STREET [ PHOTOGRAPHY ] - Nonlinear Content

February 11, 2025: There are only three times when something completely changed how I shoot. This is the most recent.

WRITTEN & SHOT ON iPHONE BY: STEVE HOLLOWAY

Over the last year, I began adopting and adapting the discipline of street photography. At first it felt foreign. Then it began to seem like I had always worked this way.

I also began using filmmaker David Mamet’s technique of methodically editing smaller elements, overall shots and details together to advance the storyline.

These two disciplines completely changed how I shoot. And changed my edit workflow making it a part of the storytelling process.

Before Street Photography.
Using shot lists to tell a story.

For 30+ years I was a commercial photographer.

Filmmakers use scripts to guide them through the storytelling process.

Photographers use shot lists.

Shot lists were how I navigated production meetings, location scouts and scheduling to create images for agency, designer and educational clients.

Retiring gave me the freedom to shoot only what interests me. Still, I fell back into familiar working habits starting with a storyline, creating a shot list then shooting to illustrate that storyline.

It was structured. Too structured.

Street Photography is just the opposite.

You have your camera out, ready to capture what happens right in front of you.

Sounds simple.

It’s not. Street photography is a specialized skill set that trains you to work fast. See the shot. Look at how small changes in camera position can help/hurt the end result. Compose the elements on the screen. And, finally, capture the image.

Four tasks that have to occur on the fly, almost simultaneously.

Details. Details.
Details.
Street Photography lets
the shoot tell the story.

Street Photography is a complete change in storytelling approach, moving away from a literal shot list driven technique to capturing a deconstructed version of the story. Using smaller elements and details to tell a bigger story.

Street photography creates an impression of a place or a moment in time.

Eliminating preconceived ideas. Heading out, camera in hand. Instinctively shooting what you find to capture a moment, a place, a subject.

Using the edit to bring it all together.

The edit lets images reveal, shape and form the storyline.

Editing street photography can be as demanding as the actual shoot. For every image you ultimately say yes to, there are LOTS of images you say no to.

Then there’s the question, “what do I say yes to?” There is a tendency to be too literal and not instinctive enough.

Think of how movies are made. The least visually interesting films follow the protagonist around showing what they did first and next and next.

The most interesting films borrow from the David Mamet practice of cutting together different points of view, details and overalls. Using the variations to make it visually interesting and move the story forward pulling the viewer from shot to shot to shot.

That’s what makes street photography work.

It’s not a planned sequence of events. It’s walking down the street, seeing this, then something over there then something else the other way.

Street photography can’t be planned or scripted. It has to be experienced.

I had always relied on a literal narrative approach to tell a story. Start with a storyline. Shoot to illustrate that storyline.

During my trips to the Texas beaches, central Texas and New England, I experimented with less structured approaches to image capture.

Street Photography brings together changes I use every time I pickup a camera.

It reverses functions, capturing images then letting the images build the story in the edit, using details to engage viewers and move a storyline forward.

The great thing about

street photography.

Street photography is never boring. Every time you head out with your camera it’ll be different, you’ll find something new.

You get to make your own choices. What works for me may not work for you. DSLR, mirrorless or iPhone? Using images as is or going through multiple editing steps to color grade your final result? Deciding where to go to shoot. When to shoot.

Doing whatever keeps you picking up your camera again and again and again until you find your own voice.

“For me the camera is a sketchbook, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity”
-Henri Cartier-Bresson

Influences.
The photographers and
cinematographers
who, for me, shaped the
storytelling landscape.

Street Photography is a result of following the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Eugène Atget, Elliott Erwitt, Fan Ho, Vivian Maier and Joel Meyerowitz. To this day, I study their ability to take something so instinctual and make it look so formal.

Henri Cartier-Bresson especially. His concept of the ‘decisive moment’ defines the elegance of his imagery. It’s “the instant when all the elements in the frame come together to make the perfect image, not the peak of action necessarily, but the formal peak.”

There was a time when magazines were my go-to source for storytelling ideas. Today it’s cinema. I especially follow Grieg Fraser (The Batman, Dune and Zero Dark Thirty) and Roger Deakins (Skyfall). Watch their films. Watch how they cut together shots to move the storyline forward.

Street [ Photography ] sets out to capture that mix of subject, composition and spontaneity.

To capture what these shooters seem to achieve so effortlessly. To move a storyline forward with instinctively captured images.

Shot on iPhone Gallery 2. Street Photography.

NEW: SHOT ON iPHONE GALLERY 2: Images from Canyon Lake, Johnson City and Austin, Texas. Plus the story behind Street [ Photography ], edit workflow ideas and the photographers and cinematographers who have influenced how I shoot every time I pick up a camera. View mages from the first Street [ Photography ] shoots.

Shot on iPhone Gallery 1. Early street photography experiments.

SHOT ON iPHONE GALLERY 1: A compilation of images from US 181, Goliad, Port Aransas, North Padre Island, Rockport, Seguin, The Guadalupe River, Lockhart, Austin, and Waco, Texas and Las Vegas, Nevada. View images from the earliest street photography experiments.

Where to next?
Nonlinear Content
idea files, galleries,
and how-to guides.

Create a personal content experience. Galleries and stories followed by the Toolbox how-to guides. Newest posts listed first. Enjoy!

Images with notes on how they were captured and how they were processed in post production. Includes resources you can use to develop your post production skill set.

On location.

Working with Light
The Scout
Shooting During the Golden Hour
Photographing People
Details, Shadows, Shapes and Textures
Plate Shots and Reflections
Feed Your Passions
People and Food Two of My Favorite Subjects
On The Road
Wall Art
Transitional Images
Night Photography

Post production.

General Practices
Assemblages & Abstractions
Change the Composition of an Image
Color Correction vs Color Grading
Color Correction & Color Grading Samples
Create Motion with Live Photo
Resize Images and Retain Detail
Software and Skill Building Resources
On Board Apps
Offboard Software
Post Production Apps
Online Resources