All photographs from Coney Island People 50 Years ©Harvey Stein 2022, Text ©Harvey Stein 2025
I have been photographing on the streets and subways from the first day of my photo life. As a graduate student living in Greenwich Village in the late 1960’s and commuting uptown to Columbia University on the #1 subway, I marveled at the variety of faces and people I’d constantly see on the train and wondered what it would be like to photograph them. A few years later, after entering the work force in New York City, I found out. Not easily. And not successfully. I shot mostly surreptitiously in the subways with the camera on my lap. While challenging, it was also engaging and for me, enjoyable to try. A few years later I bought a used Leica M2 with a 21mm lens on the advice of my first photo teacher (who eventually I taught for at the New School), the great street photographer Ben Fernandez. He suggested that I buy a Leica, a 21mm lens and go to Coney Island to shoot. Being the good little student that I was, I did and have been doing so for the last 53 years.
During these 50 plus years, I also shot all over the world, from NYC to China, India, Haiti, Argentina and dozens of other countries and locations in the U.S. I became involved with making long-term projects that involved photographing people on the streets; this often led to publishing books (ten to date and three in the works). Mostly all my work is of portraits of strangers on the streets made with black and white film and my trusty Leicas.
I’ve managed to pick up some street wisdom along the way, here are some of my thoughts that might be useful.
But first a definition of street from Webster’s Dictionary: 1) A public road in a city or town, especially a paved thoroughfare with sidewalks and buildings along its sides. 2) The people living, working, etc., on/in the buildings along a given street.
-Street photography is basically using the physicality and activities of the street as a source of subject matter; a place to conduct our photography. It’s an exciting place to work, in the open air, with endless subject matter available at no cost and with many surprises, whether friendly or not. Street photography is forever challenging and very difficult to make successful images. The percentage of street shots that we keep is very low, at least for me.
-Street photography connotes: documentary, urban, black/white, candid, confrontational, protest, socially oriented, people photography. But it doesn’t always have to be conducted on the street; it can happen in parks, beaches, subways, maybe even roof tops. It’s not usually indoors. And it doesn’t always have to be of people but it usually is.
-Street photography is about doing, experiencing, confronting (subjects and ourselves), learning, walking, growing, sharing (to see and to understand is often to share), exploring, exposing (ourselves along with our cameras), probing, questioning, understanding, acting and reacting, looking and seeing and, and, and…
-How we photograph is as important as what we photograph. Perhaps most important is where we place the camera—how close or far, how low or high, how angled or direct the camera is placed vis-a-vie the subject.
-To enjoy, not to mention to be effective at street photography, we must be curious about what is around us; we should like and be interested in people.
-We need to be aware of the development of a style and a point of view. Why are we photographing on the street, what do we want to show/accomplish? No one can teach how to be a good photographer. This comes from within, a magical source perhaps. Teachers can provide ideas, techniques, suggestions, but ultimately, it all depends on the individual and the individual alone. What and when we photograph is up to us, you are the only one behind the camera and the only one clicking the shutter. I love photography because it’s all up to me, no one else is looking through the viewfinder, no one else is clicking the shutter, no one else is succeeding or failing. It is all up to us, the one looking through the viewfinder. Ultimately, it depends on you and you alone.
-We should be involved with the process as well as the experience of making images on the street. Be in touch with yourself, with emotions, thoughts, feelings and ideas as we get involved with carrying the camera in the streets.
-Think positively on the streets. Our thoughts influence our results. We get what we think, negative thoughts and approaches breed negative results and actions. Positive thoughts increase the chances of success. What we put out we get back. Be optimistic and when necessary be aggressive and risk taking.
-Be aware of the possible risks of shooting on the street. Our backs are always to someone and we usually carry expensive equipment. Be street wise; we often walk on new streets, are in new countries and can be vulnerable. But we develop street wisdom the more we shoot, an inner sense that can alert us to dangers. Be aware of where we are; often go with another photographer or friend if in difficult places.
-The reasons for doing street photography are many. It is accessible to everyone, it can be a rich, fertile ground for finding a wide variety of people and areas to photograph, it can be challenging with a sense of adventure of the unknown. It can lead to a greater understanding of people and our place in the world. We often meet interesting people and even make some friends while shooting (I married a woman that I met while photographing her in the street).
-Photography is a means of self-expression and communication. Self-expression is personal, internal but a sharing of our thoughts, joys, fears, emotions with others in a way that reflects who we are. Communication is journalistic, external to our self, outward, about connecting with others, a way of letting others know what we think and how we see.
About Coney Island People 50 Years
The photographs for the book, Coney Island People 50 Years, were made from 1970 through 2022. It was published in 2022 by Schiffer Publishing, LTD.. The beauty of doing books is that there aren’t deadlines until a publisher wants to make the book. This gives us time to more fully understand our work and to play with the multiple possibilities that all book projects present to their authors. This is my third photo book on the endless subject of Coney Island.
The book is available on Amazon; signed copies are available from me, I can be reached through my website, harveysteinphotography.com. Cost is $50 plus shipping.
Where to buy the book:
