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!
*The “Capture Color Series” covers different tips and lessons on Color Street Photography
For another installment in the Capture Color Series, I’ll cover some tips to help with seeing in color when out shooting in color. Of course, most of us already see in color just fine, but I’m talking about its relation to capturing better color photos. If you’re out shooting black & white photography, you need to see things differently than you do when shooting in color. If you can look around you and really see the colors, know how they can affect a photo, and be able to capture a color photo the way you saw it, then you’ve learned how to see in color with your photography.
Here are 7 tips to, hopefully, help with seeing in color in street photography.
First you have to find color before you can capture it. Luckily color is all around us, but you do have to keep your eyes open for it. Not all color is created equal, either, so what you’re looking for can depend on your vision and style too. Maybe you like bright colors, light colors, dark colors, or colors that give a certain mood. Maybe you like the light a certain way for your colors, maybe you like multiple combinations of colors in your scene, or maybe you like to use only one color highlighted. If you know what you like, then you don’t have to try to look for it. It will find you.
So, where to look for color then? Everywhere. City blocks can supply colorful buildings, signs, advertisements, and more. Nature can bring you intense colors too, like the green of the grass or the blue of the sky. Then, of course, you have people, whom can supply colors from what they wear to their hair. Even the light supplies different shades of colors. No matter where you are, the colors are out there. You just have to look.
Don’t take tip #1 too seriously or you’ll just end up photographing different colors instead of making a good photo. You have to look for more than just a color, while also not focusing too much on the act of looking. You want to be relaxed and free so things can find you.
This brings to mind my all-time least favorite quote by Ted Grant:
“When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and white, you photograph their souls!”
Without going into detail why I dislike this quote so much, if you’re shooting in color and take this quote to heart then you’re cutting your potential short. If you look to use color as a way to add life to a frame that already holds interest, then you can reach that potential.
Many Black & white street photographers like to look for lines, light, shadows, shapes and tones, but this can also be applied to color work too. Color work doesn’t need to be focused only on style, either. Capturing moments and scenes can be brought alive with the use of color. For the strongest photos, just like with black & white, color can work to enhance the photos interest, not be its only interest.
One of the more difficult aspects of color street photography is dealing with the number of colors that can fight for attention in a scene. The world is filled with a variety of colors and shades so you have to pay attention to this. Not all colors work well together. You might want the photo to focus on specific elements/subjects, but then a color in the background steals the focus. Or maybe the scene is a clutter of different colors that looks messy instead of appealing.
On the other side of the spectrum, you can use different colors together to create more interest. Learning Color Theory can teach you how colors work together and what combinations work well for your vision. For example, complementary colors like red and green not only look good together, but they create contrast to make the other stand out. Finding these color combinations in the street can really help capture a beautiful color photo.
Color creates mood and can have emotional meaning. We react differently to different colors and they can bring up thoughts and feelings. Some of this comes from our experiences and memories, while others are basic reactions born into us. Think of a red sports car or red lipstick. Compare that to the blue of the ocean or green of the grass. These colors give meaning and mood to a photo.
Photographer Joel Meyerowitz describes color much more articulately than I ever could:
“Color describes more things…I really mean the sensation I get from things – their surface and color – my memory of them in other conditions as well as their connotative qualities. Color plays itself out along a richer band of feelings—more wavelengths, more radiance, more sensation. I wanted to see more and experience more feelings from a photograph….The fact is that color film appears to be responsive to the full spectrum of visible light while black and white reduces the spectrum to a very narrow wavelength. This stimulates in the user of each material a different set of responses. A color photograph gives you a chance to study and remember how things look and feel in color. It enables you to have feelings along the full wavelength of the spectrum, to retrieve emotions that were perhaps bred in you from infancy—from the warmth and pinkness of your mother’s breast, the loving brown of you puppy’s face, and the friendly yellow of your pudding. Color is always part of experience. Grass is green, not gray; flesh is color, not gray. Black and white is a very cultivated response.”
When you look at color in this way, you see how powerfully it can be used in photography.
Light really affects color. It changes the shade, tone, saturation and intensity. You can shoot a scene in bright sunlight and then shoot the same scene seconds later after cloud coverage and the colors and mood completely change. Color doesn’t handle overexposure well at all, it can easily remove much of the color itself, along with any saturation. Shadows or under exposure, however, will darken and flatten much of the color. So you need to look at the light and make sure your exposure settings go along with how you’re looking to capture the color.
Exposure can’t do everything, though. No matter how hard you try, a cloudy day will never look the same as a sunny one. Most of my photos are shot with bright light because of how it brings out the colors when exposed for the highlights. You’ll see many well-known photographers prefer bright light too, like Alex Webb and Constantine Manos. These type of colors can’t be done without the sun. Just like the somber, more depressed colors come out better with grey skies or cover, which some photographers prefer for mood and look. Colors come from light, so it’s as important as anything in color photography.
Your camera doesn’t see like your eyes do. Our eyes expose for different parts of the scene at the same time and can give us a very different picture than the actual picture captured. So just as light affects colors, how the camera sees and captures the light differently than our eyes is important to learn. Since your eyes aren’t processing the photo, you need to see like your camera.
This means if you see the sunlight creating a high contrast scene, you’ll know that the shadows will be darker than your eyes see, as long as you expose for the highlights. You can use this to your advantage to create shadows and mood that your eyes wouldn’t create, though. If instead, you want to bring out those shadows, you need to be very careful it doesn’t blowout the highlights. If you see like your camera, you can control the light and create something even better than your eyes could see.
