21 street photography tips from the professionals

Wonderful article and thanks so much for all your tips which make a lot of sense. This was extremely helpful.

Really great article.. i've been shooting street for about 2 years now and I totally agree with all their tips.

Your not actually tellling me there is people out there who think this image is real!!!! if he was doing a full on somersault move at least one of the people in the image would have ben watching and hiss friends would have been in the image

Interesting article. I have a great passion for street snapping and if your interested here are a collection from some of my favourites. http://www.pbase.com/dave1/my_favourites Cheers Dave

I find the disconnect between the 'subject' and the 'person' uncomfortable in this article. If you take a great shot then why not show your 'subject' afterwards and ask them if you can use it. The camera can be a terrible invader of privacy and personal space.

I find attitudes towards photographing kids particularly disturbing. There are serious child protection issues here. I can hear the boos and hisses from steet photography fans already, but publishing a photo of a child may reveal his/her whereabouts to an abuser for example, and using a picture of a child for financial gain is exploitation at the end of the day (financial gain includes promoting yourself not just selling a print).

I love the humour in these shots and admire the skill in taking them, but don't forget the human side of your subjects.

Some interesting stuff and comments. Disagree strongly with the last poster about photographing children / linkage to paedophiles. You`re being drawn into the Big Brother attitude towards photography Lorraineb. Terrorists do not use DSLRs on the street and can use Google earth anyway and paedophiles have much more subtle / scheming ways of drawing themselves into victims lives than trying to track kids down in photos! Isn`t allphotography exploitation of the subject if you`re making money or fame from it? As long as a kid has not been tricked / coerced/ abused/ misused I fail to see your point in relation to kids in innocent photographs. I`m not a hissing / booing street photographer by the way - just someone defebding his hobby against this backlash that seems popular at the moment

Sorry to upset you jinky. I have 3 kids and I work in a school - rules on using photos of children are tough for good reason, and I find photographing them surupticiously an unpleasant idea. Nothing against honest, open photography of kids, always with permission.

I'm a street photographer and have been for some 30 years or more. I don't do it for profit or gain, purely to record the world about me. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your point of view I'm not a hardbitten professional who regards everything out there as fair game but after a couple of years when I did, I soon realised, especially in London, the unfortunates amongst us, the drunks, the down and outs, the bewildered, the lonely and the disabled do not benefit from intrusion into their lives by someone with a camera. So I refuse to embarrass them more.

If there are children in shot and it's a general street scene so be it, but due to the fact that anyone who photographs children is regarded with suspicion and distrust I never take a picture that is soley concentrated on a child. Perhaps in the future when people look back at the photographs of the 20th and 21st century they will be amazed at the lack of children on the streets.

However many children you have, and wherever you work, I'm not clear why photographing children in a street situation is any different from photographing adults. And youur suggestion that photographing children can lead an abuser to a child's location is frankly laughable: I'd have to photo the child, then publish the photo somewhere an abuser is going to look, identify where the picture was taken and when, and even then it might not be the blindest bit of use to them because the child may not even be in a location anywhere near where they live. And since abusers are more likely to be family than strangers, they'd probably have no difficulty knowing where the child was in the first place. Perhaps you need to elaborate on what the child protection issues are. (I'm a school governor, by the way, and have hundreds of pictures from our primary school.)

Honestly, I think you're being massively over-sensitive to the whole thing: they're just pictures, after all.

The day I need permission to photograph anything or anyone in a PUBLIC place, for noncommercial use is the day I pack up and leave this country. Sorry but you are sorely mistaken if you think that whatever "Rules" you may think you have in your school are in any way legal or binding under law. That is simply not the case. Children are almost always abused by relatives, priests and teachers. A stranger hunting down a kid from a pic is an insane idea. I'd be happy sending a kid to whatever school that Lucllius runs, he seems to value freedom and I hope he's able to pass that on to the children in his care. Rather than raising frightened sheep willing to obey wherever stupid rules any fool in authority comes up with.

If a child spots a complete stranger taking a photograph of them surupticiously, trying to remain hidden and then sneaking away, it is likely to worry them if not frighten them. It is this underhand behaviour I have concerns with. Why not be open and ask to use a photo? Perhaps I am oversensitive but it remains my opinion.

It is a sad truth that some children have to be removed from those who should be protecting them, and their location kept secret. Even this small number of children deserve some consideration. Something a school governor schould know very well.

Perhaps you should be complaining about Google StreetView and the open sale of CCTV cameras, etc. I would suggest to you that most children, if they see someone taking a photo, are likely to make a face, or just ignore the person. Why would it worry them? "Oh, that person has a permanent record of what I look like. Just like anyone who knows me on Facebook or Bebo or Youtube." Remember what Martin Parr said about asking permission - if he did that all the time, he'd never get a picture.

Some children - I would suggest numbering in less than the hundreds nationwide - need their location kept secret, but having everyone ask to take a picture in a public place is a pretty poor way to provide that. And to be honest, your suggestion that the general public's right to take pictures in public places somehow genuinely places one of these children in any more dnager than they are already in really makes me wonder.

In fact, that would probably persuade me better: please explain how you think the link between taking pictures in a public place and actual endangerment of someone moved for their own safety comes together? Unless I'd photographed that child in a known location, the picture had gone onto the BBC News site, and the one person to whom it mattered had looked at the picture ... Adding those probabilities up leaves me with worse than lottery odds, I think.

Lets get back to the thread inviting comments on the article:

The photographers in the article publish their photos The article gives clear advice on remaining hidden while taking photos The article clearly describes using children as a main focus The article refers 'subjects' and choses to ignore the feelings and circumstances of the people used.

I have given my comment on the article.

I assume you have read the article. Have you a comment on that? My opinions have raised much more reaction than the article itself, they remain my opinions so I am done here.

Offending the community was never my intention. I apologise without resevation

Hi Lorraine,

At least on my account, no apology whatsoever is required - I was simply trying to engage youur views, and persuade you thhat mine are better, and my apologies if that sounds slightly arrogant.

You've been forthright but polite, and none of us has yet descended to talking about Hitler and the Nazis, which is always a sign online conversations are going downhill!

I do understand your reservations, and I can see that reading the article might make some of the street photography sound vaguely exploitative, but I think that the advice has its place: - Publishing, because if it's a good photo, it's a good photo - Keeping hidden, because sometimes you want a natural reaction or behvaiour, and being observed will ruin that. - Using children, because they often make for great pictures. (I saw a walking bus today and it would have made a lovely photo.)

And yes, feelings may occasionally be hurt, but that's down to the individual photographer to work out how to deal with that, I think ...

Interesting article but I perfer to use my 70-200mm F2.8 VR for street scenes as it give me a greater range. I always remain visible but usually take up position against a wall or shop window, so I can see most of the street. Then I just wait.

Can i ask, if i take an image on the street of a woman who is the main subject in the image but only taken up maybe 20% of the total composition would i be able to sell these as prints (Not stock / commercial / advertising but more wall-art) private sale for private use? Image in question: http://www.photoradar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2551 Thanks in advance