PRESENT & ALERT STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

Do you know there’s a creative switch inside you that, when you turn it on, the streets… they come alive. Here are five practices that will support you in accessing that state.

Or skip the whole damn thing and watch the video.

FIVE FOCUS PRACTICES

SENSE PERCEPTIONS

A great way to become more alert is to pay attention to your senses — not just sight, but all of them. It may feel strange as a photographer to focus on anything beyond the visual sense, but bringing awareness to any of the senses moves you into a more alert, present state.

In fact, listening is possibly the most reliable sense to use if your goal is to anchor yourself in the present moment. Listen and begin to notice sounds beyond the obvious — what’s the furthest sound you can hear? The closest?

Use any of your senses as an anchor, a way to get out of your thoughts and back into the moment. Notice the weight of the camera in your hands. Pay attention to the temperature of the air on your skin. My best photos are taken when I’m totally alert and present.

You ever see a cat waiting for a mouse that’s disappeared behind a wardrobe or something? Well… that’s what it takes.

BEYOND LABELS

Do you know that, as human animals, we label everything? We don’t see the world as it really is — we see it through the heavy conditioning of naming and conceptualising everything “out there.”

The moment you label something, you lose touch with what it actually is. You stop seeing the depth of an object, a person, or a place and instead see a flat, one-dimensional idea of it. We end up moving through life not in reality, but inside our own interpretation — a static, pale version of the living world.

Most people don’t photograph what’s actually there; they photograph what they’ve already decided it is. They shoot the label, not the reality.

An apple. The moment the mind says “apple,” the whole thing collapses into a concept — “green,” “round,” familiar — a thin outline of the real object. There’s a whole other dimension beyond those labels that we rarely see: the textures, the tonal shifts, the tiny ways light reshapes the surface.

Imagine you’ve been wearing black-and-white contact lenses since the day you were born, and you never knew it. One day someone tells you, and you finally take them off. Suddenly the world looks completely different — richer, deeper, full of colour you didn’t even know existed. That’s what it’s like when you stop seeing life through the filter of labels. The world doesn’t change… the way you are seeing it changes.

Labels numb us. They shut down curiosity. You assume you know what’s in front of you, but you’ve barely given it a second’s attention. When you come across something unfamiliar, your insecurity around not knowing has you scrambling to find a label for it. Your camera, at that point, is nothing more than a recorder of your assumptions. When you photograph from the label, you’re projecting your own small picture onto the world instead of letting the world reveal itself. The best photographers move past that. They look beyond the name, beyond the concept, straight into what’s actually in front of them.

That’s where real seeing begins.

The masters — the real artists — see past the names. They meet the world directly, without the filter. They see what is, not what they’ve been taught to think it should be.

MEDITATE ON ONE THING

Have an intention — a target — when you’re out shooting. For example, every single frame you take for a month could include only a single person against a simple background. What this does is shut off the part of your brain that’s always looking for something to do. It frees up the creative side of your brain and you become more alert, more vigilant. It doesn’t have to be that. Anything that anchors you to a purpose will work.

Or maybe you decide that every photo you take for the next two weeks must include a strong, intentional foreground — something close to the lens. Railings, shoulders, bags, signage, doorframes.

It may be that for 3 weeks you only shoot for an hour and no more each time you are out. The time constraint is your focus and will support a sharper, more concentrated energy.

ONE LOCATION

Shoot one location for set periods of time. When you’re walking non-stop, you’re doing little more than skimming the surface. Treasure isn’t found on the surface. You have to dig for it. We have to mine for quality.

STEP OUTSIDE YOUR COMFORT ZONE

This is the single most important practice for creative growth: stepping outside your comfort zone. Everything you know thus far keeps you operating inside a zone of comfort. Everything outside that zone is unknown and therefore uncomfortable to you. To wake up and to grow creatively we need to step outside of our comfort zone.

The challenge here is fear of that unknown. What’s outside the zone?

It materialises like this: “What if I do this and this happens?” “What if that person tells me to fuck off?” “What if I don’t have what it takes?”

or … “I’ll do it when I’m ready,” or “I’ll do it when i’m more confident.”

The reality is: waiting to feel ready or to feel confident is what stops us from progressing. We need to take risks. We need to do the things we’re afraid of.

On the other side of fear is growth.

Imagine this: you’re up in an airplane, facing your fear of heights because you’ve signed up for a parachute jump. You’re fine until it’s time to actually jump, and suddenly you’re overwhelmed by terror. You don’t want to do it. Eventually, with support from a friend and an instructor, you leap. You land safely. (Hopefully.)

How do you think you’d feel after that experience? How do you think the world would look when you get back on the ground? I’d hazard a guess you’d feel elated. You’d feel amazing — at the very least proud that you overcame something that scared you. You’d be wide awake.

You don’t need to jump out of planes. You simply need to challenge yourself and begin to do the things that you don’t want to do. You need to move beyond those self-imposed limitations and boundaries. These boundaries are what stand between you and the creative life you want.

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check out the accompanying video

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