Alex Coghe, a street photographer, has a unique perspective on photography that comes from his life experiences. He is self-taught, and his journey to becoming a professional photographer was anarchic, with a lot of experimentation and frustration, but also a lot of satisfaction. Coghe’s work is a total reflection of his life, and his photographs…
In a world where everyone is a photographer, it takes a true artist to capture life’s fleeting moments on the streets. It also takes relentless drive and dedication. Not only is Wojciech Ryzinski a very hard working photographer, he has a very artistic eye for composition, color, and light. In this interview with street photographer…
Max Gor is a photographer whose passion for street photography has become the main focus of his work. As he learned about different genres of photography, he realized that taking pictures of strangers candidly called to him. Influenced by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bruce Gilden, Ernst Haas, Fred Herzog, Harry Gruyaert, Saul Leiter, William Eggleston, and Joel…
James Maher is a New York native, a graduate of the International Center for Photography, and a portrait, event, and street photographer. He’s the author of three photography books on street photography, travel photography, and photography marketing. I invited him for an interview to discuss his approach to photography. Below, you’ll find my questions for…
If you just bought your first camera kit, you may be wondering what the plastic thing is that came with your lens. Maybe you’ve been doing photography for a while and even have been using your lens hood but haven’t questioned why. The downside to lens hoods is that it’s another piece of gear that…
Street photography is hard. At least not if you want to do it well and create a body of work you can be proud of. If you read interviews with history’s great street photographers, a common refrain among them is how hard it is. To do street photography, you may take a walk in the…
Street photography ISO is tricky; on the one hand, low ISOs give you better image quality; on the other, high ISOs let you shoot at smaller apertures and higher shutter speeds. The key is finding a balance so that you can get the results you want for your style of street photography. I give my…
If you’re a fan of street photography, you may have noticed that underexposed street photography can be really compelling. It’s a spin on reality that doesn’t look overdone or cliché, like with HDR or overly-Photoshopped photography. In other types of photography, it’s more common to raise exposure and shadows in post. But in street photography,…
Street photography shutter speed is highly dependent on what you want to achieve with your street photography. For example, do you want to freeze the action so that it’s like a preserved moment in time, or do you want to create a sense of movement by creatively using motion blur? The response to those questions…
While I wish there was a single best focal length for street photography that would fit every situation, it’s not exactly a possibility. There are wide-angle prime lenses that do the majority of what you need while being small and discreet. There are ‘normal’ focal length lenses like 50mm that can be great but are…
Street photography gear is often over-thought. Gear, to some extent, is an essential part of making street photos though. My philosophy on street photography gear is to keep things as simple as possible and travel light. Street photography gear is great, but having too much of it can weigh you down, and it can feel…
Your choice of aperture for street photography is one of the main elements that will determine the look and feel of your images. That’s because it affects your depth of field or how much of your photo is in focus. Having creative control over my field is important as a street photographer, so choosing the…
Street photography is an amazing outlet for photographic creativity. But one thing that can get in the way sometimes is keeping up with your camera settings to get the correct exposures. In street photography, moments are fleeting and pass in the blink of an eye, so obviously, you want to have your camera settings ready…
Shooting street photography at night can make compelling images, but it’s also very challenging. Obviously, the biggest challenge is that you have less available light to work with. Low light can make it difficult to get proper exposures, and your camera’s autofocus may struggle. Regardless, there are ways to overcome these challenges through your gear…
I bought the Fujifilm XF 55-200mm f/3.5-4.8 R LM OIS for those times in landscape photography when you’re far away from the focal point of your scene and you need the extra reach to frame things the way you want. Landscape photography is not a big priority for me (my big passion is street photography),…
There’s a lot to like about Fujifilm mirrorless cameras for street photography with compact form factors, low weight, intuitive manual controls, and sleek designs. Fujifilm digital cameras do a great job of being an extension of your eye and just getting out of the way so you can focus on creating photos. In addition, their…
The Fujifilm XF 10-24mm f/4 R OIS WR is a wide-angle, 15-36mm full-frame equivalent X-series cameras. It’s an update to the previous version of this lens, which was released in 2013. New to this version is weather sealing, markings to its aperture ring, and slightly lower weight. I haven’t done much landscape photography in my…
The Viltrox 56mm f/1.4 for Fujifilm is a budget-friendly, compact, lightweight, 85mm equivalent focal length prime lens for Fujifilm’s APS-C cameras that offers excellent image quality when you get the focus right (more on that later). It has a maximum aperture of f/1.4, making it a capable lens even in low light conditions. I like…
The Fujifilm Fujinon XF 18-55mm f/2.8-4 R LM OIS is a wide-angle to mid-range zoom lens that is sold as a kit lens with some of Fujifilm’s cameras. There are very few bad new lenses sold these days but to think of this as “just a kit lens” doesn’t really do it justice. This lens…
The Fujifilm XF 60mm f/2.4 R Macro is a 90mm full-frame equivalent lens with very good sharpness and image quality. I’ve had this lens for a couple of years now, so I have a good idea of what it’s best suited for. If you’re looking for a lens that can do both macro photos and…