Archive for March, 2013
Picture of the Day – March 31st 2013
Posted: March 31, 2013 in people, Street PhotographyTags: people, photography, picture of the day, Sagi Kortler, street, street photography, tel-aviv, urban
Picture of the Day – March 21st 2013
Posted: March 21, 2013 in people, Street PhotographyTags: people, photography, picture of the day, street, street photography, tel-aviv, urban
You can’t always get what you want
Posted: March 17, 2013 in Street PhotographyTags: dogs, people, photography, picture of the day, street, street photography, tel-aviv, urban
Shooting from the hip
Posted: March 5, 2013 in Street Photography, thoughts about photographyTags: photography, shooting from the hip, street, street photography, urban
Once in a while you’ll hear the phrase “shooting from the hip” when talking about street photography. Some purists find this method to be dishonest, or cheap or unprofessional.
Is it really that bad?
Back in the day, when TLR’s were used by photographers like Vivian Maier, the shots were made from the hip…. is she a bad photographer now? Does it makes her work less impressive?
“Shooting from the hip” is a phrase, it doesn’t mean that you have to shoot from the actual hip… it just means – not looking through the viewfinder. If you are using the same focal length all the time, it ‘s very easy to master the coverage and composition without looking via the viewfinder.
With today’s tech that gives us live view and tilting displays,” shooting from the hip” is even easier and in a way bring us back to the TLR days.
For me, “shooting from the hip” means also fast response. sometimes you just don’t have the time to bring the camera to the eye. In many cases my shots are taken as I wander, I don’t even stop walking, just reacting to a situation in front of me, shooting by intuition.
Another aspect for me is my height, “shooting from the eye” would mean in many situations aiming down at the subject and in many situations it won’t look good, so I shoot sometimes from the chest. I could bend a bit and I do that as well but it is not possible in many cases.
One also have to understand that my streets are different then your streets or the other guy’s streets. In each city, in each country, we need to use the techniques that work best for those streets.
On a final note – in art, only the outcome, the final work counts and have meaning, not the way, path or process. the process of creation is only important to the artist as each artist should find his own process that he is comfortable with and enables him to express himself. The process can also make a good story to help the curator to sell the artist’s work.