 How's it, how's it guys? So to get started with street photography, obviously you need, well, you need a camera, right? You know, it could be anything from a smartphone or what have you. And then you need, well, you need an eye for photographs. It's not just enough to just take pictures of random things. You want to see the world as a photographer sees it. You want to approach them with a sense of curiosity of people going, whoa, what's this, what's this thing here that is different to everything else? We look at somebody like Henry Cotter-Breston and we say, oh, you know, it's, he just went out and was lucky all the time. But it's not because what he actually had was patience. But it's not enough when that picture is right to just photograph the moment. You need to have it creatively taken. Alex Webb is a great example of this. And he's also a very good example of the last thing that you need as a street photographer, which is this understanding that persistence is so important. You know, he talks, Alex Webb talks about his street photography that 99% of the photographs that he takes are where he considers them to be failures. So we're gonna take a leaf from Joel Mayovitz's vast knowledge and Joel Mayovitz is a very famous photographer whose work is going to show up all through this video. And his was asked about, you know, what was the best lens for street photography? And he said, you know, the best lens is one that fits your personality. And I think we can apply this to cameras as well. You know, for me, I like to take pictures of my smartphone, but for you, you may want to have, you know, a point in shoot, you know, less in your face or look, or you might go the whole hog and be very Bruce Gilden and stuff and in people's face. What makes you a better photographer is having a camera that fits you, your personality and that you can use without thinking about it. And that brings us on to, you know, your eye, your photographic eye. How do you train yourself to see the world as a photographer? So when you're driving around, when you're on your commute, when you are doing like whatever it is that you do, right? Look at the world as photographer, look for compositions, look for moments, look for things that are happening all around you. Don't just be zoned out in your own little world with your headphones on. Think about things. The more that you think about things in a photographic way, then the more in tune you're going to be with what's going on around you, that you start to see options for photographs everywhere. And when you start, you're doing this, it means that you can react quicker when moments happen, are playing out in front of you. Street photography is very much an in-the-moment reactionary kind of genre in photography. So the more that you can rely on muscle memory on just instinct, then the better your photographs are going to be. Another great way of sort of, you know, growing instinct is to have a sense of curiosity. Your Robert Kappa talked about, if your photographs are not good enough, then you're not close enough. I think you may have heard that before. And a lot of people, I feel misinterpret that to mean that you need to be physically close, you know, probably because Robert Kappa was a war photographer. But I don't think, I think what it is, he's talking about being emotionally invested in the photograph, you know, of being curious and interested in the thing that you are taking pictures of. And I suppose one way that you could employ this in your own photography, especially as a beginner street photographer, is to go to places that interest you already. You know, if you find that you are interested in shopping malls, for example, then go and photograph at shopping malls. If you find that, you know, you find Chinatowns or something, you know, thrilling, then go to Chinatown. But don't go somewhere simply because you've been told that it's like a good place to go and shoot. Go and shoot places and things that interest you, that you have a curiosity about. You get this from that kind of power observation. The two sort of go in hand in hand. You know, if you find someone, again, we're going to come back to draw my events. You know, he talks about going to somewhere and standing and just waiting. You're letting the world even flow around you until, you know, you're becoming in tune with what's going on. I've always felt that a really successful street photographer will find a situation where a great photograph could happen. Matt Stewart is a wonderfully humorous photographer. His little moments all set up. But so many of them, you can see that he's seen the basis of a photograph that is like, that could be kind of cool, right? But he's had the patience to wait for something to come along, for that timing to happen, to create a picture that you can go, wow, that's so good. That's, wow, that's amazing. There are so many varied ways of approaching street photography. There is too many to mention. But if you go and you look at people and their body of work and you take ideas from them, that it gives you a kickstart of things to explore, you can think about compositions and leading lines and all that sort of thing. But they will only take you so far. Sometimes you need signposts to say, hey, look, there's this thing over here, go check it out. But go and find photographers whose work excites you. There are many books. Street photography is an exceptionally popular genre. People like Dianne Arbus, Lee Friedlander, all these people had different approaches and you can pick and choose, like a magpie, about the things that you want to photograph. Find people whose work you think that's awesome and take inspiration from it. Put it together in your own little creative stew. Just make great pictures. When you look through the stories of photographers, you know, like, oh, Vivian Meyer. You know, so Vivian Meyer, right? You find these containers and inside there, there's like 100,000 negatives and stuff. How many times have we heard in photography of people being discovered who have left huge archives of images, right? And that tells you, right? Bearing in mind these are usually film, right? That they took a lot of photographs, right? That some days it just didn't happen for them, right? They probably felt frustrated. They go, ugh, just not feeling it. Nothing happened today. But they persevered. They pushed on. They kept on going. Don't just go and take a couple of weekends and think, do you know what? I've, you know, I've taken some pictures and it's not really kind of panning up. I haven't done anything good. I must be not very good at this, right? The greats in history and the people who are working now who are very good as well, it didn't just happen overnight. Photography is an ongoing process. It is a growth process that happens continuously. That Alex Webb quote, you know, 99 pictures are failures. Same thing happened with, you know, Ansel Adams. He was talking about, you know, if he gets one or two good pictures in a month, he considered that to be a good result. Don't buy into this idea that is purported, you know, sold by social media that everybody goes out and creates awesome images, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang like a boss because they don't, right? You're just seeing the amalgamated results of everybody's hard work presented as, oh, this just all happens all the time, right? Street photography is hit, miss, can chance, it can be all sorts of things. It's a wonderful way of connecting with the world. If you remember to, you know, have a camera that is one that works for you. Do you remember that, you know, having a camera isn't just enough. You need a bit of a good eye that you want to have that sense of curiosity, the patience, the sense of timing, you know, to take that picture creatively as well, you know, and it's not always going to work out. When you put all those things together, street photography becomes a lot more of an enjoyable process, a lot easier to kind of get into and stuff. And I haven't mentioned half of the wonderful street photographers, but a guy whose work I know you will absolutely adore is William Klein, and I put his video up here. Here's the godfather of street photography, certainly modern street photography. Thank you ever so much for watching and I will see you again soon.