10 Ways to Shoot Street Photos Without Being Noticed

All of us know that if your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough. Here are 10 great methods for shooting on the street without drawing attention to yourself.

Blending into your environment is a critical part of capturing authentic photographs when shooting street photography, and this short video gives you 10 excellent ways of shooting without being obvious — with a few tongue-in-cheek tricks thrown in for good measure.

Street aficionados will recognize technique number 10 from photography legend Garry Winogrand, a man who died leaving behind 2,500 rolls of undeveloped film, not to mention 6,500 developed rolls that were still waiting to be contact printed. I’m not suggesting that spray and pray is the way to go, but photography — and street photography in particular — can often be a numbers game.

To those street photographers who are keen to get even closer, keep in mind that confronting people with your camera and firing a flash in their face is probably going to tell a story that’s more about your ego than the people in the photograph.

If you have any techniques to add to Samuel L’s list, be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Andy Day's picture

Andy Day is a British photographer and writer living in France. He began photographing parkour in 2003 and has been doing weird things in the city and elsewhere ever since. He's addicted to climbing and owns a fairly useless dog. He has an MA in Sociology & Photography which often makes him ponder what all of this really means.

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3 Comments

Using a TLR is another option...

How to stalk people without getting arrested.

Bye Felicia.