets, each with their own specialty. There’s not really a time of day, or night, that it completely shuts down. It’s the beautifully chaotic India that you envision, surrounding you with a variety of activity wherever you go.
For this shot, the sun was setting so I was finishing the day shooting in the market’s outside bus station before catching a ride back home. While walking, I noticed a magazine on the ground with its pages ripped in an interesting way, putting a woman’s face on top of another (as seen above). So I started taking a few photos of it framed amidst the dirt and trash covered ground.
While shooting, I had a few people watching me curiously wondering what I was doing, probably thinking I was crazy. One of the most curious, a small girl, came up close to watch me. Then suddenly she kneeled down and touched the magazine during one of my shots. After looking back at these photos, it ended up being the one I liked the best. It added a little mystery and human touch.
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During my recent trip to India, the rapidly growing city of Bangalore was my second stop after Chennai. For an Indian city, Bangalore brings a unique mix of cosmopolitan big city and the colorful, chaotic charm India is famous for. Parts of it are rivaled only by Mumbai for its development and the rapid growth you see and feel is unmatched. For street photography, it gives a variety of places to explore that can differ greatly in atmosphere too.
So here’s 33 street photos that I was able to capture during my time in Bangalore…
After Chennai, I took a train over to Bangalore, India. Now, like many of India’s cities, the name has recently been changed. I understand the reasoning, but names like Bombay, Madras, Calcutta and Bangalore were seriously such good names. So since Bangalore’s change is much more recent and I didn’t meet one local that referred to their city with the new name, Bengaluru, we’re still going to refer to it as Bangalore for this article :)
In a country full of rapidly developing cities, Bangalore is at the front. One of India’s more cosmopolitan big cities, it brings comforts to visitors that you don’t find yet in most of India, from hip hangouts to its more temperate climate. There’s still multiple sides to the city, though, if you want to find the more chaotic India of old.
So here are my first impressions of Bangalore, from my personal Street Photographer perspective…
This Sunday’s Street Shot of the Week was taken on Avenue Road in Bangalore, India. Avenue Road is one of the busiest shopping streets in Bangalore and stretches from the popular KR Market all the way up to KG Road. When in Bangalore, this is a great street to include in a photography walk because you can spend hours shooting around the market area and then slowly head up Avenue before exploring the Majestic area.
Avenue Road is always packed with people, covering the sidewalks and street the whole length. The mix of shops, restaurants, and prime location keep the activity coming. During one of my days walking this street, I saw a group of people ahead that looked even more packed than normal so I went to check what was going on. It turned out a small film crew was shooting a few actors inside a blocked off area. So everyone was curiously trying to see what was going on through the makeshift barriers put up by the crew.
I noticed these four men all trying to peak in, with three of them using the pole for help. A few things grabbed my attention. First, was how I could fit them all together into four separated layers. Another, were the different gestures of their hands. And a third, was how I liked the different colors of yellow, blue and red shirts they were wearing. So I framed them all together to get these pieces separated as much as possible, while making sure to snap the photo while they were still intently looking in that same direction.
I’ve decided to change up my photographer interviews and create a new series for the year. It’s a play on “20 questions” and I’ll try to mix them up with some different questions than you might get in other interviews. Some serious, some not so much. I’ll also be focusing the series on some of the best street photographers from the cities I visit around the world.
I just finished up a few weeks in India that included a stop in Bangalore, home of the very talented photographer, Arindam Thokder. Arindam is also a member of one of my favorite photo collectives out there, That’s Life, which I highly recommend checking out. Arindam’s work is full of life. He uses color, light, shadow and an observant eye to capture the special out of daily life in Bangalore.
So a big thank you to Arindam for being the first to participate in the new series! And now time for 20 Questions in Bangalore, India with Arindam Thokder…
