A Street Photography Trick

Hey Girl. St. Pete Beach, Florida, 2012

“Trick” might be the operative slang term that comes to mind when you first glance at the above street photography image. It is obviously night…what is this woman doing? Where is she? What is her body language trying to say? What is that being reflected by the water puddle, a hotel sign? Is there a story here? Perhaps, god forbid, a story of “ill repute”?

When I make images “on the street” I try to capture something that might imply an interesting story–something that might ask the viewer to stay with my image awhile, to study it and think about it. I don’t know if the above image does it for you, but it is one of my attempts to put this philosophy in practice.

Now, in the title, I promised you a street photography trick and that leads me to tell you the back story of how this image was made. My wife, María Rosa, and I were staying in a hotel on the beach in Florida. We were just returning from dinner, it was dark, and María had lagged slightly behind for some reason and I was the first up the stairs to the second floor. When I looked over the balcony I saw here approaching and the idea for the image hit me. I asked her to stop, grabbed my camera from the room, and guided her to a spot in the composition that also allowed me to catch the reflection of the hotel’s neon sign. I snapped the shutter on three or four different poses, but this is the one I liked the best.

So, the trick? Why not use your family and friends in your street photography when an idea springs to mind? There are no hard-and-fast rules in street photography that I know of. No one around? Then set your camera on a tripod and use yourself as the model–as I did in the image below.

Naturally, it is arguably more fun and challenging to compose a striking street image with an implied story using only strangers as your subjects, but I don’t see the problem with using whoever might be handy to bring your artistic vision to life (just don’t pass off the image as authentic, candid, street photography). I won’t be doing this all the time of course, but I will keep it in my bag o’ tricks–just in case.

Urban Shock. Barcelona, 2009