Beginner Urban photography - beginner

[Natalia Glowacz]

Hi everyone!

I’ve recently gotten into urban photography and I’m really enjoying exploring different parts of the city with my camera.
However, I feel like a lot of my shots look flat or uninteresting, especially when it comes to capturing street scenes and architecture.
Do you have any tips for a beginner on how to improve composition in urban photography?
Are there any simple techniques or exercises that helped you when you were starting out?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[jamesev]

Urban Architecture or Urban Social?

Its usually all about how the light falls.

I find Alan Schaller - https://www.alanschaller.com/series-landing is able to "see" really good urban tonality. He does use a Leica Monochrom as he predominantly shoots mono.

 

[benhben]

Go on days with good light (i.e sunny) and look for bits of contrast between light and shadow. Some good compositions between light and shadow can make good photos out of normally really boring places. Likewise a boring place in boring light will stay boring.

Its all perspective though, some street photographers are more interested in people and stories rather than whats pleasing to the eye.

Roman Fox is probably one of the best followed street shooters on instagram who looks for good light. Have a look at his page to see what I mean. Or my page @bhansonphoto has shots from some areas youd think were boring.

 

[LeeRatters]

Urban I think the main ingredients are light and maybe some sort of interesting composition with regard to lines, shapes, etc

Try shooting with the LCD in mono.

 

[AndrewFlannigan]

I would suggest that, as with any image, the first thing is to decide what is interesting and the second thing is to decide how to show that interesting thing.

Sometimes you're lucky and the subject is interesting in itself, like this building in Swindon...



If you can't decide what's interesting, it might be better to keep looking. Then again, you can make things interesting by the way in which you arrange them in your picture. In urban environments, standing well back, using a long focus lens and changing the angle from which you frame the image, can produce something from what otherwise looks boring...

 

[benc98]

I recommend going for a walk, make photos of anything that stands out and makes you look twice, play around with composition and light when making the photos.
When you get home, pick out the images you like and think about or write down why you like them.. then go out again and make more
Don't overcomplicate it

 

[jamesev]

Hi everyone!

I’ve recently gotten into urban photography and I’m really enjoying exploring different parts of the city with my camera.
However, I feel like a lot of my shots look flat or uninteresting, especially when it comes to capturing street scenes and architecture.
Do you have any tips for a beginner on how to improve composition in urban photography?
Are there any simple techniques or exercises that helped you when you were starting out?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

what do you perceive to be interesting and what do you perceive to be uninteresting. Someone might think their images are interesting and well shot but only to them and others may think they are boring and flat. One of the skills to look for is being able to know what the camera will see rather than what your eyes will necessarily see, and how that will transfer onto the final image.

 

[huxleypiggles]

Go on days with good light (i.e sunny) and look for bits of contrast between light and shadow. Some good compositions between light and shadow can make good photos out of normally really boring places. Likewise a boring place in boring light will stay boring.

Its all perspective though, some street photographers are more interested in people and stories rather than whats pleasing to the eye.

Roman Fox is probably one of the best followed street shooters on instagram who looks for good light. Have a look at his page to see what I mean. Or my page @bhansonphoto has shots from some areas youd think were boring.

Roman Fox also has a Youtube channel.

 

[welshwizard645]

Urban I think the main ingredients are light and maybe some sort of interesting composition with regard to lines, shapes, etc

Try shooting with the LCD in mono.

Having come back from a L&L trip to photograph Prague in mono this I think is an excellent suggestion. As long as you record your images in RAW as well as JPEG, if you switch your LCD to mono, it will still save the colour image. That trip was quite educational, in that it programmed me to look at images more graphically, in terms of composition and lighting rather than 'ooh, that looks nice, click!'.

I would also add that focussing on the smaller details using a longer focal length lens rather than trying to get too much into your image might be helpful; cityscapes are quite tricky because in heavily built-up areas you can end up with a lot of your image looking dark and lacking contrast in the shadowy bits. I like to go for the details myself with a short telephoto (77mm).