0.4 sec f/2.8 11mm ISO 200

One of my favorite forms of photography to create is street photography. I remember showing the shot of the girl doing yoga that is featured at the top of this website (or by clicking here) to someone and they thought that it was weird that I was at the beach just taking shots of random people I didn’t know. I explained that that is the beauty of it – you are capturing real life, not posed life. Once people are aware you are photographing them out in public, they change. Sometimes that change ruins the shot.

I bring this up today because I was turned on yesterday by a post on Chase Jarvis’ blog to a very well known street photographer named Scott Schuman who runs the popular blog “The Sartorialist“. If you have a few minutes, watch the video that Chase shared (just under this paragraph) – it’s very inspirational – it will hopefully make you get why he does what he does.

It also reminded me of the legendary photographer Jay Maisel, who after retiring from doing commercial assignments in the 90’s, focused on street photography as well as teaching and selling fine art prints of his work. If you have a Kelby Training account, there is a fantastic series featuring Scott Kelby and Jay doing a photowalk through New York City. Guys like Jay Maisel and Scott Schuman both stress the importance of exorcising your creative mind, and they do it while approaching strangers so confidently that it’s tough not to be inspired by their skill.

1/60th of a sec f/5.6 200mm ISO 200

One of the things I’ve been known for here in Charleston, SC is my photographs of local scenes and events. I’ve been inspired to add a new “Street Photography” category to my blog to start sharing some of those posts in one organized place. It’s a way for me to have a place to talk about my life experiences when I choose to bring the camera along with me (which is most of the time). I’ve also added an “Insight” category, which is similar to the “Inspiration” category but focuses more on my soapbox type posts about technique, gear, or business, where the inspiration category is about things, people, or events that inspire me. Finally, I added a sub-menu at the top menu of the blog to quickly access these categories so you can browse the blog posts by whatever topic you’re in the mood to read about.

Have a great 1.11.11 – I’ll be more excited for 11.11.11 though 😉