Subjects - People

In the previous post, I gave my 2c about black&white photography, its characteristics and strengths, and why street photography can benefit so much from it.

In this post I'll begin diving into the elements of bnw street photography, starting with subjects, in particular people.

People are probably the most important subject in street photography. People we encounter during our days and nights can be gorgeous, ugly, surprising, amazing, strange, colorful (but this is something we are going to ignore for a while...), in love, happy, desperate, and so many other ways, and it's no surprise that street photographers like to capture people so much.

There is anyway some common language that I can recognize in street images about people, some common patterns, ways of framing, recurring subjects and situations that are peculiar to this art.

Let's start with one of the most common.

Strange people

Some people are strange. Either they are dressed strange, they have strange hair or faces, they may have strange expressions, or they may be acting strange.

Portraits of, often unaware, random strange people are one of the names of this language.

Some great examples from Instagram fellows follow.

And this is something I captured myself.

Tramps

Tramps are another very common subject street photographers like to capture, and it's something that somewhat upsets me. These people have nothing, live desperate lives, and I think that we should avoid putting their misery on the stage just to get more likes.

Anyway, images of tramps can be very impressive and of course dramatic, they tell a story, a story of despair, which touches our inner cords and reminds us of how lucky we are.

So the result is usually very interesting and touching and this is why this is a so common subject in this art.

Examples from fellow Instagrammers.

My own try (not particularly interesting, I told you why...).

Street artists

They are dressed in strange ways and have strange hair, they smile or are focused and concentrated, they play or jump or make flips, all in front of other random, maybe interesting people.

They can be a perfect subject to capture so many different aspects with one shot.

Plus, they are making up an event, and we'll see that capturing events is another important theme in street photography.

Great examples from fellow Instagrammers.

My own interpretation.

In the next post we'll see how sometimes people are not the real subject of an image, it is the context where people are captured, which takes strength and meaning thanks to the people living inside it.