Issue 173 of the SNYC Newsletter
Greetings everyone! We’re having longer daylight hours in the Northern Hemisphere. Yeah, more shooting time! For all. the readers in the Southern Hemisphere, we’ll catch up to you soon.
I’ve been spending a lot of time going through photos taken in 2022. Many of them at the moment lean towards abstract street. It’s something that I really enjoy shooting. But for color, I need to spend time working on the best processing.
That said, I don’t really spend very much time on processing these days. However, I have tens of thousands of Raw files that I may someday work on.
Thank you to everyone who has taken my workshops and to everyone reading this newsletter. Your comments and suggestions are always welcome and today I am announcing the Chat feature in the newsletter. You can see more about that towards the end of the newsletter.
Happy Shooting!
The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes. Marcel Proust
I write this newsletter to share my thoughts & experiences on street photography. I hope that you find it of use in your journey. If you are able to, you can support me by buying me a coffee. No sweat if you’re unable to contribute. The newsletter is free for all. Thanks to everyone who has bought me a coffee!!! Maybe one day we’ll be able to have a coffee in person. Mucho love.
Learning Curves
Teaching and learning street photography isn’t just one thing. It isn’t as if there’s a single topic that we learn in a straight line. Street photography involves learning many things at once. It is a bit like juggling.
Now that I’m going to be teaching a 10 week class both indoors in a classroom and outdoors shooting on the streets (Marlene Meyerson JCC on the Upper West Side,) I’m spending more time looking at the entire process. There are many moving parts.
It can be confusing to try and work on all the pieces simultaneously. Photography looks easy. But when a photograph works well it’s usually because of a combination of things that worked well. So we take a few steps at a time.
Street photography is thrilling when you think that you just nailed a shot. You can feel it as you hit the shutter. Then later after the day of shooting, maybe that shot didn’t turn out like you had hoped or expected.
Chance is always an important element. Who’s going to appear in your frame? What will the light or weather be like? Are you feeling well and able to be attentive to what’s going on around you? Do you have your camera set up?
Since you can’t plan what you’ll encounter, it’s important that the last 2 items on the above list are as optimal as possible. But the real joy of street photography for me, is the not knowing. The spontaneity of it all.
Street photography is like learning a new language. In the beginning you spend a lot of time on grammar. It’s often necessary to think back about things. Learning the rules of composition is one kind of grammar that you can learn in street photography.
I learned to speak French while living in Montréal. I’ll never be entirely able to speak French and sound like an adult let alone a native. But I remember times when I no longer had to think about a number of aspects of the language.
I don’t have to think about using or breaking the rule of thirds anymore. It’s ingrained in the way that I see and shoot. That hasn’t always been so and there are always things to learn in grammar and vocabulary in photography. And there are also the ones you forgot about or don’t get to use that often.
Street photography is like hip hop music or improvisational jazz. You keep sampling and adding to your repertoire. When you settle for one style for yourself, you become a cover band of yourself or someone else.
You always need to learn a new technique. To find a different method to express yourself. Boredom is something that happens to everyone in any of the arts. You repeat something until you’ve exhausted it.
As the saying goes, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again thinking that you’ll obtain different results. But you have to actually change something in the method that you use throughout the process.
In the next issue of the newsletter I’ll be writing about a number of different parts of the shooting process and looking at a few of the ways that you can alter your style.
I look forward to your comments about this issue.
Chat
Today I’m announcing a brand new addition to my Substack publication: the Shoot New York City Newsletter subscriber chat.
This is a conversation space in the Substack app that I set up exclusively for my subscribers — kind of like a group chat or live hangout. I’ll post short prompts, thoughts, and updates that come my way, and you can jump into the discussion.
To join the chat, you’ll need to download the Substack app, now available for both iOS and Android. Chats are sent via the app, not email, so turn on push notifications so you don’t miss conversation as it happens.
Biweekly Photo Assignment - Creative Self Portraits
Not to be mistaken with a selfie, creative self portraits are fun and a must in my book. The emphasis is of course on creativity.
This is a voluntary assignment if you want to take part. You can submit your photos to the Facebook group for Shoot New York City and also on Instagram tag @shootnewyorkcity. If you're not a member of the Facebook group yet, all you have to do is request to join.
Further Viewing
Tatiana’s video is on self portraits and so it’s fitting with the photo assignment. Enjoy!
Upcoming Workshops
Workshops are a maximum of 5 people Workshops are only scheduled on weekend days. If you would like to have a weekday workshop or a workshop in other areas of NYC, let me know with some lead time and I’ll see if others want to also attend it. Otherwise I continue to provide private workshops on weekdays and in other neighborhoods.
For those who haven't done a workshop or photo tour with me in the past I have a number of reviews on my website and also on TripAdvisor! Workshops are both for people who live here and also travelers, as are photo tours.
Photo tours are one-on-one and arranged on an individual basis for both neighborhood and photographic style and can be designed as a workshop as well. They are customized to your interests and level. Thank you for your patience and Stay Safe!
Shoot New York City Newsletter
"Street photography is like hip hop music or improvisational jazz." Great comparison, I like it. And I recognize what you say about all the parts in street. Thanks for sharing.
abstract street and color: Saul Leiter immediately comes to mind, probably a great inspiration for you too! While I am (almost) exclusively a b/w creator I love to see street images in color as created by others. Inspiration comes from many resources :-)