Alex Coghe

Street Photography Core

Street Photography, the good street photography is something that documents, that communicates something about a moment captured by the photographer, and therefore also reveals something about the author of the photo. A good street is a revealing moment, a sublime dichotomy of the ES and the world around it, or at least the perceived one. For this you have to be demanding, with the moment caught, if there is true content or not, if there is a composition worthy of this definition, if the street is genuinely represented and without forcing and overdubs, and therefore communicating that energy that only the street is able to reveal.

I photograph on the streets everyday. This makes myself a street photographer. And when you are a street photographer, you are another type of photographer, no matters if you make also other things, as I do as photojournalist and commercial photographer. You will know that the Street Photographer approach is always ready to come out.

After all these years making photos on the streets of Mexico, Italy and US I can see how I am grown up in the awareness that the experience on the street made me a different photographer. And a different human too.

As a street photographer I learned how gear is important to make your work, but I don't have the fever to purchase all the cameras and the lenses. The GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) was never really something to me and for my photography. All over these years I could work with several cameras and lenses, some purchased, mostly loaned. I have experience with film and digital cameras, APS-C and Medium format, compact cameras. Anytime to me is not about having a geek approach to photography. There are guys knowing anything about technical issues of any camera on the market. I really don't care about that. As I writer for me a pen is important because it is an instrument allowing me to write. For photography is almost the same.

But, of course I have my preferences: I work most of the time in popular barrios. And I spend a lot of time on the street. I just need compact, light and no flashy cameras. I love to work with analog point & shoot like my Olympus Stylus and Nikon L35. But I love also my Rangefinder Yashica Electro GSN. For digital currently I am using a Fujifilm XPro2 and a Fujifilm XT10. I purchased a manual lens: the 7Artisans 25mm f1.8. It is a great lens in my opinion with great color rendering, but you have to learn to work with because it is not accurate and often can become capricious, demanding. I think they build the lens focused on the bokeh...and this makes anything more complicated. Especially for a street photographer. Anyway you can have an idea with the photos on this post.

I want to create something useful for the STRKNG community on this blog, and I thought that this theme can be inspiring for other photographers.

The Street Photography Core to me is not about making perfect pictures. Photography in my opinion is a matter of content and form. It is fundamental that there is a good balance between content and form. Street Photography can't be reduced to visual jokes, or even worst the optical effects we are seeing often today on instagram.
And Street Photography is an imperfect activity that lives of randomness. If you are focused on capturing the energy on the street, you almost don't care anything is perfect on the frame. It is more important that a certain photo with certain elements inside the frame works. It is more important to be able to have a photograph with a content, showing the intent of the photographer, giving something of the documentation of the human condition. Something that you want to observe, possibly more than the time of a scroll of your mouse, something that you want to have as a print and maybe hanging on the wall at home.

The selection of the photos here present certain elements that are typical of my approach. It is imperfect photography that is perfect to me. One for all, look at the out of focus in the foreground of the girl picture. I would obtain that. I photographed her passing by because if I stopped myself in front of her, to frame and pressing the shutter button I would have lost that expression: maybe she would turn or smile, or react but I just wanted that expression. I can remember that exactly the day before I had gazed in awe at the portrait of a woman completely out of focus. I knew what I wanted and that leaving the lens at some distance would not have her in focus.

This is the Street Photography Core: to know the technique is OK if you can master it even to take an imperfect photograph, your personal photography.