Street Photography

I went to the Format Festival up in Derby last month and saw more great street photography in one day than I'd seen in all my previous years. The more I saw, the more I realised that I know bugger all about it. I think it intrigues me because it's hard to do well (as I know from some terrible attempts), it's not a simple question of learning techniques or technical ability. Cheesy as it sounds, it seems to be more about an attitude or an approach. I think it's also fairly demanding on the viewer to some extent, you need to put in some effort to understand what makes the shots so rewarding and what makes them work. Often, seemingly random photos reveal solid underlying composition and beautiful moments of chance.

In an idle moment I recently came across a well-known group on Flickr called Hardcore Street Photography which has some superb examples of contemporary street photography. It also has a thriving community, with very active and unsparing criticism which is generally quite hard to find on Flickr. Helpfully, they list a whole host of photography resources, which I'm now going to shamelessly repost. I'm still working my way through them myself, but there's masses of inspiring and informative work.

LVP Magazine

2point8

sevensevennine

Garry Winogrand

Street Reverb Magazine