Street Photography: Venice Beach

Another weekend, another chance to bust out my camera and play around. This time it was on Venice Beach with the MeetUp group. Chris in the Red Hat gave us a challenge: tell the story of Venice in six photos. Alright. More street photography!

Welcome to Venice Beach

What I Learned

• A trick for street photography is D.I.E.
• Design: composition, imagery
• Information: use the background to provide context for the scene
• Emotion: try to capture emotional reactions or to evoke an emotion
• The three parts for telling stories through photographs
• Establishing shot: show where you are
• Detail: show specifically what's going on where you are
• Emotion: again, emotional moments are very sweet
• Don't "chimp" after you take a shot of people and they notice you
• Chimping: looking at the screen to check a photo
• It makes it clear that you just took a picture of them, which could create animosity
• Don't feel bad if you're told to fuck off
• How to diffuse a "fuck off" confrontation
• Give them your card and explain that you're a photographer
• Note to self: get business cards [edit: check!]
• Tell them that you found them interesting and wanted to capture that
• "I think you're interesting/have a great aesthetic. Don't you find yourself interesting? Etc."
• Offer to show them the photo you took of them (to show them how cool they are)
• Show them examples of your photos
• Have a 4x6" photo album of your work
• Note to self: get a photo album of your work
• Give in and delete the photo
• It sucks, but some people are petty

Kit

• Nikon D7200
• AF Nikkor 35mm f/2
• AF-S Micro Nikkor 85mm f/3.5 G

Story

I woke up at 11 on Saturday and debated whether or not I should really go to Venice Beach to meet the photography club. I'd been looking forward to it throughout the week, but for whatever reason, the idea of going to Venice suddenly repulsed me. But still, I really wanted to photograph the sunset (see following post.) I grudgingly got up and got myself ready.

I found my mood tumultuous. I was both excited and terrified at the prospect of more street photography. It was a genre I was beginning to enjoy, but it still made me extremely nervous to shoot people. At least this was Venice Beach; I had no reason to expect conflict.

Eventually, I got all my gear together and got myself to the beach. Fifteen minutes late, I met up with Chris in the Red Hat, who challenged the group to distill the essence of Venice Beach in only 6 shots--a photo essay of the boardwalk. He gave me some general tips before sending me off to explore; the group was to meet at the Starbucks after an hour.

The colorful world of Venice

Paintings everywhere

Sculpture paintings

At one point, I got this really cool shot of these two teenagers with their hair over their faces as they stared at their phones. Thinking this was an interesting statement about how some people can find even the most eclectic spaces boring, I left. But a few minutes later a girl in perhaps her late teens comes up to me and says, "Excuse me, I think you took a photo of my brothers."

I was stunned. Venice just isn't one of those places where you'd expect someone to take issue with their picture being taken. "Can you delete it please?" I don't remember how I reacted; I just recall my own bewilderment, like my brain disappeared from my skull. I ended up deleting the photo, even though I thought it was pretty good. Then, one of the brothers asked, "Why did you do that [take the photo]?" He sounded both confused and slightly hurt.

"Well, I thought you with your hair blowing over your face would make a good shot." Again, I don't fully remember what happened after or how he responded, but I left the encounter feeling pretty lousy. Thankfully, we were to regroup in 10 minutes, and I wanted to ask Chris in the Red Hat about it.

After a round of fist bumps for my first "fuck off," Chris gave me a lot of pointers on how to diffuse those kinds of situations (see above) and told me not to get bummed out. I asked about the laws regarding taking photos of people in public. "There are none," said Chris in the Red Hat. Legally, there's nothing stopping you from taking someone's picture in these sorts of situations. Once they put themselves into a public setting, people implicitly accept the risk of having their picture taken by someone/something else. (Think security cameras, not just errant photographers.) They don't own the rights to their image in public. It eased my mind to know that I hadn't done anything wrong besides offend someone's personal sensibilities.

I felt a bit better after talking with everyone about our experiences getting told off, we decided to regroup again after another hour. We were meant to continue our photo essays, focusing on getting the shots that we still needed. (I needed more detail shots.)

Working on crystals

There were stalls selling all sorts of things, like a stereotype of an Arabian bazaar. Some people were performing to music, some were making music, and others were singing. And, of course, many were dancing to it all.

Jammin' to some tunes

I was working with prime lenses all day, which proved extremely difficult to compose shots. Because you zoom by moving farther from or closer to your subject, the crowds of Venice Beach easily get in the way of really good shots. I did, however, manage to catch some pretty decent moments.

In the end, I decided the day had been quite successful. I learned even more about street photography while also honing my skills in visual storytelling.