my 6 personal tips for (street)photography

Here are my 6 personal tips for (street)photography.
Paris, France. May 2018.

Dark shadows and moments of light on pedestrian crossing.
Paris, May-11 2018, 10 a.m. On my way to my daily french croissants.
RICOH GR II, 18.3 mm, f4.0, 1/2000 s, ISO 100.
Processed in Snapseed.

Take your time. Observe. Think.
Paris, May-11 2018, 11:45 a.m.
RICOH GR II, 18.3 mm, f4.0, 1/640 s, ISO 100.
Processed in Snapseed.

tip #1: big or small gear – feel free.

It is all a question of your individual preferences. Feel free to use the gear you like – brands never matter – just use what you have and – this is most important! – what you like. Take me as an example: Last year I bought the most hyped Fujifilm X100F – but it ended up being the wrong choice for me. Now, more than half a year later I neither got the close relation to the X100F nor the love to it – it is simply not my camera. An expensive mispurchase.
What camera brand would be the right one for me? Back in my old film days I used Nikon, Mamiya, Hasselblad and Pentax; most of my images were shot with the beloved and trusty old Pentax 6×7 – what a fantastic camera! – would it be a Pentax? My close relationship to Pentax finally made me buy the small RICOH GR II – I call it the RICOH Pentax 😉 (Pentax is a brand of RICOH IMAGING COMPANY LTD) – I love this tiny small camera. A truely perfect choice. The best I ever made.

I daily use it.

tip #2: develop and keep your own style.

No matter what they say, develop and keep your own style (see my previous articles here and here). Do not copy someone or something, do not follow the mainstream. Be you, truely unique and authentic. Mainstream styles and mass markets never matter. Instead it is all about you. Please refer to Sean Tucker’s YouTube channel, his videos are highly recommended.

Be You. By Sean Tucker, 2017. © Sean Tucker.

tip #3: simplify. go minimal.

Camera and Lens
Do you really need interchangeable lenses? Me for my part I ended up using only one single camera body with always the same lens on it – and I finally decided to simplify even more and go minimal to the compact RICOH GR II (website in German) – its fixed lens (18.3 mm in APS-C corresponds to 28 mm in Fullframe (35 mm) format) is known for its superb optical quality. I do not want a lens ‘with its own special character’ – this is how many of the competitors call their mean and mediocre lenses – this will end up in taking too much effort in postprocessing. No, I want to have a perfect or at least near or close to perfect lens, where I can do some postprocessing – but it’s not mandatory to have to. The RICOH GR II fixed 18.3 mm F2.8 lens has an incredible optical quality – just give it at try if you can – you will be blown away. Sure. This is the small Leica, and even better.

Camera Bag and Accessories
In order to protect my RICOH GR II from moisture and dust I use the RICOH Hood & Adapter GH-3, it is always mounted on the camera, combined with a B+W Filter Digital MRC nano XS-PRO (extra slim, 49 mm) (website in German) as a protection filter. Of course compared to the naked RICOH GR II camera this combination will end up with a certain loss of the benefits in total size and portability – but even with the RICOH Hood & Adapter and the B+W (extra slim) protection filter the overall system is still amazing portable, lightweight and compact; and it fits the thinkTANK Mirrorless Mover® 5 camera bag perfectly.
[Preview: In one of my upcoming blog articles I am going to show some images of the RICOH GR II camera system with the RICOH Hood & Adapter GH-3, the B+W Filter and the thinkTANK Mirrorless Mover® 5 camera bag.]
Combined with one extra battery and the SD-Memory Card the overall weight of my camera system (including Hood & Adapter and filter) is 451 grams (0.994285 pounds). Fairly lightweight, isn’t it? And rather simplified.

Postprocessing
Why shall I give up all the benefits of size, weight and portability by using a large tablet or an even larger laptop for postprocessing? Why not just using a fully featured image processing app on my simple Smartphone (Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016))? I love Snapseed. Snapseed handles my RICOH GR II raw files (DNG format) seamlessly, (I shoot only DNG raw), it is very intuitive and simple to use, and most important gives great results.

tip #4: keep running to stand still.

The ultralight and ultraportable style makes me carrying all my camera gear all the time with me and still keeps me running – to stand still – in loose reference to U2’s beautiful song ‘Running to stand still’, from Joshua Tree, 1987 (yes, yes, I know this is offtopic now, but always worth listening to it – I am a huge U2 fan 😉 ).

© Copyright U2, 1987. U2 – Running to stand still. Joshua Tree.

But seriously: The photographic days in Paris in May 2018 were ultramobile and full of motion – and I never got the feeling of getting tired by carrying all my gear. I did not use any tripods – all was handheld. ‘Running’ accross Paris and ‘standing’ still, holding my  unobstructive camera is highly liberating and motivating. This is how I love to explore, this is the right way to learn and to live.

tip #5: take your time. observe. think.

Running and moving fast gives me some time advances to stand still and hold on from time to time. Standing there, holding on, with my camera still in my bag, observing, thinking and dreaming. All my images – at least the ones I love – are (pre)composed in my mind well in advance and long before taking my camera out of the bag and pressing the shutter. That’s the way I love to visualize. Carefully. Slow.

tip #6: focus on simplicity.

“While I am here doing something, I will miss something better over there.”

Do not try to be everywhere. Slow down and take your time.
Focus on Simplicity. Focus on the essential.

Taking my time to simplify and focus on less, but the essential results in some kind of ‘slow photography’ and finally to inside out photography (see here in German) – for me one of the highest possible levels of maturity of photography.

Turn around Carousel, turn around.
Paris, May-11 2018, 7.45 p.m. Near the Eiffel Tower.
RICOH GR II, 18.3 mm, f16, 1/15 s, ISO 100.
Processed in Snapseed.

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