SHOOTING FROM THE HIP

zenjenny said:
I read a longform piece ages ago - two very well-known (except by me) street/people photographers talking about just that. ‘Slice of life’, unposed captures and/or specifically choreographed‘would you do that again for me?’
‘Look straight at the camera and smile/blow smoke/send a kiss or in one famous photo ‘point it at me and look aggressive’

Stunning images in both, of course.
I’m going to find that kid -with -gun image now :D


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couldn’t find the article but Cartier-Bresson & William Klein.

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Bresson is a great one to study
 
terse said:
Yeah, well, I'm not so good with identifying genres. Mainly, the question only comes up when I'm trying to pick the category for submitting to a competition, and the last time I got a mention from IPPA, it was for an image I'd entered in Abstract and they moved to Floral. :confused::lmao:
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I didn’t realise they did that. But if it improves your odds so be it
 
terse said:
I don't do a lot of people shots, candid or otherwise, but I have managed a few that I'm happy with. All three of the following were shot from the hip (literally), while walking, phone by my side in one hand and bluetooth trigger in the other.

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The first image gives me problems. I think it's the best of the three, but it's also the most invasive. Legally, I had the right to shoot and publish it, I think, because I was on a public street (literally, in the crosswalk) and they were in plain view. But I never posted it anywhere but here and never entered it in any competition because it felt rather creepy to do so.

The second image, no ethical or legal issues. She's a street performer, and she saw the version I posted on Instagram and liked it. (I included her Instagram tag and credited her by name). I never entered this one in any competition because it's quite severely cropped (due to being shot off angle) and the image quality isn't up to competition standards. I didn't really need to shoot this one on the fly -- I could have stopped and lined it up properly, although that might have caused her to look up, which I think would have been a loss for the image.

The third image, also no problem -- a street performer and a guy taking a photo of a street performer. Again, I could have stopped and possibly gotten the shot -- or possibly missed it in the extra couple of seconds it would have taken -- but I was walking by and just snapped it while walking (like the previous two). I did enter this one in a competition or two, but it never got a nibble anywhere.
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Personally I think that first one epitomises what street photography is all about. It leaves you asking questions. He’s obviously going through something and she’s updating her FB? It’s almost identical to the one I posted above. It leaves you asking questions. That’s great street photography.
 
terse said:
My usual method for this kind of photography:

I shoot while walking, phone by my side in one hand and bluetooth trigger (CamKix) in the other. Sometimes when I go out without the trigger, I use the volume buttons to snap the shot, but 1) that usually causes the phone to move even more and often spoils the shot, and 2) if I hold the phone so that I can get a finger or thumb on the volume buttons, I often end up with my blurry fingers in the image.

Since hip shooting is blind shooting, I always use the wide-angle lens to give myself the best chance of getting the subject in the frame. Sometimes I add the Moment wide-angle to the stock lens, which gives me an even wider capture area, about the same as the ultra-wide on the new iPhones, I think. An added benefit of the Moment lens is that I can hold the phone with my fingers behind the lens to keep them out of the picture.

Also, my captures almost always come out tilted, no matter how much I try to be aware of my hand position, so wide-angle lens gives me extra room for rotating the image back to straight without chopping off anything important. (Yes, yes, I confess my personal preference is to have horizons, streets, buildings, etc., be level and plumb, unless the off-axis presentation is there to make some aesthetic point.)

I almost always use the iPhone native camera app and shoot JPGs for these kinds of photos. I used to use burst mode until Apple changed the trigger for it, so now I snap off repeated shots with the bluetooth trigger. The 3-second Live photos would be another option, but that usually doesn't work out as well for me.
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Spot on with the hip technique and I agree I don’t like the new burst mode configuration
 
terse said:
Another option for candid shots that I've seen a few people use (but never used myself) is to hold your phone up and pretend to be photographing the scene in front of you while actually switching to the selfie camera and shooting back over your shoulder.
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Interesting never tried that one
 
zenjenny said:
I read a longform piece ages ago - two very well-known (except by me) street/people photographers talking about just that. ‘Slice of life’, unposed captures and/or specifically choreographed‘would you do that again for me?’
‘Look straight at the camera and smile/blow smoke/send a kiss or in one famous photo ‘point it at me and look aggressive’

Stunning images in both, of course.
I’m going to find that kid -with -gun image now :D


View attachment 165807

couldn’t find the article but Cartier-Bresson & William Klein.

View attachment 165808
Click to expand...
That first image is crazy!
 
terse said:
What about your puddle-jumping HCB-like shot?
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Won second place in a comp and was hung in a gallery in Portugal, which was nice.
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Of course this sort of thing where theres an event, unusual circumstance or interesting place is often where you can get away without being surruptitious, people expect others to be taking pics and there's a diffussion of the expectation of privacy.

