Creative Tips for Unique Street Photography

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Sometimes it can be tricky to know exactly what to focus on to improve as a street photographer, and honestly it can take much longer to get better when you don’t know where to focus your attention, so in this post I’m going to give you 3 simple tips with actionable advice so you can quickly improve and take more eye-catching street photographs more often. So let’s get right into it.

1. Context

Have you ever joined in to hear someone telling a story halfway through and you get surprised or confused about what they’re saying because you completely missed the context? Well that’s exactly what you need to harness in your street photography, leaving out context to create curiosity and surprise. So how can we do that? Well you want to try and capture a moment with a story but also try to show it out of context, a moment like that can be far more powerful then spelling everything out for the viewer. Let’s look at an example.

I took this photo recently and in my opinion it’s a striking image that prompts a lot of questions, why is this man touching the face on this wall, where is it, what’s going on, what does it mean to him? The lack of context is what makes it an exciting photo. If I told you that it’s a tour guide at a religious monument in Georgia, it adds context, explains what’s going on and the image looses some of its appeal. Also if I had stood from further away and captured more of the environment that would give more explanation to what’s going on and it wouldn’t be as good.

If we can take street photographs that make the viewer ask questions by leaving out context then this can be such a powerful tool and it’s actually quite simple to put into practice. One of the best ways to do that is with your composition and knowing what to leave out of the frame to make the photograph more compelling. Here’s a few more photos I’ve taken recently that I think work well by leaving out the context.

Now we know the power of context in our photography next let’s explore how we can add more depth to our images.

2. Layering

Oftentimes as street photographers we default to taking a photo of something happening because it’s interesting or exciting but then in the moment thoughts for composition go a bit out of the window. I really think the more you practice and learn about compositional techniques, the more instinctual it becomes to put the theory into action when a moment presents itself. One of the best compositional techniques that is really versatile and fits all street photography genres is layering. So how can we incorporate layering more into our work?

There are a couple of ways of looking at layering. The first is by using your environment. So for example you find an eye-catching wall then start to build a more complex composition taking a slower approach. You see where people are walking and see how they can fit into the scene.

You can also look for objects that will make for an eye-catching foreground elements adding texture and abstraction. For example reflections, or it could be objects on the street such as a lamppost or car to block out areas of an image. You can then build up your composition to make a more layered and engaging frame than just a photo of something happening. You can do this in a more subtle way too, for example finding a subject or moment you want to photograph and then moving your body to include something either visually appealing in the other parts of the image, or to use for creative framing. People love frames so if you can find a way to frame something up, this can add more visual interest and layering too.

The second way to think about layering is to try and put something interesting in the foreground, mid ground and background. Creating depth and visual enjoyment at multiple points throughout your frame. If you’re taking this approach you also want to try and achieve some kind of balance, you want to think about how the subjects in your image relate to each other and the background. For example if you’re photographing a lot of people, you don’t want too much overlapping. It’s best to try and keep some space around your subjects, let them breathe and this will give you a more powerful frame.

Find the Twist

One of my guilty pleasures is watching Masterchef, for those of you that don’t know it’s a cooking competition on TV here in the UK. The dishes served up need to taste amazing but also have to look the part too. Like any great chef, it’s not enough to make a nice dish, there has to be something to it that makes it stand out in some way, elevating it to the next level to really stand out from the crowd and all the other chefs out there. So how is that relevant to street photography? Well it all comes down to finding a twist, or a cherry on top if you like.

In my opinion great street photos need a twist, or something extra to elevate them from just being a snapshot of normal life out in public. So what exactly can a twist be? A twist can be anything that adds a little bit extra to the scene, an unexpected moment, a gesture, a funny or clever juxtaposition. Even better is to have a frame with more than one twist, this is how you can take your street photography to the next level. A twist can also be subtle, for example some great light or colour or weather conditions. Often I look at some photos that I think are really great but I can’t pinpoint the twist, it’s lame but the only way I can describe those kind of photos that catch my eye is that they have an x-factor about them.

But just having the word twist in your head when you go out can go a long way to making better images. Think to yourself, I’m not just going to settle for some boring photos, if there is potential in a scene I’m going to really look and hone in to what’s happening then if something unusual happens you’ll be ready to capture it.

For example in this photograph which I took recently I noticed this sign months ago and thought it made for an eye-catching scene, the red stands out with the black and white graphic eyes as well as the text but what really makes the photo is the man in the frame is carrying two bicycle wheels, this is the twist. The sign says ‘cycle thieves we are watching you’ and you couldn’t ask for a better subject walking past carrying two bicycle wheels. If I’d just settled and taken a photo with just a random person walking past not carrying anything then it might still be an OK photo, but it wouldn’t have the same impact at all.

It was worth visualising the right shot with a twist in the back of my mind and I got lucky when I was out in town and noticed the guy with the wheels, I legged it over to the sign and fortunately it all lined up. But you make your own luck, if I hadn’t been searching for a twist I might have seen the guy with the wheels and never put two and two together and not captured that shot which is one of my favourites this year.

There are many interpretations of what could be a twist. This photo is one of my favourites from last year, the twist is that there’s direct eye contact looking back at you from the mirror. If there was no eye in the mirror or it wasn’t holding eye contact with the viewer then this photo wouldn’t work at all, there wouldn’t be a twist.

As I said earlier, a twist can also be more subtle, it doesn’t have to be super eye-catching. For example it could be a character, an expression, a gesture, interesting light. There are lots of ways to include some kind of focal point that is not just something you see every day and it’s the job of the street photographer to figure out what that is and capture it.

I make it my aim when I’m out to constantly look for twists happening out in the world to try and capture. But a really good twist or moment is very rare, so I don’t beat myself up if I don’t capture a photo with a bit of a twist for a while, it’s more about constantly practicing my observational skills and always looking out for something unusual that will really make an image pop.

Noticing and then capturing a photo with a twist is very difficult though so you don’t always have to find a twist, if you had a collection of work, a photo book for example, it would be quite exhausting if every photo was super eye-catching with a lot going on and each photo had a twist or multiple twists in it. So you can absolutely still make amazing street photography without twists, like those quieter scenes, but if you’re looking to make powerful street photographs then constantly observing for that extra something to happen in a scene can make all the difference between getting an average street photograph and an award winning one.