A Family. © Copyright 2022 G Dan Mitchell.
A passing family group on the street in Manhattan.
As scheduled, it is back to more street photography today. This photograph comes from our late-August visit to Manhattan, which provided us with opportunities to simply go out on walks and observe/absorb the Manhattan vibe. That is, of course, a complex thing, being composed of lots of people, lots of motion, the urban canyons, occasional bits of quiet and stillness, and a lot of things that happen quickly and are gone. The latter, of course, is part of the appeal of street photography.
I recommend urban and street photography to all photographers, including those of you who like think of yourselves and landscape or nature photographers. As a general thing, I think it is good for you and for your photography to step outside your primary genre and to be aware of good photographic work done with subjects quite different than your own. On a very practical level, shooting street forces you to see, think, and react really quickly. Quite often subjects coalesce and disappear in seconds or even fractions of seconds. You don’t have much time to carefully consider, so you work on the basis of instinct. And that is a useful skill to develop, even if you usually work at a more sedate pace. Street also reminds us of how we make photographs of things that we don’t have time to fully evaluate or understand. For example, while I call this photograph “A Family,” I can’t know that it is a family group. And while I might make be tempted to make other assumptions about this trio… I have no way at all of knowing whether I’m right or wrong. It is better, I think, to just ask questions.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
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This is an interesting composition, I like is how there is no wasted space and the placement of the faces form a nice swoop as my attention goes between them. But most of all I like how many potential stories could be fabricated from your image.
I love urban street photography perhaps because it is so challenging.
Thanks, Gary. I think you see this in somewhat the same way that I do. At first I made some presumptions about what story might be behind the photograph, but then I realized that it asks more questions than it answers.
Street photography is certainly a different endeavor, especially for those of us who are more used to working with the natural world and a slower pace. (Though sometimes street can be slow, too.) There are a lot of things that attract me to it, but the transient, ephemeral nature of the subjects is a big part of the challenge.
Dan