My Favorite Street Techniques

Editor’s Note: Daniel Hoffmann is a photographer from the small town of Viborg Denmark. He’s an avid street shooter who photographs regularly throughout Europe. In addition, he has traveled to both the New York City and China to shoot street life there.

Earlier this year Daniel published his first book titled Daniel Hoffmann Street Photography. Through his activity on 500px Daniel became friends with noted US photographers Gene Lowinger and Ronald Beams. Lowinger wrote the foreword and Beams provided commentary for many of the photographs. The combination of Daniel’s photos and Beams’ comments make the book an excellent learning experience.

Dainel was kind enough to allow us to publish his favorite street techniques in this issue. Below some of the photos you will find an audio player which contain short comments about them by the photographer. Enjoy!

Shoot From the Hip

Shooting from the hip is, in my opinion, the most important way of getting good candid street photos.
This can be done by letting the camera hang in a strap around your neck and resting on your stomach (best for horizontal
shots) or by carrying the camera in your arm against your left or right hip (best for vertical shots).

That means, you can shoot pictures, without having to look in the camera viewfinder.
Of course, you will need to practice a lot in the beginning, but it gets easier. I think it works very well with a 16-24 mm lens (24-35 mm full frame).

I like to rest my left arm on the camera and press the shutter with my thumb or I use a wireless remote control in my jacket pocket. You can control the camera’s vertical angle by leaning backwards. To get the perfect picture at exactly the right angle I like to hold the shutter button down for continuous shooting whilst leaning.

Shooting from the hip gives a lower photographic perspective, which I don’t consider to be a problem and most of the photos in this book are actually taken using this method.

This photo is a good example of shooting from the hip. In Queens, the temperature rose to 40 degrees (104 Fahrenheit) and many people were using umbrellas to protect themselves from the heat of the sun.

Use the audio player below to listen to Daniel’s thoughts about this photo

 

Shoot at a Close Distance

For me, street photography is all about taking candid shots of everyday people doing every day things – generally in black and
white and using a wide angle lens. To achieve this, you have to get very close to the people you are taking photos of.
The famous Magnum member and war photographer Robert Capa once said: “If your photographs aren’t good enough,
you’re not close enough”. I say: “If your street photos aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough”.

It´s generally not a problem to take photos at a close distance in a big city because of the huge number of people
constantly moving around and the noise levels of both people and traffic. It’s even easier in tourist areas as people are so used to having their pictures taken.

It’s a good idea to check if your camera has a silent mode for use in quiet locales, as the noise from the shutter may be heard by the subject.
My camera has a silent mode, but actually I don´t use it, because I think the noise from the people and the street is enough to hide the noise.

This shot of the lady selling hats on the streets of
Manhattan is both shot from the hip and as you can see,
at quite a close distance.

Use a poster or an interesting background and then wait…

You might notice an interesting poster, wall painting or other type of background, which can, in many cases, be used as a good
basis for street photos, as shown in the example below with the poster of the young well-dressed woman.

The window display caught my eye, and I waited a few minutes for an interesting subject to walk past. The old lady with the
walking frame came strolling past me and I took the shot to show the contrast between young and old.
What I didn´t see when I took the photo was that the old lady was looking for “extra virgin minerals”! That was just a piece of luck, and I think it completed my photo.

Instead of using the old lady as the subject, I could have waited for a young well-dressed woman similar to the one on
the poster to walk by, or for a man with his head turned to look at the woman on the poster.

For another example of using background for street photo,
you can go back to page 43 of my book Daniel Hoffmann Street Photography and look at the photo to the photo “Pizza delivery?” where the background was a painting on the wall. A background could also be patterns or stripes
on the ground, like looking down on a pedestrian crossing.

Do a Tight Cropping

There is an old rule in photography saying: When you look in the viewfinder – look to the four corners and if you don’t
see anything important there, then GET CLOSER.

Of course the rule can also be applied, when you have taken the photo, just crop it away using computer software as I’ve done here (original uncropped photo to the right).

I saw this girl on the other side of the street walking quickly and purposefully with a key in her hand and wearing earphones from a mobile phone or an MP3 player. I presume she was listening to music. I wanted to get a photo before she passed the graffiti and the bicycle, as I thought this would be a good background for a street photo. I only had a few seconds, so I just raised the camera and shot from the hip, there was no time for changing focal length. As a result of this, there was too much wall and too much of the street in the foreground, so I cropped the photo to give a bolder image.

Use your photo to tell a story

It’s great if your street photos can tell a story, pass on a message or information, or just make the viewer smile. In my opinion,
this is best done using a simple composition.

In this photo from Brooklyn, I noticed the unusual way the man was standing, with his arms turned back and his stomach
pushed forward as if he was trying to stand to attention, while the woman talking on a mobile phone passes him by. Just before
she walked past him, he looked directly at her and I took the shot.

Use the audio player below to listen to Daniel’s thoughts about this photo