Color noise and blur, among others, are a couple of reasons photos can look better in black & white. This is because color can look much worse when not shot ideally, as it brings out these “negatives,” while black & white can hide or make them look more pleasing. If you’re shooting in color, you really need to be aware of how the camera will see and create the image, based on things like light and camera settings.
One way of the best ways to learn how to see in color is to study the work of others.
Harry Gruyaert, Martin Parr, Alex Webb, Saul Leiter, Joel Meyerowitz, and William Eggleston are some of the biggest names and pioneers in color photography. Study their work and see how they capture color. Try to think what they saw in real life in order to capture a photo, and its colors, the way they did.
To finish off, below are 10 examples from 10 of the best:
If you have any thoughts or tips of your own for seeing in color, please comment below! Cheers and good luck capturing color.
This Sunday’s Street Shot of the Week was taken in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam at September 23 Park (Công viên 23 tháng 9). This park stretches multiple blocks along Phạm Ngũ Lão street up to Ben Thanh Market. So it’s in the heart of the city right by the touristic backpacker district and ends at the city’s most famous market, making it one of the busier spots in the city. You get a mix of locals and tourists, different events, students looking to practice english, people playing shuttlecock, and people exercising like the man in this pic.
Saigon has these exercise stations in parks all over the city. They’re for very simple exercises that don’t take much strength and seem to be used by the city’s elderly more than anybody. This can create some humorous scenes. They rarely dress in exercise clothes, but they’re rarely breaking much of a sweat, either. This man was a different story, though. He was giving full effort in his button-up shirt.
He was doing this ab workout where he’d bring his legs up and down, while also stretching them in and out at the same time. So I decided to capture a shot of this funny scene right when his legs were fully out and his facial expression showed all that effort he was putting into his routine.
Stats:
After traveling around Sri Lanka, India and Nepal, it was finally time stay in one place for a little while. That place was Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, or better known as Saigon. Honestly, everyone and everything in the city still refers to Ho Chi Minh City as Saigon so for this post we’ll go with the much shorter (and quicker to type) name too.
For my time in Saigon, I had my own apartment right in the heart of the city in District 1. Currently at 19 districts, Saigon uses this numbered system to section off different neighborhoods, many of which have their own character and what they’re known for. While District 1 is the heart of the city, and where most of the attractions are located, there’s a lot more to see if you have the time. Luckily, I had plenty of time to explore the many districts.
So here are my first impressions of Saigon (HCMC), from my personal Street Photographer perspective…
After spending a month in India, I stopped in Kathmandu, Nepal before my full move to Vietnam. I had no trekking planned so I devoted all my time to exploring the city with my camera. After walking plenty of dusty dirt roads, narrow streets, and river banks, I was able to find some of the more interesting spots that you can’t find online. Kathmandu is a unique city with its own atmosphere of Nepalese culture, architecture, crumbling buildings, and dusty skies.
You need a little time to really discover the city outside of Thamel’s hippy tourist section, but it was worth all the walking. So here’s 33 photos that I was able to capture during my time in Kathmandu…
This Sunday’s Street Shot of the Week was taken by Ring Road in Kathmandu, Nepal. While walking around Kathmandu looking for interesting places for photography, I came upon this small mobile fair set in the middle of a dirt landfill. Next to piles of garbage, cows and an outside market was this set-up of old fair rides and food stands. The scene was a strange surprise, but in a very interesting way. Perfect for photography.
The mobile fair also attracted plenty of locals so I looked to see what I could capture. While photographing the scenes around the colorful, broken down rides, I saw a man taking photos of it all from a distance. He was by himself in front of a background of garbage, cows, dust and the city above. He had his phone held out in front taking endless pics. I walked over closer and he didn’t seem to notice me, as he focused intently on his phone screen. It was a strange scene fitting for the strange place I had randomly come upon. So I took a photo just as the phone light went on for another pic.
Stats:
After a month in India, I flew from Mumbai to Kathmandu, Nepal. Outside of temples and a starting spot for mountain trekking, I was going in without much real knowledge of the city, especially for street photography. The internet was no help and I’d yet to meet a photographer that had shot there. So that was an experience in itself, but mostly a good one. Kathmandu is unlike any city I’ve been to, filled with culture, scenery and a unique atmosphere. With enough time spent exploring on foot, there’s plenty to find.
So here are my first impressions of Kathmandu, from my personal Street Photographer perspective…
This Sunday’s Street Shot of the Week was taken by Marine Drive in Mumbai, India. Marine Drive is a 3.5 kilometer C-shaped boulevard along South Mumbai’s bay. People come here for morning exercise, evening walks, young romance, to relax by the ocean, enjoy the skyline, hang out and more. A great place for people watching, it’s one of the most popular spots in the city and my favorite to come for a more relaxing street photography walk. While Marine Drive can be touristy, you still get plenty of local life and interesting scenes, all within an enjoyable atmosphere by the bay.
I got up early one morning to catch the sunlight facing the water so I could capture the people in the light. While the morning is more quiet, it can be better for photography. People aren’t back lit, the boulevard isn’t as crowded with tourists, and all the morning exercise can create some interesting scenes. Since Marine Drive has been photographed so much, it can be a challenge to capture something different. Luckily, if you spend enough time here, opportunities can still arise.
On this morning I noticed this group of young men all wearing matching blue dress shirts. They were walking towards the end of the drive where you can walk on tetrapod shaped concrete blocks. I decided to sit down on one of the blocks and watch for a while to see if I could capture them all spaced apart. I liked the pattern of matching colored outfits they created against the backdrop of sea and skyline. After waiting a while, they finally separated and I captured this shot. Almost like a skyline of people against a skyline of the city.
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