Street Photography: A Refreshing Approach

Photography Tips  •  Street Photography

The fear of photographing strangers can be a powerful deterrent to pursuing a dream in street photography. To make matters worse a recent spate of videos shared on social media seems to reveal that it can be a nerve wrecking experience, especially when you irritate people you’re trying to photograph. It doesn’t really help when you have ‘street photography experts’ promoting the intrusive and often abusive approach to this style of photography. Thus when someone brings forth a casual relaxed approach to the whole thing, it warrants attention:

His current project is to photograph in and around the financial district, finding four strong photos over the course of a day and then assimilating those four photos to tell a vignette of a story. Andre Wagner is a street and documentary photographer based in New York.

Wagner’s approach to street photography is refreshingly casual and relaxed.

“Photography is crazy. It’s the only thing that takes reality and just pauses it. That’s it. Like that’s the moment and once that image is made it might not necessarily be about reality anymore.”

“I am inserted in moments, I am interested in my feeling this jut reaction. But I am also interested in how I can make this person in the background that has no relationship with this person in the foreground, how can they interact with each other; and that’s the magic of photography because that’s how I said it kind of changes this, it’s not really about what’s happening, it’s about how things look.”