Who would have thought – Introvert me in a Street Photography workshop cum marketing-for-the-Nikon Zf and meeting other street photographers? Its a first for me, but encouraged by a Nikon-shooter friend of mine to sign up, I thought yeah why not? An excuse to go out and bring my camera to shoot is always a good, welcome excuse whatever the case.

The Method Man – or Not?

The trainer/Nikon ambassador gave good tips to look out for when doing Street Photography (use of leading lines, colours, reflections, yada yada yada) and gave interesting walk and talk throughs detailing the processes of how his awesome photos were created, though in all honesty, the take-away I had from it all was my realisation that I’m not really the method man I thought I was.

How I take streets was simple – brain thinks it’s somewhat interesting, brain makes a snap composition, brain thinks of concealing the shot and then the brain actuates the shot. The process is even faster when you shoot in manual focus. YOU.JUST.SNAP. Spray and pray perhaps, with some few inhibitions arising from the subject(s) of your photography, but you get the drill.

But hey who cares about how you got the shot. As long as ethics are right, what’s more important to me is that the photographer gets the shot he wants and will remember in time to come. Right?

To Wolf-pack or Go Solo?

I’m mainly solo, but I appreciate the wolf-pack.

Being in a group definitely makes you a bit more confident in taking your shots especially in situations when your social inhibitive radars will be most active. Having like-minded people around me most certainly lends you to more creative inputs from fellow street shooters on scenes/compositions I would have otherwise missed going alone. “Hey SJ! I think we may have a good shot here!” is always a welcome shoutout and you tend to learn something too. You’ll learn about what makes a particular subject appealing to the photographer and familiarise with his/her photographic ‘eye’, expanding even more your creative ideas.

But there are reasons why more modern attack submarine tactics move away from the once highly successful wolf-pack tactics of old.

You go undetected. You attract less attention when you go solo. You get a shot when they least expect you to. And sometimes that makes your shot a one-in-a-million unique.

The Gear – How it Matters

Thank God for the gear I have. It was intimidating halfway through the workshop as they were going on about how cool the Nikon Zf is for street shooting (and indeed it is with the flexibility to download Jpeg recipes from the camera itself) and other shooters with big-name cameras/lenses that look oh-so-professional, dripping Street-Photographer-of-the-Year vibes, compared to the OM-3 and the diminutive E-PL7 combo I have on with me. Self-consciousness abound, I didn’t want to even take out my stuff, UNTIL the time came for the walk-about, because that was then when both my OM-3 and E-PL7 start to come alive.

Street Photography is one genre where you don’t really want to announce yourself being there and that is where I feel the E-PL7 sits pretty. Unobtrusive, compact and definitely casual enough to not illicit that much of a reaction.

In the end, you shoot with what you’re comfortable with and for me, I’m more than pleased with the shots I got.