Every time I go out to shoot street photography I try to improve. Sometimes I’m conciously working on improving compositions, exposure or the art of blending in to the scene.

No one trick or method exists for blending in when shooting street photography. I’ve found that it depends on a number of factors. Some of those factors are the amount of people around you and the flow of the foot traffic among other things.

As a general rule I try to do as the people are doing. If there’s a flow of foot traffic up and down the street I will walk with the traffic in one direction grabbing shots then turn around and walk back with the flow to grab more shots and repeat as needed.

As you know by now I live and work in the Las Vegas, Nevada area. One of the areas with the most foot traffic in Las Vegas is Las Vegas Blvd. This is where many of the larger resort and casinos are located. Most of the time when I’m shooting in this area I’m capturing tourists walking around experiencing the city, going from one place to another, grabbing coffee or something to eat, etc. Often times they’ve just arrived or they’re about to leave. Seeing them rolling luggage on the sidewalks is common.

Tourists don’t think much about the camera that’s around my neck or in my hand most of the time. I probably get more smiles, waves, and “Hey, take my picture” reactions from tourists than locals. Obviously people who are on vacation are in a different mindset than someone who lives and works here. These are things I need to keep in mind when I’m shooting in my city.

Different cities will have different pulses and different aspects that effect how you shoot street photography.

We could have a conversation for hours about street photography. I think capturing the vibe of a place in time, no matter the location is “street photography”. Whether you live in Paris, New York City, Las Vegas or even a small town.

I don’t always go out with the intention of shooting photos of people on the street but it has been something I’ve been practicing over the past few years and I do enjoy it. I also love cityscape stuff, including architecture shots, random details and city abstract shots.

Regardless of what I shoot it does help to try to blend in as much as possible. This is something I’m constantly working on.

I want to continue to write more blogs that aren’t gear related but for those who are interested this is the gear I shot these photos with:

Fujifilm X-H1 + XF35mm f/2.0, using a modified ACROS recipe. These images are straight out of camera. I will revisit them and edit my final selects soon.

Thanks for reading!

-Craig

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