Ghost is a great fan of street photography, which he loves to do. However, some people have a hard time with streetphotography, because you are sometimes obliged to ask people if you can photograph them. That is a threshold for many people. It can feel uncomfortable — both for you as a photographer and for the person you’d like to photograph.
Honestly, Ghost doesn’t always ask (a bit against the rules) but usually uses his 300mm lens to keep the distance. Ghost does this because in his opinion it gives more authenticity to the photo than asking to pose. The golden rule here is that you don’t photograph people in compromising circumstances. A homeless person, a beggar or someone who has just vomited out his last meal and is still recovering from that act, don’t have any artistic value. You also don’t photograph people who make it clear that they do not want to be photographed, or you destroy that photo afterwards without using it.
Zeno Watson is an experienced streetphotographer and has been photographing on the streets of Glasgow for well over a decade capturing portraits of many of its more distinctive characters. In the short video below, Watson gives some tips and tricks on how to approach people where it is especially striking that he approaches people in a way that inspires confidence despite the fact that photographer and subject are strangers to each other. Watch and learn from it.
