The 5 F's Street photography tips. John Free

-Finding
-Figuring
-Framing
-Focusing
-Firing

Johnnienikon@yahoo.com
http://johnfreephotography.tumblr.com/

I have been conducting classes and workshops on street photography for 17 years, in various locations of the world, such as New York, Paris, Los Angeles and London. I have often noticed that many photographers become perplexed when trying to find subjects and then trying to figure out how to best photograph them. I have developed a system that is designed to help photographers find subjects and then know how to aproach the subject photographicly in order to make the most telling photograph possible in the shortest amount of time. I call this system, the 5 F's. Finding, Figuring, Framing, Focusing and Firing. If photographers practice the 5 F's and incorporate this system into their own working technique. I think the 5 F's will help them find and quickly evaluate a subject and its surroundings to better understand how to photograph the subject in a way that will result in a powerful photograph, that is rich in important details. This system takes practice to incorporate into a photographers working technique, but I feel that it will help photographers, by removing the confusion that is sometimes felt by a photographer when approaching a subject. Best of luck!

The Five F's By John Free
-Finding
-Figuring
-Framing
-Focusing
-Firing

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Digital
• Photography
• Nikon
• camera
• Henri Cartier Bresson
• W. Eugine Smith
• Robert Frank
• 35mm
• Street Photography

[montezumasrevenge]

The 6th F.....Frequency....if you take as many photos as these legendary photographers...eventually you'll have enough to fill a book or to be taken as some kind of photographic prophet. 30 out of 30,000 aint bad!

[JohnFreePhtography]

@montezumasrevenge Hi. Thanks for your comment. I have been thinking about what you have suggested for 40 years. Do I shoot more? Or do I shoot less? I know that many famous photographers shot a lot of film to get maybe one effective shot. I however, am very afraid of "Guessing" about a shot. Carier-Bresson said that the machine gun approach to photography will result in disaster. I want each shot to come from my heart,eye and brain and not from just throwing the camera around and shooting.

[damens]

@acesofgambit if the autofocus is working for you then use it. Otherwise zone focus. Leave your camera on Manual Focus set at, say, 3 metres and set your aperture to f8 or f11. Let depth-of-field do the work for you and you shouldn't need to adjust focus (or worry about the camera doing the right thing in autofocus) for most of your photos. Your mileage may vary and see your doctor if pain persists.

[VersionBeta1]

Thanks for helpful tips but I must disagree with "Focusing". For street photography, it's almost always better to use auto focus, not manual! Unless your manual focus ability is super fast, your photos will more than like turn out to be out of focus if you use manual - especially for the beginners.

and why close up of your left eye?

[unamaxify]

well you could combine the focusing & firing into one motion

if you have a camera with a touchscreen where you tap once

to focus on the subject and fire within a fraction of a second.

-

of course you have to be open to "new" technology

[68yankeeman]

Move over Colin Powell, I've got a new Hero.

[vtorialyn]

Very helpful thank you!

[gaozhi2007]

@JohnFreePhtography not only that, but it's a pain in this ass to go through all your photos.

[PanzarMetal]

Damn it, From tomorrow Im going on concrete discipline, gonna use the 1 roll rule, turn the auto focus, stop reviewing my shots and stick with 1 ISO (200-400).

Sounds suicidal with the new tech ? well there is actually fun in it!

[giotto4321]

This is a really well presented, 'stream-of-consciousness' type of instruction and I enjoyed it, thanks. No doubt, the years you've spent taking photos helps it to have become ingrained in your working technique, but it's great to listen to.

[AristoDosSantosTV]

Great video, thank you very much Sir.

[mplayer98]

@JohnFreePhtography "Winogrand exposed 700 rolls of film on the project. Papageorge selected the 69 pictures in the book from 6,500 11" x 14" proof prints. He sequenced the work, organized the corresponding exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, and wrote the introduction, which is not so much an introduction to this book as it is an introduction for a monograph on Winogrand's life and work as a whole. ."

[cyphre672]

Thanks very much for this info sir, if i would live in the US i would try to visit your workshops for sure ( if i could afford them, that is ;))