Street photography is a form of photography that I would have never considered doing. I was too fixed on doing nature photography, what I truly love to do. Even though nature photography is my favorite, my photography professors opened my mind to street photography.

At first, I wasn’t really enthused to be going out and doing street photography. I’ve never done it before and I thought the whole concept was just boring. After the first time I went out to shoot and looked at my photographs I realized a few things about street photography. First, I learned that my photographs were actually pretty good for my first time dealing with street photography. The second thing I realized was that street photography isn’t boring at all. If a photograph is taken at the perfect moment, the photograph could be just as amazing as a photograph of nature. After I realized this, the third thing that I found was that street photography tells a story.

Depending on the shadows, the highlights, who’s in the photograph, and what that person is doing in the photograph, there can be many different ways viewers may interpret the story of the photograph. That’s why I came to realize that street photography is the complete opposite of boring. It’s amazing how just walking around in a certain area and taking a photograph at the right time and place can turn into a story. When going out to take street photography, I wasn’t thinking about going to look for this and that to make a story. All I did was walk around and carefully observe my surroundings to find that perfect photograph. I even took photographs that I already knew were probably not going to work, but took them anyways to help me learn what makes a good photograph from a great one.

Street photography may not have been something I ever considered, but I’m glad someone suggested that I should go out and try it. The results that I got weren’t just great photographs, but I also grew as a photographer.