About learning to read a street photographer
I like to photograph people. Most of my pictures come from moving around in public spaces and engaging with people who catch my eye in some way. It may be that the situation appeals to me or my interest in the person is aroused directly.
If I now want to take a picture in which a person is recognizably the focus, I naturally approach the person in question. Certainly out of interest in the person, not least also to get the consent for the picture.
Now it happens quite often that I do not get this consent. This may have many reasons, certainly a significant part is due to me, I may simply have been clumsy.
This is an exciting topic. Therefore, I would first like to state that, from my point of view, it is perfectly okay to say no here.
People and photos tell a story
A good photo can tell a lot; we have a whole range of idioms that reflect this; we speak of worry and laughter lines, act with a proud chest or are bowed by grief; for curious looks we have a particularly illustrative word in German, namely naseweis.
The people concerned may instinctively feel this and conclude that they do not want to send this pictorial narrative on its way without further possibility of control.
On the other hand, it is also interesting for me to experience that many people who agree to be photographed then also tell me a lot about themselves, who let me share in their lives, so that their experiences, their personality flows into the pictures.
The person and the photo then tell a story that complements each other.
Who says yes?
Certainly, the individual personality of the persons addressed plays a role in whether they agree to be photographed. Here, the five-factor model (Big Five) of personality psychology may initially give a hint.
People in whom, for example, the factors openness to experience and extraversion are strongly pronounced will be more likely to engage in being photographed than other personality types. This is certainly reflected in my street photography.
Beyond that, a few points stand out when I look at my images as a whole.
The first thing that strikes me is that people we would not usually count as part of the mainstream of our society are generally okay with me photographing them.
Here I have the feeling that this group of people cares little about how they appear to others beyond their immediate appearance; people obviously have little inclination to expend energy on satisfying a certain social desirability and are very self-confident in this attitude.
The first thing that strikes me is that people we would not usually count as part of the mainstream of our society are generally okay with me photographing them.
Here I have the feeling that this group of people cares little about how they appear to others beyond their immediate appearance; the people obviously have little inclination to expend energy on satisfying a certain social desirability and are very self-confident in this attitude
Then I often experience a youthful carefreeness that simply lets me participate in the moment. It is a strong turning to the here and now.
And then there is a certain detachment in old age.
Older people, who have already experienced many vicissitudes in life, often let me share their life story and are also okay with me photographing them.
This is somewhat surprising at first.
Research has repeatedly looked at how behaviors change over the course of a lifetime. A publication from 2016 shows that getting older goes hand in hand with us becoming more cautious:
(Curr Biol. 2016 Jun 20;26(12): R495-R497. Decision Neuroscience: Why We Become More Cautious with Age. Peter Bossaerts & Carsten Murawski).
They found that older people were less likely to prefer risky rewards over safe rewards.
Whatdo I learn from this?
The scientific literature describes very interesting general behaviors and opens up many opportunities for us to build on them.
Obviously, I succeed better in communicating with older people. We can probably read each other better, we establish trust more quickly, so the topic of risk doesn't seem to be at the forefront of my conversation partners' minds when I communicate with older people.
With young people, I often find their curiosity to be very refreshing; in the above sense, it may be a desire for a risky reward with them that gives me the opportunity to engage in conversation.
For the ages in between, I'm in a reading learning process that will probably go on for a long time.
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