Pride march in Leeds for instance. I love this guy, he's really working it.
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And then there's the odd one where taking a pic would be invasive so I ask first. This guy was fine with it. I told him I was after something natural so he ignored me and got back on with rolling his fag.
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But your actual shooting from the hip I do from the hip and so it's often not level or well composed but that can add to the effect sometimes.
Deliberately pointing upwards on burst mode...
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But mostly it's not from the hip but it is in the moment
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I always liked this image. It was January 2020 before realisation of what was to happen was even being thought about, but I couldn't resist a shot of two vaguely oriental ladies coming towards me with masked faces. Little did I know that it would be a look we would all be sporting very soon.

The image never generated much interest either here ( I think I posted a b/w version) or on IG. Maybe its just humans out shopping and has no real story to it, like I observed earlier in the thread? Tell me where I'm going wrong.

Never really got the shooting from the hip thing. My method is just to look at the screen and shoot, most of the time people will just ignore you or not notice at all, lets face it how many people walk around with a smart phone in their hands these days. I find the covert methods i.e. remote controls, looking backwards in the front camera etc a bit creepy and voyeuristic. What have you got to hide, if you're challenged just explain you're an avid mobile photographer and you'll show them the image and delete if they are not happy.
 
Geek1956 said:
He’s obviously going through something and she’s updating her FB?
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That's the way I read it, too... at first. But that's the thing about street photography: it's a split second capture, so we imagine a story for the before and after. He could be dog-tired after trailing around after her all day shopping, so she's calling an Uber. Or they could be waiting for The Red Room there to open so they can get something to eat and meanwhile he's bored while she's texting a friend to meet them there. As onlookers, we lean heavily toward the dramatic story, but it's not necessarily accurate.
 
If any of you have wondered what the street is like in downtown Santa Cruz (since you don't see much from me), there's a photographer named Larry Selman who's got an excellent album on Flickr. He shoots with a Canon rather than a phone, and there's nothing surreptitious about his work -- it's more like street encounters, as he usually makes direct contact with the people he's shooting.

www.flickr.com

Santa Cruz Streets

Explore this photo album by Larry Selman on Flickr!
www.flickr.com www.flickr.com
 
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terse said:
If any of you have wondered what the street is like in downtown Santa Cruz (since you don't see much from me), there's a photographer named Larry Selman who's got an excellent album on Flickr. He shoots with a Canon rather than a phone, and there's nothing surreptitious about his work -- it's more like street encounters, as he usually makes direct contact with the people he's shooting.

www.flickr.com

Santa Cruz Streets

Explore this photo album by Larry Selman on Flickr!
www.flickr.com www.flickr.com
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Nice images, although he seems to favour sepia tones a lot, which I'm not a huge fan of.
Just logged into Flickr for the first time in an age and noticed I added him about 6 years ago!
 
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terse said:
If any of you have wondered what the street is like in downtown Santa Cruz (since you don't see much from me), there's a photographer named Larry Selman who's got an excellent album on Flickr. He shoots with a Canon rather than a phone, and there's nothing surreptitious about his work -- it's more like street encounters, as he usually makes direct contact with the people he's shooting.

www.flickr.com

Santa Cruz Streets

Explore this photo album by Larry Selman on Flickr!
www.flickr.com www.flickr.com
Click to expand...
That's interesting. 2014, Santa Cruz and 2018 Colwyn Bay, Wales. Same promotional material. It's a small, Jehovah's Witnesses world after all.
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rizole said:
Won second place in a comp and was hung in a gallery in Portugal, which was nice.
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Of course this sort of thing where theres an event, unusual circumstance or interesting place is often where you can get away without being surruptitious, people expect others to be taking pics and there's a diffussion of the expectation of privacy.

Pride march in Leeds for instance. I love this guy, he's really working it.
View attachment 165855
And then there's the odd one where taking a pic would be invasive so I ask first. This guy was fine with it. I told him I was after something natural so he ignored me and got back on with rolling his fag.
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That first one is very Bresson, a bit quirky in a good way. Love the others.
 
sinnerjohn said:
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I always liked this image. It was January 2020 before realisation of what was to happen was even being thought about, but I couldn't resist a shot of two vaguely oriental ladies coming towards me with masked faces. Little did I know that it would be a look we would all be sporting very soon.

The image never generated much interest either here ( I think I posted a b/w version) or on IG. Maybe its just humans out shopping and has no real story to it, like I observed earlier in the thread? Tell me where I'm going wrong.

Never really got the shooting from the hip thing. My method is just to look at the screen and shoot, most of the time people will just ignore you or not notice at all, lets face it how many people walk around with a smart phone in their hands these days. I find the covert methods i.e. remote controls, looking backwards in the front camera etc a bit creepy and voyeuristic. What have you got to hide, if you're challenged just explain you're an avid mobile photographer and you'll show them the image and delete if they are not happy.
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Personally i think that being surreptitious could be considered “creepy”, I have non photographer friends who have expressed the same to me. My wife often says “you’ll get arrested on day “. Having said that I believe it’s the only way you’ll capture people in there moment rather than there reaction to you.
 
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