
The Streets of New York - prismatic
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/08/20/the-streets-of-new-york/
======
amondal
Thanks for sharing! As an amateur street photographer myself, this really
resonated with me. I've found that street photography can be extremely
unforgiving but the drive to capture and understand urban life is addictive.
Would love to hear other peoples' experiences with how to be more successful
at street photography!

~~~
piffey
Really it's all about pounding the pavement. You have to be monastic, slogging
through poor weather and always being on point with your surroundings --
enjoying those good days out there. It's hard and unforgiving -- you'll go
whole months without making a single decent photograph, thousands of wasted
frames all for that single moment when the entropy of the street arranges
itself well.

Of course then you get the inverse of that -- people like Nikos Economopoulos
-- who argue that street photography is already hard so why make it harder and
go outside when the light is poor? It's all about finding your drive -- why
are you out there doing it?

Daniel Arnold has a quote recently where he said: "I don't know. I don't know
what it's worth. I don't know if there's a purpose to any of this work.
Certainly, there's a great argument to be made that walking around the street
all day looking at things and pressing a button is a stupid use of my life,
but my life doesn't feel stupid. It feels full." I think that's the head space
you have to get in as you continue to press and develop your skills and
vision. Keep picking new things to work on as well -- I like to make
achievements like: I want to make a good photograph where you can feel the
congestion of overtourism, then keeping that feeling in mind (along with
dozens of other things) go out and try to achieve that. On the inverse
sometimes things just align and all you have to do is press the shutter and
you aren't sure why, but the photograph is gorgeous.

Last thing of course is to study photographs of the masters. Find the sub-
genre that sticks with you. The painterly Henri-Cartier Bresson, the facts
clearly describe of Garry Winogrand, the ethereal loneliness of Josef
Koudelka, the emotional connection with the mundane of Henry Wessel, the color
pallets of Saul Leiter, the elaborate colors of Nikos Economopoulos or the raw
grit of Richard Sandler. It's all out there to be studied and to try to
emulate while you make your way.

Good luck in your street photography journey. If you have an instagram please
share it and I'll give you a follow. Always nice to find other photographers
out there putting in the work.

~~~
amondal
great advice - thank you! I think my biggest issue is patience, so I'm working
on that slowly (using film as a medium has helped). my instagram is
@agastya.mondal - would love to see your work as well!

