Street Photography: Getting Started

4 min readMay 16, 2021

Hey! I’m Anirudh, a freelance(-ish) photographer among other things. I like taking photos of nature — hills, forests, etc. — but street photography is probably my top favorite.

When I got started with photography, I had my trusty Honor 6X and while I did get to borrow my friends’ cameras, I only got my Canon EOS 200D II(SL3) after 2 years into college. While a basic smartphone camera may not be as versatile as a DSLR, you’ll get to learn a lot from using one.

1. Know your gear

Usually when you’re going out, you’ll not want to carry a heavy kit. So you have to think about the gear that you’re going to carry, unless you’re like me and don’t mind carrying three lenses everywhere.

If your primary is a smartphone, your job is easier. With an interchangeable lens camera however, you have to put in some thought into this. Depending on whether you’re going to be in a cramped location or an open area, you’ll be choosing among a range of wide angle or telephoto or prime lenses. In markets or small spaces, you might wanna work with a wide angle lens(like the 18–55mm). For places where you think the subject will be farther away from you, you should carry a telephoto lens(like the 55–250mm).

2. Scout the location

Remember getting to some place you had just heard about and it turning out to be a waste of a journey? Always scout your locations!

Before you get to the spot, this is by going through the posts on Instagram by location, photos on Google Maps or — if you have the patience — Google Earth.

Once you’re at the spot, you let your eyes and legs do the work. Look for the best source of light and work with that.

3. Pick the right time

This rule holds for any genre of photography, because unless you have the equipment to make it look like a sunset, you gotta get to the edge on time.

October 2019. Aditya, Preetham and I planned to take photos of the streets during Navratri. We left for Chamundi around 4PM. Got to the viewpoint just before sunset and BOY was that a scene to gaze at! Leaving Chamundi a while after sunset, we got off the bus and were able to find enough crowd for our photos.

If golden hour isn’t your thing(dunno how anyone won’t like it), maybe it is moody mornings with a ton of fog or high contrast evenings.

4. Seek discomfort

a. Use a prime lens

A prime lens is a lens with a fixed focal length. In a prime lens, you trade off zooming for a higher aperture. You’re forced to move around to frame the image better, but the lens lets in a lot of light, giving you that beautiful bokeh and crispy focus.

b. Talk to the locals.

You never know what you may discover when you talk to the locals! Maybe something you wouldn’t learn on the internet, maybe some picturesque stuff too. Once you talk to people, they ease off a bit and may let you take their portraits. If not, you walk away knowing one more person out of the billions.

c. Separate from the group

Maybe you’re out with friends, not with intention of getting photos, but you think there’s something interesting on the side path. TAKE THAT PATH! What if you happen to find a cute dog?

2019 Lucknow, we were headed back to Mysore from IIT Kanpur and got about a day in this beautiful city. We went to some market in the interior. Small shops, tasty street food, narrow paths and tens of crossroads. I definitely wanna go back there!