The Importance of the Everyday: Why I Shoot Street as a Pro

Street photography is a realm of photography that carries enormous weight. A genre derived from some of the world's photographic pioneers — the big names. The generations taking cameras to the front lines of war, documenting death, destruction, humility, and the human spirit, and bringing it home to document the everyday. It’s a genre of photography like no other, and here’s why you should be shooting it.

When I first plunged into the murky world of photography, it wasn’t for the coin. That came much, much later. It was through a love of documenting the world around me, regardless of theme and with very little monetised intention. A lot of my want to shoot came from a deep, and perhaps pretentious need to find a way of creating images that said something about me and how I saw the world around me. A fine art graduate, I was compelled to be different, to delve deep within and find all the philosophical truths hidden within what I was experiencing on a very human level, but of course, differing from all the people around me. Clapton had his guitar, Bacon had his canvas, and I, Barrow, had a second-hand Olympus, the model of which I can’t even remember. And to this day, the easiest way for me to scratch that awfully self-involved itch is to hit the streets. Here’s why.

It’s Cheap

Street photography is humble. All you need is a camera. Yes, as the years have slipped away, my gear and to hopefully a far greater extent, my skill and experience (questionable) have enabled me to shoot with better end results, but that all comes second to the act of simply getting out and shooting. Train fare into the nearest town or city and perhaps grabbing a coffee or stopping for a well-earned beer is the only cost. The rest is simply about moving, exploring, being intrigued and sometimes, being brave. At the most basic level, all we endeavour to do is shoot and be proud of what we come away with. Nothing beats knowing you’ve got a shot or two that you’re super excited to get home and edit, and this in itself is priceless. 

It Exercises Photographic Prowess in All Forms

You could be a fashion photographer, food photographer, automotive photographer or nature photographer, but the skills developed from hitting the streets with nothing but a body and a lens feed into any genre. Twitch fibres are strengthened, and muscle memory and an innate understanding of your camera all come into play. Often you’ll have to be quick and on the mark. Other times you’ll need perspective and intuition to foresee a situation playing out in front of you. Shooting from the hip and on the move gives you a totally different perspective of the world you're in and strengthens a bond with the camera like it’s an extension of your anatomy, your eyes acting as the viewfinder and trigger finger working in complete harmony with them. 

It Trains the Brain

Those first moments in a busy city, shooting can be completely daunting. The world around you is stopping for nothing and you’re intentions are to get in amongst it. It takes a little getting used to, but having a clear vision of what it is you’re looking for starts to develop a pattern in the brain which is completely different to normal cognitive activity. You could be focussing on light and dark in architecture for a black and white series, or looking to shoot reflections in cafe windows. It could be that you're transfixed with colour. However simple the variable, you’ll find that sticking to it gives you a focus and the more you exercise this, the greater the opportunities become.

It’s Rewarding

Shooting street can be frustrating and there will be times when you simply don’t find your rhythm. Perhaps the weather changes or you have other things on your mind. This is totally normal. But when the stars do align and you find yourself documenting what you set out to capture, there really is no feeling that compares. The world and everybody in it can be a playground, ready for you to get stuck into. Colour, shape and character leap out all around you as you truly start to see your local town like never before. There may be situations where you know the best option is to linger and wait, waiting for that one passerby to interact with something you’ve had eyes on for half an hour. In other instances you may be compelled to shoot like an insane person, completely out of character, in order to completely disarm what your brain is telling you is ‘the norm’. There really are no rules and after a day or week of shooting and editing to briefs and for clients, it’s one of the greatest ways to re-immerse yourself in why you got into photography in the first place.

You may be reading this and thinking "yes that's all well and good Mike, but it's just not my cup of tea." To that I say, give it a try. You don't need to be slinging a camera in every passerby's face. It's not about being rude, abrupt, or a rockstar with a camera. Street doesn't mean people, grit and realism. It doesn't even have to mean urbanity. I think we often forget why photography is such a powerful tool for documentation because it's simply everywhere and to such disgracefully high degrees of specificity and quality, particularly in the commercial world. You could be solely focused on buildings and shapes, black-and-white imagery or even textures using a macro lens. Street stands for all manner of things, but at its heart, it's a true and frank representation of the world around us, which is why it stemmed from the war photographers and photojournalists of old.

I believe every one of us, photographer or not, has a curiosity about life that is true to one's self and no one else. Photography provides us with the means to show other people that curiosity brings with it a plethora of advantages that can insight and inspire, with or without the camera.