What I Would Tell Myself If I Was a Young, Aspiring Street Photographer
You have to have access to an urban setting. Street photography requires a lot of skill that can only come from practice. You need to be able to shoot regularly. While it is possible to shoot street photography in rural and suburban communities, it adds another layer of difficulty which will be hard to overcome as a new street photographer.
I got my start in street photography in India in 2010. I was using a Canon Rebel so the aspect was 2x3.
Depending on what you can afford to spend on a camera, buy a smallish Leica, Sony, Fuji, or Ricoh Griii, that has a native 2x3 aspect. You need a fixed focal length lens, preferably, a 28 or 35 mm. A high-quality lens is much more important than a high-quality camera body. After you get your camera and lens, don’t buy any more camera equipment. You will not need it. Plan to use the camera for 5 or more years. If you already have a camera that has a native aspect that is not 2x3, then use your mobile phone for street photography. Mobile devices are a good way to try out this genre. If you find this is something you want to pursue, then buy one of the recommended cameras.
Take as many basic photography courses as it takes for you to understand the exposure triangle, backward, forward and upside down. Voraciously consume uTube and blogs on street photography and photography composition. Study the works of the street photography masters. The blogs written by Eric Kim as a part of his “Lessons” series are a good start. They are fairly difficult to find now, but if you Google a famous street photographer plus Eric Kim you should be able to find the link. For example, I Googled “Saul Leiter Eric Kim” and got the link, Seven Lessons That Saul Leiter Has Taught Me About Street Photography.”
I did understand the requirement to be familiar with the exposure triangle. I had taken enough classes that I could more or less expose properly before I started traveing.
You need to have a system for storing photos. You can potentially take hundreds of thousands of photos over the course of a life time. Lightroom has a database that can accommodate this volume, but learning to use Lightroom is no walk in the park. You either have to take classes, watch tutorials, or read books about using a data base for photo storage like Lightroom. You need to do this at the beginning, because the management of photos can easily reel out of control.
You need to learn the basics of post processing, although some well-regarded street photographers do little or no post processing. Since I am addressing myself in this blog, just cut to the chase and learn to use Snapseed, which is a free app, on a mobile tablet. Truly, it covers almost everything you need to do and it does not have a steep learning curve. There will be time later to learn to use more sophisticated post processing software like Lightroom.
Shoot in RAW from the first day. You need all of the file detail you can get.
I was afraid to shoot in RAW, so I did not start until 2013.
No point in waiting to develop courage to get close to your subjects. It is not going to get easier, so just do it from the start. All things being equal, you might as well use zone focusing, which is choosing manual focus and then set distance to be in focus, typically about 1.5 meters.
In 2019, I realized I needed to change my ways and get closer. I practiced with an iPhone that is, ironically, fixed focus.
Most shots should be taken with a horizontal aspect. This is about people and their environment and that combination is best captured with horizontal aspects.
I have a preference for visually simple photos, which does not make me the best candidate to be a street photographer. It is easier to get visually simple photos with a vertical aspect. If anything, I have gotten worse, instead of better, about shooting horizontal aspects. But that really is going to change now.
Finally, you just have to settle into learning good composition, being able to see a scene, anticipating what is going to happen, and develop good timing. As I like to say, if this was easy, everyone would do it.